The Lost Love That Haunts Jack Lord

Movie TV Photo Stars

May, 1971

It’s no secret that our country is having an economic slip-back. Recession? Depression? It more or less depends on where you live. In Hollywood, it’s a depression.

Paul Lukhater, who stars in NBC’s soapier Bright Promises, recently assessed his job this way: "It certainly beats standing in line at the local unemployment office. That’s where most actors seem to be these days, including some very well known faces." (This is, sadly, all too true.) Then Paul got down to statistics. "There’s about 70 percent unemployment in movies and 50 in television." (Some observers think he may be too low.)

In the face of this, Jack Lord is a lucky man indeed. After an early series Stoney Burke, that pleased most fans but failed to score in the mysterious Neilsen game, he’s smashed back in a second, Hawaii Five-0, that’s a solid success. Now in it’s third year, it has not only made Jack a wealthy man (he says he’ll never have to do a series again) but it has brought him a bounty of fringe benefits.

Some of them are professionally related. For instance, the final show of his first season dealt with medical quackery and the American Medical Association was so impressed with it, the sent mailing pieces plugging it to 150,000 doctors. Jack and his cast could justifiably feel that they had struck a blow back at the fakers who, according to one DA, have bilked the public out of some two billion dollars, mostly in the field of cancer cures.

This year, Admiral John McCain, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, personally invited Jack to be judge and juror for the annual Armed Forces Art Festival at the Barbers Point Naval Air Station in Hawaii. (Jack was an artist before he ever became an actor and has works in the permanent collections of more than 40 museums around the world.)

Jack even got to raise his own voice pro-Women’s Liberation. With special permission from Mrs. Clare Booth Luce, he read her feminist-themed play, "A Dolls House 1970" at a breakfast meeting of newspaperwomen in Honolulu’s Kahala Hilton Hotel.

All this plus the money, that glorious money. If the show goes five years (and it now looks good for even more) Jack’s personal take is estimated at $2,000.000. That kind of loot buys nice goods.

The Lords live in a large condominium in a beachfront hotel complex in Honolulu. Their third floor apartment is done in green and white to match the palms and surf it overlooks. They have 45000 square feet of floor space and Jack has his own painting area to match Marie’s designing studio.

His clothes are made-to-order. Marie picks up unusual fabrics in their trips around the world and has them tailored to her own patterns.

Jack's on-set trailer is one of the most luxurious in the business. Marie designed it too: it has a bedroom, kitchen, bath and make-up area.

Even when he indulges in his favorite hobby, cooking, it's on a grand scale. His favorite recipe is veal a la crème. "This," explains Jack, "is veal sautéed in butter with onions, mushrooms, celery, cream and exotic spices simmered from two to three hours."

Perhaps best of all, Jack has what money can't buy, a long-standing and still-satisfying marriage to his Marie. They've never had children, they've lived for each other and she's very much a part of everything he does.

Oddly enough this very happiness may be the one factor that has kept Jack from realizing his most cherished dream of all.

Jack has always been an actor's actor, firm and competent in any part he undertakes. But those who knew him in his early New York days when he was combining the fine drams of New York TV with Broadway stage work remember something else about him. Jack wanted to be a star with a capital S, a household word, a fan followed romantic figure on that big silver screen. He never made it.

Jack made some movies, yes. But when you look at our compendium of great lovers on page 32, you realize that he was never in their class. Not in movies, not even now as a top TV performer. And since he can act circles around 90% of them, we have to look elsewhere to see why he failed to reach his dream

When we think of Tyrone Power we may remember "Lloyds of London"; more likely we live again the days when he kissed Lana Turner goodbye in Hollywood and took off on a round the world flight; before it was over he had jilted Lana for Linda Christian. Errol Flynn? Drinking and jailbait girls. John Garfield? Tough, cocky and a man who died in the bed of a woman who was not his wife. The parade is endless. The American public seems to give its accolades not necessarily for acting skill but for the flashy high-living in private that they envy and can never emulate.

Jack had Marie and that for hi was enough. He never made headlines. He would have loved to be a star. It didn't happen not in the way he hungered for. Would he live his life differently if he'd known at the beginning what he must know now? If you think so, you've never seen Jack and Marie together and caught that special radiance that outshines any star.