Jack Lord

Question: I vaguely remember a show in the '60s in which Jack Lord played a rodeo cowboy and, if I'm not mistaken, Bruce Dern played the sidekick/friend. I believe it was called Stoney Burke. Can you confirm? Thanks!

Answer: That I can, Martha. Lord, who later went on to enjoy a two-decade-plus career as Det. Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O, did indeed star as rodeo rider Burke on the ABC series, but he only did it for one season — from October 1962 to September 1963. And Dern was along for the ride, as were Warren Oates, Bill Hart and Robert Dowdell.

Lord, never one to underplay anything he did in his life, called the series "the most successful failure in television" in a 1969 TV Guide interview. The actor claimed to have raked in $200,000 a year making personal appearances as Stoney, showing up in cowboy boots an read more

Question: Try to settle these arguments: Is Hawaii Five-O's Jack Lord dead or alive, and was he gay or straight?

Answer: The late Mr. Lord, star of the cop drama that ran on CBS from September 1968 to April 1980, died of heart failure in 1998 at the age of 77. Now, I can't address the man's sexuality with any authority and, frankly, I think that's every person's private business. But I can tell you he was married to wife Marie for nearly 50 years, so you do the surmising from there.

What I can tell you about the actor, who headed the Hawaii State Police's fictional Five-O unit as Det. Steve McGarrett, is that he was dead serious about his career, worked very, very hard at it and was near-obsessive about how he was portrayed by the press. Born John J.P. Ryan, the Brooklyn native saw his share of sadness and challenges before landing the McGarret read more