Background
His father was a kahuna. Moe Keale was born on the island of Niihau, but raised on Oahu.
His father was a kahuna. Moe Keale was born on the island of Niihau, but raised on Oahu.
He was one of the few persons born in the 20th century to have pure Hawaiian ancestry. He was shaped by the ancestral customs and values of his birthplace, learning to play the ukulele at the age of four. Conversations in his Niihau family home were in Hawaiian, and songs were passed from generation to generation.
He would later fondly recall his summers on Niihau, where stress was not part of the lifestyle.
"I figured that heaven must be something like Niihau," he said. A native of Hawaii, he primarily had roles in movies and television series that took place in the islands, including many appearances on Hawaii Five-O, where he had a recurring part as Truck Kealoha in the show"s final season.
He also appeared as Officer O"Shaughnessy in the Hawaiian-based National Broadcasting Company sitcom, The Brian Keith Show. He was a beachboy, musician and singer, part-time electrician, and radio deejay, as well as an actor.
His first paid musical gig with his group the Four K"s was at the Waikiki Tavern circa 1958, followed by the Tropical Club in Kailua-Kona.
In 1964, he worked with the Puka Puka Otea Tahitian Show at Queen"s Surf. He was recruited for a New York city gig when he was seen at a beach doing high dives off a simulated waterfall. His most noted role as Truck on Hawaii Five-O came as a result of his working as an electrician on the set.
He then went on to make three solo albums South Sea Island Magic, Aloha Is A Participant of Maine, A Participant of You, and Imagine.
He was a deejay on KCCN in the 1980s. From 1984 onward, he and his band played two evenings a week poolside at the Sheraton Waikiki.
lieutenant was while performing at the Sheraton that he was struck by the fatal heart attack that ended his life on April 15, 2002. At the time of his death, he was a hands-on co-owner of the Lomi Shop’s Keiki Wa‘a at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa at Windward Mall.
The Lomi Shop promoted the art of healing through lomilomi massage.
Moe had a near-fatal heart attack in April 2001 and received a pacemaker implant. He used his extension on life to raise $260,000 for the American Heart Association, in order to have portable defibrillators strategically positioned throughout the state of Hawaii. In 2003, the Hawai"i Academy of Recording Arts instituted the Moe Keale "Aloha Is" Award in its Na Hoku Hanohano Awards.
Quotations: "I figured that heaven must be something like Niihau,".