Biography for
Duke Kahanamoku More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

24 August 1890, Honolulu, Kingdom of Hawaii. [now Hawaii, USA]

Date of Death

22 January 1968, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Duke Paoa Kahinu Makoe Hulikohoa Kahanamoku

Mini Biography

Duke Kahanamoku was one of the great Olympic heroes of all time. Born in Hawaii, Duke grew up swimming and entered the 1912 Stockholm Olympics for the United States (Hawaii was not yet a state, but a U.S. possession)and became an international star by winning the Men's 100-Meter Freestyle, something he repeated eight years later at the 1920 Antwerp games (there was no 1916 Olympics as there was World War I) and he won the silver medal to Johnny Weissmuller (Duke's brother Sam won the bronze) at the 1924 Paris Olympics. All told, Duke won three gold and two silver medals in four Olympic games. He later had a Hollywood career in which he usually played a native chief or a Hawaiian king.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Ken Severson

Spouse

Nadine Alexander

(2 August 1940 - 22 January 1968) (his death)

Trivia

Olympic swimmer

He was sheriff of Honolulu for twenty (20) years.

Won silver medal 100 Meter Swimming Freestyle (to Johnny Weissmuller) at the 1924 Summer Olympics.

Won gold medal in the 100 Meter Swimming Freestyle at the 1912 & 1920 Summer Olympics. Also was part of the gold medal winning 4X200 Meter Freestyle Relay team at the 1920 games.

In June, 1925, he was credited with saving the lives of eight people when the yacht they were on capsized. Duke used his surfboard to save their lives.

Won a total of three gold and two silver medals.

Brother Sam was also an Olympic swimmer.

Pictured on a USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamp issued 24 August 2002 (112th anniversary of his birth).

Inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, 1984.

Elected to the International Swimming Hall of Fame & Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1965. He made his first Olympics appearance in 1912 and his last in 1932.

His open-air Waikiki Beachfront bar and restaurant, called simply "Duke's," on the ground level of the Sheraton Outrigger Waikiki in Honolulu, remains a major tourist attraction. Many of Duke's legendary (surfing) long-boards, as well as those of other famed surfers, adorn the walls, along with other Duke memorabilia.