James Grant Benton

October 2024 · 4 minute read

Comedian and actor

Comedian and actor James Grant Benton, who appeared on numerous TV shows but is best known in Hawaii as a founding member of comedy group Booga Booga, died of a heart attack May 28 in Honolulu. He was 53, had been in failing health and had battling a hereditary blood disorder for about a year.

Benton had a leading role in a Hawaii production of the rock opera “Hair,’ which journeyed to Las Vegas in the mid-’70s. Benton also became a seasoned bit player on “Hawaii Five-O,” “Magnum P.I.,” “Hawaiian Heat,” “Baywatch” and “The Byrds of Paradise.” For “Byrds,” he served as a script consultant, overseeing dialogue requiring local dialect. In later years he was retained by television and film production companies as a language coach and cultural advisor.

But locally he was famed for Booga Booga, which started as a performance theater group at the U. of Hawaii-Manoa in 1974. The trio of Benton, Ed Kaahea and Rap Reiplinger that Booga made their mark in island entertainment with the debut of “Kanaka Komedy” at the Territorial Tavern in 1975 with keen observations of local character types.

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Benton’s solo accomplishments also included translating Shakespeare into pidgin years before the advent of contemporary local pidgin theater — wrote and adapted a pidgin-English version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” which was dubbed “Twelf Nite O ‘Wateva!” produced in 1974 — and recording “Unknown Moments From Hawaiian History?!” for Prism Records.

Benton and others later founded the Moiliili Blind Fish Tank and with , Arnold Hiura embarked on a new career as motivational speakers.

He is survived by wife Deborah, a son and granddaughter.

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