Hey, Hey, Gardner McKay!

Tweet

Keeping my nose in the history of things will lead me to strange places. Today, it took me not too far from my own back yard, in search of Gardner McKay. @NJChicaa can tell you all about that line I quoted in the title of this discussion. It’s a line from Jimmy Buffett’s “We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About.” Buffett had a knack of mentioning TV shows before I was born: in “Pencil Thin Mustache,” he referenced Sky King (“I remember being buck-toothed and skinny, writing fan letters to Sky’s niece, Penny”). In “We Are the People…” he tossed out another reference: “Hey, hey, Gardner McKay, take us on the leaky Tiki with you.” That’s a reference to the 1959-62 series Adventures in Paradise, which starred McKay as a Korean War veteran who was solving mysteries and crimes from his sailboat the Tiki III. Before my time, and it’s never been in rerun syndication where I can see it (although episodes are on YouTube). The first time I ever heard of the series was in Buffett’s song. McKay quit acting not too long after the series ended, even turning down the male lead role in Something’s Got to Give, a film that never was finished because the female lead — Marilyn Monroe — died. McKay turned to other ventures, including writing four novels and six plays, writing television scripts, sculpting, and photography. He died in November 2001. So…what’s this guy who was born in New York and died in Honolulu have to do with Kentucky? His grandfather (who was a shipbuilder) lived in Lexington, and Gardner fell in love with the state when he lived here as a youngster, saying it was “paradise.” (Don’t think he was too crazy, though: I mean, he did live in Hawaii at the time of his death. ) His father, Hugh, was buried at the Hebron Cemetery in Brooks, Kentucky (about 10 miles south of Louisville); and, when Gardner died at the age of 69, his remains were buried there as well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find his grave at the cemetery today. However, I had a good time walking out in the lovely weather and noticing the interesting evolution of headstones from the cemetery’s opening in the 19th century until now. And, along the way, I learned something else that I didn’t know about my home state! Here’s a promo commercial for Adventures in Paradise, showing that Gardner McKay was a pretty good-looking fellow back then!