Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.That pristine Hawaiian beachfront property in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," the land George Clooney's character ponders selling, isn't just the stuff movies are made of.
It's called Kipu Kai, and David Scott remembers visiting there on weekends as a kid. His great-great grandmother, Mary Sophia Rice, bought the land as a haven for teachers to visit and renew their spirits.
Scott, 79, was born on Oahu and grew up on Kauai, the two Hawaiian islands where "The Descendants" takes place. His mother's side was New England missionaries, his father's side sea captains. His great-grandfather, a rancher, was governor on Kauai under Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii's last monarch. His grandfather was a plantation manager on Maui.
His play "Banzai Darling," which he wrote under the pen name of David Penhallow, brought him to Omaha's Great Plains Theatre Conference a couple years ago.
Kipu Kai, a large crescent-shaped beach on the southwest corner of Kauai, is nearly inaccessible by land because of mountain ridges that descend from Mount Haupu to the ocean on either side of the cove.
When he was 5, Scott remembers, there was only a slippery wet cobblestone trail over the top of the pass, which he traversed on horseback.
"It was like Shangri La," he recalled from his home on Kauai last week. "Sparkling, clear water. Sand dunes with skulls and bones that remain from native Hawaiian battles. Herds of peacocks and cattle."
Rice had a large house built there, after having the lumber floated in by sea. Scott has vivid memories of sunrises over the valley, a sacred spring that flows there, the smell of clean air, and of huge meals at the house.
"After dinner we would recline on huge bedlike couches in the living room, then snuggle into the pillows and read or take a nap."
When Rice died, she left the land to her five grandsons. One bought out the others, then later sold it to a bachelor cousin. When the bachelor died, he left it to nieces and nephews for their lifetime. When the last of them dies, the land goes to the State of Hawaii.
That's not far from the situation in "The Descendants," in which Matt King (Clooney) has sole control of the family land trust and consults with many cousins about whether to sell to developers or preserve the land in its natural state.
At Sunday's Academy Awards, "The Descendants" will vie for best picture, while Clooney is up for best actor. Payne is a best-director and adapted-screenplay nominee.
In Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel, on which the movie is based, the King family has roots descending from King Kamehameha I, who waged war to unite the islands into a single kingdom in 1810. Kauai was one of the last islands to be joined.
"Most native Hawaiians want land to go back to the Hawaiians," Scott said. "There's a sovereignty movement going on."
Scott said at one time, back in old Hawaii, the king owned all the land. He farmed it out to his nobles, much like in England. There was a caste system, with nobles, a middle class and a slave class.
Scott's aunt was once married to a descendant of Hawaiian royalty who would have been the crown prince, had the monarchy continued.
Like Kipu Kai, Scott has an interesting history with movie ties. He vividly recalls how his family home on Oahu shook as bombs fell during the Pearl Harbor attack. "My boyhood ended that day," he said, though he was only 8.
He graduated from Punahou, a prep school whose most famous alum is President Obama, before earning a speech and drama degree at Stanford University. A college classmate, Warner LeRoy, was the son of "Mister Roberts" director Mervyn LeRoy and grandson of one of the Warner Brothers, Harry.
When the movie version of "South Pacific" was shot on Kauai, Scott was the stand-in for John Kerr, who played Lt. Cable.
Later, Scott was general manager of the Hanalei Plantation Hotel when it opened on Kauai, near where Clooney jogs the beach in "The Descendants." The isolated luxury spot drew a gaggle of movie-star guests while Scott was there, including Maximilian Schell, Nancy Kwan, George Chakiris, Elizabeth Taylor and Charlton Heston.
Later still, when Schell was cast in a television movie version of "Heidi," Scott was hired as an assistant to producer James Franciscus. Scott recalls interviewing a "scruffy little girl with pigtails" seeking the title role. He was underwhelmed.
"It was one of my biggest goofs ever," he said. "It was Melanie Griffith, and she was there with her mother, Tippi Hedren." Hedren starred in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," while Griffith was an Oscar nominee for "Working Girl."
Scott had a long career teaching drama, both in Hawaii and in California, before retiring in 1998 to write full time. His published novels are "After the Ball" and a sequel, "The Betrayers." Like "The Descendants," they are set in Hawaii.
He used to drive his mother over the small road to Kipu Kai to celebrate her birthday where she rode horses, swam and reveled in outdoor life as a girl. She's 106 now, and his full-time job is as her caregiver.
What did Scott, as a native Hawaiian, think of "The Descendants"?
"I didn't find a single false detail," he said. "It portrayed a certain segment of Hawaiian life you don't usually get to see on the screen. And I got caught up in the story. Payne changed things in the book that made the story even stronger."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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