Kim Kahana

On July 24, 2012, Kim Kahana lost his son Rick Kalua Kahana, who died at his home in Canoga Park, California.

Kim Kahana had three sons (Tony, Rick, and Kim Jr.) and one daughter (Debbie), all of whom teach at Kahana's school, hold black belts in karate and have also performed in numerous blockbuster films. In 2005 Kahana Sr. married his wife Sandra, who works as the lead administrator for the stunt school.

Over his first three decades of work as a stunt performer, Kahana broke his bones more than 60 times. By the 1980s, Kahana had moved away from doing "life-threatening" stunts while still continuing to coordinate action scenes and perform his own stunt work.

Kahana has served as a member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures and spent eight years on the Screen Actors Guild's Safety Investigative Team and the Stunt Safety Committee. He runs a production company called Stunt Action & Safety Coordinator, Inc. that runs second unit production for major motion pictures. He opened the Kahana Stunt School in 1972 to train performers in stunt work and safety, as well as how to navigate the motion picture and TV industries.

In 1968, Kahana played a leading role in the Hanna-Barbera children's adventure serial Danger Island, a live-action serialized adventure story that appeared as part of the Banana Splits Adventure Hour. His character, Chongo, was a mute castaway from a shipwrecked merchant marine vessel who communicated only using hand signs and bird calls. As the comedic sidekick to fellow castaway Elihu Morgan (played by Rockne Tarkington), Chongo's antics prompted his friend to call out, "Uh-oh Chongo!". The catchphrase became popular with children during the following decade, and inevitably followed Kahana in his work and personal life. Because Danger Island aired weekly and Kahana worked both as an actor and as a stunt performer, he was one of the highest paid stunt people in the business.

In 1955, Kahana survived a plane crash in the state of Texas that killed the other 32 people on board. Surviving this crash and his experiences in Korea imbued Kahana with a personal life philosophy of, "Maybe I'm right where I ought to be."

Kahana entered film after the Korean War, working as an extra, playing a motorcycle rider in 1953's The Wild One. When he saw that stunt performers were paid more than extras, he pursued a stunt career, training with Yakima Canutt and John Eppers. By the 1960s and throughout the 70s and 80s, he worked steadily as a stuntman for many films including Cool Hand Luke (1967), Planet of the Apes 1968, Che! (1969), Patton (1970), The Omega Man (1971), Joe Kidd (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Burt Reynolds' Smokey and the Bandit franchise, and the disaster films of Irwin Allen. Kahana also doubled for Charles Bronson in his films for over 20 years.

Kim Kahana, Sr. (born 1929) is an American actor, stunt performer and action choreographer of Hawaiian and Japanese descent. He has done stunts for over 300 movies and television programs and runs a stunt school in Groveland, Florida that has trained over 15,000 students.