Actor Patrick Adiarte, who had a recurring role on season one of the beloved sitcom M*A*S*H, died this Tuesday at the age of 82.
Adiarte enjoyed a glittering career in musicals, including the film adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows The King And I and Flower Drum Song.
The Philippines-born actor also appeared on classic television programs like Bonanza, The Brady Bunch and Hawaii Five-O and Kojak in the 1970s.
During that decade, he landed his most enduringly popular onscreen role as the camp houseboy Ho-Jon on M*A*S*H, which he played from 1972 to 1973.
He was also a gifted dancer and appeared on a television special with Gene Kelly, who hailed him as ‘another Fred Astaire.’
His niece Stephanie Hogan has confirmed that Adiarte died of pneumonia at a hospital in the Los Angeles area, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Actor Patrick Adiarte, who had a recurring role on season one of the beloved sitcom M*A*S*H, died this Tuesday at the age of 82
M*A*S*H was the TV adaptation of a beloved 1970 movie directed by Robert Altman about U.S. military medics in the Korean War.
The TV show began in 1973, with Adiarte featuring on the first season as the orphaned houseboy Ho-Jon, played in the movie by Kim Atwood.
In the pilot, it is revealed that Ho-Jon has been accepted into college in America, with the doctors throwing a fundraising rally for his tuition.
Ho-Jon disappeared from the sitcom after season one, with the implication that he had succeeded in traveling to America to pursue higher education.
Adiarte was born in Manila in 1943 and lost his father in World War II, during which he was interned on an island with his mother Purita and sister Irene.
The family mounted an escape attempt, only to have grenades hurled at them by the Japanese, leaving two-year-old Patrick and five-year-old Irene with burns.
A year on from the end of the war, the surviving Adiartes arrived at Ellis Island – and by 1951, both Patrick and his dancer mother were on Broadway in The King And I.
Patrick, who at that point was just shy of his eighth birthday, was a replacement in the role of one of the 15 royal children being tutored by an Anglo-Indian schoolteacher called Anna in 19th century Bangkok.
In the pilot, it is revealed that Ho-Jon has been accepted into college in America, with the doctors throwing a fundraising rally for his tuition (pictured)
(from left) Jamie Farr, Loretta Swift, David Ogden Stiers, Harry Morgan, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda and William Christopher are pictured in a 1975 publicity still for M*A*S*H
Adiarte enjoyed a glittering career in musicals, including the film adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein show Flower Drum Song, for which he is pictured in a publicity still
After acting in the show on Broadway, Adiarte (second from left) was in the movie of The King And I, in which he is pictured with Terry Saunders, Deborah Kerr and Rex Thompson
He also appeared on classic television programs like Bonanza, The Brady Bunch and Hawaii Five-O and Kojak; pictured with Mike Lookinland on The Brady Bunch in 1972
His film roles included the prince of a fictional Arab country in the 1965 Cold War comedy John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! in which he is pictured with Charles Lane (left)
He then studied at the Professional Children’s School in New York alongside such names as Liza Minnelli and landed the role of the crown prince in the eventual 1956 movie of The King And I, starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.
That year, after years of deportation fears, the Adiartes finally obtained U.S. citizenship with the help of then-Senator John F. Kennedy.
His professional association with Rodgers and Hammerstein continued when he was in the original Broadway production of their show Flower Drum Song in 1958.
Adiarte featured as Wang San, the Americanized younger son of a rich Chinese émigré in San Francisco who hopes to retain his culture.
He plugged the production on the TV show Omnibus, performing a medley with Gene Kelly about tap dancing through the years, in which Kelly would perform an original version of a step before Adiarte demonstrated the new version.
‘Patrick is a mighty fine dancer,’ said Kelly on the show, warmly wrapping an arm around Adiarte. ‘If there’s gonna be another Fred Astaire, I think it might well be Pat.’
In 1960, he featured in the Blake Edwards comedy High Time alongside Bing Crosby and Tuesday Weld, and then in 1961 in the movie of Flower Drum Song.
His film roles included the prince of a fictional Arab country in the 1965 Cold War comedy John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!, starring Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov, with a supporting cast including Richard Crenna and Jerry Orbach.
Dance remained a through-line in his career, stretching into his later life, when he taught the discipline at institutions like Santa Monica College.
