Three Kauai girls Elithe Aguiar, Leimomi Buchanan and her sister, Marvelyn Buchanan appeared in the movie Blue Hawaii, a musical romantic comedy starring Elvis Presley, Joan Blackman and Angela Lansbury that was filmed in Hollywood, Oahu and on Kauai in 1961, with shooting beginning on Kauai on April 11 and largely ending on the 17th.
Three Kauai girls — Elithe Aguiar, Leimomi Buchanan and her sister, Marvelyn Buchanan — appeared in the movie “Blue Hawaii,” a musical romantic comedy starring Elvis Presley, Joan Blackman and Angela Lansbury that was filmed in Hollywood, O‘ahu and on Kaua‘i in 1961, with shooting beginning on Kaua‘i on April 11 and largely ending on the 17th.
Elithe, Leimomi and Marvelyn, ages 17, 17 and 16, respectively, made their appearance with Elvis and Joan Blackman in the movie’s famous wedding party scene in the Coco Palms Hotel lagoon.
Members of the St. Catherine Church choir were also present in the scene.
Elithe, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. August Aguiar of Kapa‘a, became friends with Elvis during filming on Kaua‘i, and in 2009, she shared with me that “It took all Elvis could muster to call my father and get permission to date me.
“People thought that it was his irresistible Southern charm that caused my father, a stern, upright, Christian rancher, to relent after a dozen refusals. But it was actually El’s God-fearing ways that finally got his ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ through the door.”
She would be crowned Miss Kaua‘i in 1963 and would capture the title of Miss Universe Hawai‘i in 1965.
Leimomi Buchanan, crowned Miss Kaua‘i in 1961, and Marvelyn Buchanan, who won the Miss Kaua‘i contest the following year, were the daughters of Alexander Richardson Kahoiwai Buchanan and Ethel Leimomi Palama Buchanan of Kukui‘ula.
Elvis stayed at Coco Palms during shooting, had dinner in the hotel’s dining room, and on a couple of evenings brought out his guitar to sit by the lagoon and sing so softly that it could not be heard more than a few feet away.
He also was given more freedom on Kaua‘i than he’d known in years, although there were autograph seekers, but he wasn’t pestered as he’d been when filming on O‘ahu, where he needed to seclude himself to avoid admirers.
Elithe is married and lives in Honolulu. Leimomi married and is a resident of Maine, while Marvelyn married an Italian and resides in Italy.
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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com
