KAPAA – Maile Kinimaka has lived a colorful life. Her mother was a police officer on the Honolulu beat back in the 1940s, her father was a tile setter and Kinimaka grew up to be an actress. She has more
KAPAA – Maile Kinimaka has lived a colorful life.
Her mother was a police officer on the Honolulu beat back in the 1940s, her father was a tile setter and Kinimaka grew up to be an actress.
She has more photographs and memories from her Hollywood life than she can count on two hands.
Today, she’s a seamstress, with 700 Hawaiian-print patchwork quilts to her credit. So life, despite the camera no longer hanging around, has remained colorful.
But before her quilting days, she worked for films, television shows and commercials filmed on Oahu, including appearing alongside actor Tom Selleck in “Magnum, P.I.” as Mr. Higgin’s maid.
“He was very, very nice to everybody,” Kinimaka remembered about Selleck. “When we wrapped the last episode, he gave each one of us a belt buckle with ‘Magnum, P.I.’ inscribed on the front and his name on the back. I gave my belt to my son, Kimo.”
The memories are a little hazy for her after more than 40 years, but they resurfaced as she looked through copies of publicity shots of herself with late actor Dennis Weaver. She appeared with him as an extra in the last two “McCloud” television episodes.
“Here I am kissing McCloud in 1973,” said Kinimaka, as she pointed to a photo with the actor. “We shot at the Hilton Hawaiian Village with Don Ho.”
Between working as a recurring extra in “Hawaii Five-O” in 1968, and commercials for United Airlines and Pay N’ Save, among others, Kinimaka worked for the U.S. postal service delivering mail and as a correctional officer at a men’s prison. It was there she found religion, through an unlikely encounter with a prisoner convicted of attempted murder.
“He always had this glow about him,” remembered Kinimaka.
Not knowing where it came from she told him, “I want what you have.”
The prisoner, Liuafi Matautia, Jr., had 13 Bibles sitting on top of his bunk bed. He only spoke Samoan and since Samoan was one of the four languages she spoke at the time, the two of them became friends.
Her faith has grown since then and her quilting hours are filled with worship music and prayers.
“I pray that God will give me a longer life,” Kinemaka said.
But how did the prolific seamstress with around 700 quilts to her credit become such a sewer?
Kinimaka’s passion for quilting actually coincided with the date she moved from Oahu to Kauai, four days before Hurricane Iniki hit in 1992.
“I came for my grandson’s 23rd birthday,” Kinimaka said. “It was to be held at Lydgate Park, but it never happened.”
She and her family survived the hurricane, and Kinimaka never left. Twenty-two years later, her family and friends will gather in June to celebrate Kinimaka’s 75th birthday. Each of her six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren has an original, handcrafted quilt.
Her walls are covered with greeting cards thanking her. They come to her from people all over the world who own one of her quilted blankets. Words of gratitude come from as far away as Japan, Russia, Croatia, the Philippines and all over the Mainland. Some of the recipients are people who heard her sing Hawaiian songs and play the ukulele when she performed at The Tahitian Lanai.
“I’ve given away 650 of them,” Kinemaka said, who learned the craft from her mother but really began making quilts after moving to Kauai. “But now my brother tells me I should start selling them.”
Still, it has always been in her nature to give them away. Some people ask, some she just offers, but word about her work has spread. Kinemaka said giving them away is her way of finding joy.
“One young mother from Albuquerque has two of my quilts for her daughters,” Kinimaka explained. “Whenever they are sick, the mother tells me they ask for auntie Maile’s Jesus blanket.”
• Lisa Ann Capozzi, features and education reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
