Philippines-born dancer and actor Patrick Adiarte has died at the age of 82.
The star, who appeared in The King and I and Flower Drum Song on Broadway, starred in The Brady Bunch and had a recurring role in TV show M*A*S*H, died on April 15 in Los Angeles.
Stephanie Hogan, Adiarte’s niece, confirmed the news that he died of pneumonia to The Hollywood Reporter.
Adiarte is perhaps best known for playing cabin boy Ho-Jon, who helped out Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and Trapper John McIntyre (Wayne Rogers) in the first and second seasons of M*A*S*H in the mid-70s.
Alongside his acting work – for which he was mentored by Gene Kelly – Adiarte was a dancer on NBC musical variety series Hullabaloo from 1965 to 1966. From this he released the pop song Five Different Girls.
His life began worlds away from where it ended, as Adiarte, his sister Irene and their mother Purita were all imprisoned by the Japanese on the island of Cebu in 1945 during World War II when he was just a toddler.
His father was killed a month after they were captured while working as a captain for the US Army Corps of Engineers.
After World War II, Irene brought her family to New York, where they faced threats of deportation, and where Irene would undergo several surgeries to remove scarring on her face caused by grenade fire.
With their security in the US uncertain, in 1952 Adiarte and his mother, who was a dancer, ended up cast in Broadway’s The King And I in 1952. Four years later they were granted citizenship.
In 1958, Adiarte was cast as Wang San in Broadway’s Flower Drum Song by director Gene Kelly, who later said on a TV appearance together of his tip-tapping dancing abilities: ‘If there’s gonna be another Fred Astaire, I think it might well be Pat’.
Born in Manila went on to study at the Professional Children’s School, where he was taught dance alongside peers including Liza Minnelli.
From 1975 to 1992 Adiarte was married to actress Loni Ackerman, by which time he had largely waved goodbye to his acting career in favour of teaching dance.
Adiarte is survived by his niece Stephanie and nephew, Michael. His sister died in 2016.
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