Kellye Nakahara
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Kellye Nakahara (b. 1950, Oahu, Hawaii), was the single most familiar face among the nursing staff of the fictitious 4077th: the roly-poly, pretty-eyed Hawaiian appeared as Kealani Kellye in 82 episodes of the hit television comedy M*A*S*H during its eleven-year run on CBS.
Nurse Kellye once described herself as "part Chinese and part Hawaiian", and one of the actress' best moments -- often cut from reruns of the show -- was the infuriated stare with which she once nailed Frank Burns after one of his anti-Asian tirades. Aside from her considerable nursing skills, she was a warmly compassionate human being. Her off-duty talents included singing, guitar and tap dance. She was not above participating in the insane practical jokes common to the 4077th, as when a series of pranks were pulled on Major Charles Emerson Winchester ending in his being forced to wear his sister's shortie kimono; Kellye asked him if he spoke Japanese, and when he replied in the negative, she bowed low and said pleasantly in that language, "Boy, you look ridiculous".
The actress proved herself memorably enough when her role featured most prominently in a 1982 episode, "Hey, Look Me Over," in which she finally confronted arch-womanizer Hawkeye over his apparent ignorance of her for all those years at the 4077th. With the backdrop of a martinet nursing colonel giving head nurse Margaret Houlihan a grueling inspection, Nurse Kellye won Hawkeye over to an episode-closing, sweetly understated cheek-to-cheek dance, after he spied her comforting a dying soldier tenderly, pretending to be planning a celebratory picnic to share on his recovery. In the final episode, Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen, Kellye said she would return to Honolulu to be closer to her family, and work in a military hospital.
Nakahara moved first to San Francisco to launch her art career and then, after her marriage to David Wallett, Los Angeles, to give acting a try. Though Nakahara has made various guest spots on several other television shows during and after M*A*S*H's run (and spent seven years as a television spokeswoman for IBM), she has also forged an entirely different career since M*A*S*H ended. A talented watercolour artist, who paints and exhibits under her married name, Kellye Wallett, her work has been displayed in numerous local and even national galleries. And, in a testament to perseverance, hers is a marriage that has produced two children (a son and daughter, both grown and married) and endured almost thirty years---a rarity in show business and the art world alike.
Nakahara is remembered by many as the domestic cook from the feature film Clue, in which her single line (spoken to actor Tim Curry) was "Dinner will be ready at 7:30."
