Had it not been for a bit of advice from a wise priest, Hawai'i might have known William F. Quinn as a touring summer stock performer rather than as our last appointed and first elected governor.

Quinn, who died this week at 87, was an avid singer and theater buff. And while he made local and national headlines as a lawyer and politician, he almost took an entirely different career path.

Years ago, Quinn remembered the good times he had as a summer-stock performer right after he finished his undergraduate education. He was seriously thinking about going into theater as a profession until he talked to the Rev. Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest who was a trusted advisor.

"He was very complimentary," Quinn recalled in an Advertiser interview several years ago. "He compared me to some of the other stars he had had contact with, including Archibald Leach, who was Cary Grant."

But Lord advised the young Cary Grant wannabe to go back to Harvard for law school and the stability of a legal career over the uncertainties of a life on the boards. "I said, Father, that's it, and I never had another thought about it, never regretted it," Quinn said.

HAWAI'I WAS CALLING

That instant decision laid the groundwork for a career that culminated with service as the state of Hawai'i's founding governor. While much of Hawai'i's modern history rightfully focuses on the exploits and achievements of the dominant Democrats, what they accomplished was built on a platform put in place by Republican Quinn.

After interrupting his legal education to serve in the Navy in air combat intelligence during World War II, Quinn returned to Harvard and finished his law studies. He found himself recruited by well-known Hawai'i lawyer J. Garner Anthony, who not only offered an opportunity to escape the cold Massachussetts weather but a munificent salary of $350 a month — far more than what Mainland firms were offering.

The young Quinn family settled in Portlock, where Quinn quickly became involved in Republican precinct politics. Before he knew it, the stage-wise Irishman found himself campaigning for Joe Farrington and Neal Blaisdell. By 1956, he was a candidate for the territorial Senate. He was unsuccessful, but the campaign exposed a lot of voters to a different breed of Republican than they were used to seeing in the Islands.

An appointment to the Statehood Commission brought Quinn to Congress to testify. It also brought him to the attention of the Eisenhower administration. At a meeting with then-Interior Secretary Fred Seaton, Quinn was told the president intended to appoint him governor of Hawai'i.

"Here I am, such a malihini, not even here for a decade, and they want to make me governor," Quinn said. It was big news in Hawai'i and across the country; the youthful Quinn even made the cover of Time.

Statehood quickly followed, and with it Hawai'i's first election for governor. Quinn's opponent was John A. Burns, leader of the state Democratic Party and a delegate to Congress. "Nobody gave me much of a chance, so that was why I was elected, I guess," Quinn said.

The young lawyer immediately threw himself into the enormous task of building a state government virtually from scratch. He had to completely restructure a bloated territorial government into a streamlined system that remains largely in place today. More than 100 bureaus and agencies had to be reorganized into 20 state departments.

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

At the same time, he began campaigning for controls on the growth and development that he feared would soon overrun the Islands with the advent of statehood, mass tourism and jet travel.

It was a message ahead of its time, but the environmental and growth-management ethic Quinn talked about in the 1950s and early 1960s became accepted political wisdom by the middle 1970s.

Quinn and Burns had a rematch in 1962, and this time, the Democrats organized ferociously, putting Quinn out of office and installing a Democratic organization that would run things for the next 40 years. Quinn would never hold elected office again, although he did once carry the Republican banner against the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga.

"I really had in mind that I might well pursue political life again, but a couple of things happened," Quinn said. "I guess you could say I was a liberal Republican, and these were the days of the birth of real conservatism in the Republican Party, the Goldwater days.

"I guess my days had passed."

Reach Jerry Burris at jburris@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.