Jo Pruden, noted Honolulu actress, passed away while peacefully napping on January 10, 2024, at her home in Mililani following a long illness. She was 84. She is survived by her husband of 56 years, Jip M. Pruden; a step-daughter, Elizabeth Pruden, of Portland, OR; and a sister, Mrs. Jayne Pleasants of Clayton, Georgia.
She was born and grew up in Enterprise, Alabama, and graduated from Alabama College, University of Montevallo where she majored in Speech and Drama..
After several years working in local television, she became editor of TV Guide magazine where she worked until retirement.
She will be long remembered most for her illustrious career in local theaters.
She and her husband arrived in Hawaii in October 1967 and by February 1968 she was playing the lead in “Send Me No Flowers” at Schofield Barracks Little Theatre.
That began a string of more than 85 stage productions over the next 51 years, ending with KOA’s “Marjorie Prime” on her 80th birthday in 2019.
Along the way she appeared in 10 episodes of the original television series “Hawaii Five-O: four episodes of the original “Magnum, P.I.”, and individual episodes in four other network productions and a made-for-TV movie. She took part in more than 40 readers’ theater productions in Hawaii, and made a tour in 2000 of U.S. Army installations in Germany and Belgium.
In 1996 the readers of the Honolulu Weekly named her “The Best Actress Working in Local Theater." Over the years she was honored with 18 Hawaii State Theatre Council Po’okela Awards for acting excellence, as well as the 2007 Pierre Bowman “Award for Lifetime Achievement” (after which she went on and appeared in 12 more plays.)
While doing all this, along with her miniature schnauzer therapy dog, B.B. (Black Beauty Ipo) she conducted a readers' theater group in Arcadia retirement residence.
She suffered a stroke in 2021, but fortunately was able to perform four more plays in readers’ theater with
The Actors’ Group, the last of which, “Love Letters” was with husband Jip in early December 2023, barely a month before her death, to give life to a line in her 2007 acceptance speech, “If acting is your passion, don’t you dare stop doing it for the rest of your life.”
It was for this dedication to her craft and extraordinary ability that she was often considered “The First Lady of Hawaii Theater.”
There will be no funeral. A celebration of life is scheduled at Manoa Valley Theater for 2:00 p.m., Sunday, February 18, 2024.
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