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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 1, 2002

The Rock charms his way to fame

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Wrestler-turned-movie star The Rock spent many years in Hawai'i. He attended McKinley High Scool.

Universal Pictures

In honor of his favorite professional wrestler, The Rock — he of "the people's eyebrow" and "the people's elbow" — Jason Tom has dubbed his new move the "people's kick."

By way of demonstration, the 11-year-old from McCully lifts his right leg (essentially a twizzle stick in size XXL cargo shorts), shakes his foot, hops in a circle and delivers an off-balance chorus-line kick to the retreating rump of his friend, Brian Au.

"Wassup, jabroni!" he taunts.

In between games of one-on-one basketball, the hardcore Rock fans have been staging their own version of WWF Smackdown on the grass of Sheridan Park, just two blocks from where the real Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, went to high school.

That kids should imitate The Rock's wrestling moves isn't so surprising. An entire generation of unruly Hawai'i kids grew up aping Johnson's maternal grandfather, Peter Maivia, and father, Rocky Johnson, both professional wrestlers.

But having a genetic predisposition for body slams and piledrivers doesn't necessarily account for The Rock's more recent success as Hollywood action icon, late-night talk show darling and local hero to a new wave of Hawai'i fans.

The Rock's new movie, "The Scorpion King," has been No. 1 at the box office for two consecutive weekends, in part because of The Rock's willingness and ableness to assume major interview time on everything from Leno to the Discovery Channel.

"He has charisma," says Mark Uyehara, of Kaimuki. "He has the gift of gab."

Indeed he does. As a wrestler, The Rock has elevated the chest-thumping pre-fight monologue to high comedic theater, contributing "Know your role and shut your mouth" and the gloriously oblique "Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?" to the archive of goofy catch phrases.

(And what exactly is a jabroni? "I don't know," Uyehara says. "But it must be nasty.")

Outside the ring, however, The Rock has shown himself to be surprisingly articulate, with a healthy sense of self-irony. The seeming contradiction just adds to his mystique.

The Rock was born in Hayward, Calif., and spent much of his childhood in Hawai'i, where he attended McKinley High School. He started playing football in his junior year after moving to Pennsylvania. That led to a scholarship with the University of Miami and a brief flirtation with professional football.

The then-Dwayne Johnson started wrestling in 1996, trying out a number of ring names until "The Rock" finally stuck.

Even at 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds, The Rock didn't exactly stick out among his fellow wrestlers at first. But then fans started taking notice of the disdainful eyebrow that kept rising above those ubiquitous sunglasses, started responding to all those whap-slap cut downs ("You have never, and The Rock means ever, impressed The Rock."). Before long, The Rock had become WWF's most marketable commodity.

Still, some film critics were surprised when The Rock was pegged for a role in "The Mummy Returns." They shouldn't have been. The Rock tapped all of his acting resources and did exactly what the role of the Scorpion King called for — screaming and fighting.

One of the most frequently heard complaints about the movie was that there wasn't enough Rock. Hence the spinoff.

But does The Rock have enough cooking to carry a whole film?

"He's not much of an actor," says Troy Nguyen, who has seen both Rock movies. "I think he's probably better wrestling. But still it's cool that someone from Hawai'i is doing all this stuff."