Jack Lord, who produced and starred as Detective Steve McGarrett in “Hawaii Five-O,’ the longest continuously running police show in the history of television, has died. He was 77.

Lord died Wednesday night of heart failure at his home in Honolulu where he and his wife, Marie, had lived for some 30 years.

The actor’s customary sign-off line, “Book ‘em, Danno!” entered television annals along with the CBS series that ran from 1968 until 1980. The line was aimed at actor James MacArthur in the role of Danny “Danno” Williams, one of four original detectives who worked as a special state police force answering directly to the Hawaii governor, played by actor Richard Denning.

One of the keys of the series’ success was its filming on location in Hawaii. Fans who had never visited the islands particularly relished the lush tropical outdoor scenes.

“It’s costing us 25-30 percent more to film here than in Hollywood. But we feel it’s worth it because we’re getting a fresh kind of hot look from this new environment,” Lord told the Los Angeles Times in 1968.

At its height, “Hawaii Five-O” was seen in 80 countries by more than 300 million viewers.

Investing his profits in shopping centers, supermarkets and other Hawaii real estate, Lord retired when the series ended, devoting his remaining years to his earliest artistic outlet, painting. His canvases sold privately for top prices and hung in more than 40 museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and Brooklyn Museum of Art, all in New York, the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Born John Joseph Patrick Ryan in New York, the son of a shipping executive, Lord spent summers at sea with the Merchant Marine and painted what he saw of China, the Mediterranean and Africa. As Jack Ryan, he had parts in the 1949 films, “The Red Menace” and “Project X.”