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SURFERMAG ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

• During the summer of 1956 and 1957, Terry “Tubesteak” Tracy lived in a shack on the point at Malibu. This was a time before lifeguards or sherrifs when Malibu was too far out in the sticks for anyone to care. During this time a young woman named Kathy Kohner fell in with the Malibu crew and started surfing. She reported her adventures back to her father, who turned the story into a coming of age story called Gidget. The book was popular, and the 1959 movie starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson and James Darren introduced the world to the surfing lifestyle, and changed it forever.

• On June 6, 1951 possibly the first African American surfer at Malibu – Nick Gabaldon – tries to shoot the pier on a big south swell. He disappears and his body is found a few days later.

• During the winter of 1969, a giant storm dumps dozens of inches of rain down the canyons, washing out Malibu Beach completely, destroying the points and leaving a thick coat of mud in its wake. The surf takes months and years to recover.

• During the Dogtown days of Summer 1975, 17-year-old Allen Sarlo resists skateboarding too much with Jay Adams and Tony Alva because of the risk of injury. He enters the Malibu AAAA contest against Mike Purpus and many others, and beats them all.

• In September of 1975, one of the biggest Southern Hemis of all time – dubbed The Monster from New Zealand – delivers one of the biggest days at Malibu ever seen.

• In the summer of 1978, John Milius’ Big Wednesday is set in Malibu from the 50s to the 70s and follows the arc of three surfing buddies as they pass from teen age to adult hood by way of Vietnam, drugs and the other trials and tribulations of the second half of the 20th Century. Milius based the movie on his own experiences as a Malibu surfer during the 50s and 60s. The producers used Peter Townend, Ian Cairns and Jay Riddle at the Ranch and El Salvador to double for Jan Michael Vincent, Gary Busey and William Katt at Malibu and the Pit. The climactic Big Wednesday swell was filmed at 15-foot Sunset in Hawaii: “Italians love this movie,” Milius said. “They put it up on the same level at Apocalypse Now or Red Dawn. I had men with tears in their eyes come up to me and tell me how much they loved the movie. Loved me. It’s good to be loved.”

• It becomes illegal to ride bodyboards in the surf zone at Malibu. Modern Malibu surfers get the shakes thinking of how chaotic it would be out there with dozens of bodyboarders thrown into the mix.

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