A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Although surfing was shown briefly in several movies of the 1930s and '40s, including 

 (1937) with Bing Crosby, Hollywood didn't take a close look at the sport until 

, a frothy 1959 hit for Columbia Pictures. Hollywood's take on surfing in the decades since has been uneven at best (usually fun and bubbleheaded or heavy- handed and melodramatic), frequently unprofitable, and almost always unpopular with surfers as well as movie critics. "Make no mistake," the 

 wrote in 1998, "the union between Hollywood and surfing has for the most part been a failure." 

 spawned the beach movie phenomenon of the early and mid-'60s; 

 were among the roughly two dozen low-budget genre movies released between 1963 and 1967 (many produced by American International Pictures, and starring teen idols Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello). Surfing was little more than a background activity to beachside twist parties, but popular '60s surfers like Mickey Dora, Johnny Fain, and Mickey Muñoz were employed as beach movie extras and stuntdoubles, and musical guest stars like Jan and Dean, the Righteous Brothers, the Animals, Stevie Wonder, and Dick Dale kept the soundtracks hopping. Some of the beach movies performed well at the box office; 

 cost $300,000 and grossed $12 million. The cartoonish beach movies were reviled by surfers in the '60s, embraced in the '80s as ironic camp, then—for some—cherished in the '90s and '00s as silly but likable tokens of a more innocent past. (

, released in 1964 and starring Fabian, Tab Hunter, and Barbara Eden, was an exception to the beach movie formula, veering close to straightforward drama, and featuring some beautifully photographed Hawaiian surf sequences, including a climatic big-wave showdown at Waimea Bay.)

Hollywood stayed away from surfing in the 1970s, with one notable exception: 1978's

. Warner Brothers' $11 million coming-of-age California surf drama, starring Gary Busey, Jan-Michael Vincent, and William Katt, was a critical and box-office bomb ("melodramatic . . . self-indulgent . . . embarrassing,"

 magazine wrote), then slowly found new life and stature in video release, with 1998 bringing a mini-blitz of

, the Vietnam War epic released the following year, wasn't a surf movie, but featured what many regard as Hollywood's finest surfing character, the strutting Colonel Kilgore, played by Academy Award winner Robert Duvall. When questioned by an underling as to the necessity of taking out an entire "Victor Charles" (Vietcong) village so that a few of his men can ride a nearby pointbreak, Kilgore stares at the inquisitor and famously bellows, "Charlie don't surf!" (Hollywood produced its second and final well-done surf character in 1982, with Sean Penn playing the eternally stoned surf dude Jeff Spicoli in 

The year 1987 brought Annette Funicello's

, a flaccid beach movie encore, and the trifling, though oft-quoted,

, a drama in which a wavepool champion from Arizona flies out to Hawaii to compete against the world's best in the big annual contest at Pipeline. Supporting actor John Philbin provides comic relief as Turtle, but the 

 characters are otherwise uniformly flat, including those played by pro surfers Gerry Lopez, Laird Hamilton, Robby Page, and Mark Occhilupo.

, 20th Century Fox's 1991 cops-and-robbers surf movie starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, was a misfire, as was New Line's 

, a fusion between Hollywood and the old school hardcore surf movies of the '60s, and the long-awaited follow-up to the 1966 crossover hit 

. Far more ambitious was TriStar's $10 million big-wave saga 

, released in 1998, and starring top pro Shane Dorian, along with surfer/ actors Matty Liu and Matt George (who also wrote the script). Much of the

 surf footage was breathtaking, but the plot dribbled and the characters' persistent brooding quickly and unintentionally became the movie's sole comic outlet. 

 (1995), a bland romantic drama set in coastal England, is noteworthy only in that it stars precelebrity Catherine Zeta-Jones and Ewan McGregor. As with virtually every mainstream surfing drama, 

 ends with a life-or-death surfing showdown. Hollywood has occasionally shown surfing to be meditative and calming (usually in the film's early acts), but far more often the sport is presented only in terms of thrills, challenge, and conflict, and almost never is it viewed as simply integrated into a person's life. This lack of balance is perhaps the main reason why Hollywood has yet to produce a first-rate surfing movie. 

, released in 2002, was the most expensive surf movie ever made, at $35 million, and put a slight twist on things by using young women in the starring roles. 

, a biopic chronicling the late Jay Moriarty's rise to prominence as a big-wave surfer, is set to be released in 2012; the production nearly killed co-lead Gerard Butler who was caught inside by a 12-foot set while filming water shots at Maverick's.

Surfing has on rare occasion been well served by off-Hollywood movies, including the poignant 

 (2000). Surfing has also been presented to spectacular effect in the giant-screen IMAX format, in

, both released in 1999. A short list of Hollywood actor/ surfers past and present includes Jackie Coogan, Cliff Robertson, Peter Lawford, Tom Hanks, Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Heath Ledger, and Owen Wilson. 

Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969

, an illustrated book covering the Gidget-era of surf movies was published by McFarland in 2005.

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