After the unique “Gidget” film, in 1959, Hollywood churned out any variety of sequels.
“Gidget Grows Up.” “Gidget Goes to Rome.” “Gidget Gets Married.” And so forth.
Half a century later, the onetime real-life surfer woman heroine — who was the idea of a nonfiction ebook and the string of fictional films — was not hungry to supply a sequel.
However she’s getting one anyway. At present, it is perhaps referred to as: “Gidget Goes Homeless.” Nevertheless it appears extra possible in the long term to finish up as: “Gidget: Queen of the Shore Again.”
Kathy Zuckerman and her surfboard at Malibu Surfrider Seaside, circa 1959.
(Courtesy of Kathy Zuckerman)
The pioneer girl surfer of the Fifties, who made the scene at Surfrider Seaside in Malibu and different locales, misplaced her Pacific Palisades house of about six a long time in final week’s wildfire.
Kathy “Gidget” Kohner Zuckerman and her husband, Yiddish scholar Marvin Zuckerman, have safely relocated to a short lived rental in Santa Monica. Aided by their two sons, they’re plotting their subsequent transfer.
To not fear, America’s unique Gidget (as in girl-midget) seems to be approaching her new actuality with all of the pluck and good cheer that made the character she impressed an American image within the Nineteen Sixties, and a foundation for movies and TV exhibits starring Sandra Dee and Sally Fields.
“At my age, imagine it: The house is gone, the neighborhood is gone, the community is gone,” Zuckerman mentioned. “But the diamond in the rough is that the Duke’s family and the surfing community have all rallied around. I am so appreciative.”
Duke’s is the Malibu restaurant that made it via the Palisades wildfire. The landmark Pacific Coast Freeway eatery, on the base of Las Flores Canyon, was named after Hawaiian browsing legend Duke Kahanamoku. It employed Zuckerman for a few years as its “Ambassador of Aloha.” She schmoozed with prospects, identified pictures of her in her teenage browsing days and customarily tried to imbue the place with the spirit of “aloha.”
Zuckerman mentioned Duke’s homeowners contacted her not lengthy after the fireplace took her house, not removed from Marquez Elementary Faculty. They let her know that, as quickly as they reopen, they are going to welcome her again to her job, one she continues regardless of being a few a long time previous normal retirement age.
Zuckerman and her husband sat in Palisades Park atop the Santa Monica bluffs on Sunday, catching some heat California rays. On Monday, she was having her nails performed, one other gambit to stay “bright and cheery” within the face of loss.
She has additionally heard from browsing huge names corresponding to Jack McCoy, a famend filmmaker, and Randy Rarick, who helped discovered an early skilled browsing league. One other surf-world buddy has provided to present her a pc. John Leininger, a South Bay browsing unique from the Fifties and longtime surf store operator, got here to Santa Monica to ship garments to his fellow surf pioneer and her husband.
In mild of that, and the help of her household, Zuckerman mentioned she doesn’t concern the long run.
“With all these calls, I have reentered a world that I left a long time ago,” she mentioned, “and that community has been just incredible to me.”