When Mickey Dora and Tubesteak Tracey taught ‘Gidget’ Kathy Kohner to surf at Malibu in 1956, it was a feminist and cultural breakthrough of national proportions. At a time when Jews were banned from country clubs and private beach clubs in California and not allowed to buy homes in some tony neighborhoods like La Jolla, the Catholic black prince of surfing, Miki Dora, accepted a Jewish princess! into the hippest, coolest club of all. This act appeared as a glorious shining path to the Hollywood Jewish community, still cringing in the shadow of Hitler’s bloody purges and Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist blacklist tactics. They made this little girl and her no big deal to surfers, homely story into a seven picture string of Hollywood surf films, starting with Gidget and ending with How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. This launched women’s surfing, surf schools, and the 60’s surfing craze that is still playing out today. Kathy became the biggest Jewish heroine since Anne Franck. Thank Miki for Gidget and women’s surfing. If only they knew, these renegades probably would have drowned the little princess and kept Malibu to themselves. Miki of course rode the Hollywood wave with consummate skill, starring or doubling in every film and stealing the productions blind.
Surf School, a 2006 summer release, still riding the Gidget wave.
Surf schools are for girls. Women who learn to surf are hot, every single one.
Grad student Karina Petroni, doing her homework for a WQS assignment.
Sorry boys, you do not take instruction well, and that’s why your roundhouse doesn’t look like this.
Learn the hard way, or play volleyball.
Surf schools
Two of the best women’s schools are Linda Benson’s Surfher and the Tihanyi’s Surf Divas.
www.Surfher.net and www.surfdiva.com
join the party and list your surf school here at
schools@thesurfersparty.com