After the first movie “Gidget”, in 1959, Hollywood released any sequels.
“Gidget is growing up.” “Gidget Goes to Rome.” “Gidget is getting married.” And so on.
After half a century, the once-real-life heroine – who was the basis of a fictional book and a series of fictional movies – was hungry to produce another sequel.
But still you get it. Today, it might be called: “Gidget Comes Home.” But it seems likely that in time it will end with: “Gidget: Queen of the Beach Again.”
Kathy Zuckerman with her surfboard at Malibu Surfrider Beach, 1959.
(Courtesy of Kathy Zuckerman)
A pioneering woman surfer in the 1950s, who made a splash at Surfrider Beach in Malibu and elsewhere, she lost her Pacific Palisades home of nearly six decades in last week’s wildfire.
Kathy “Gidget” Kohner Zuckerman and her husband, Yiddish scholar Marvin Zuckerman, have moved safely into a temporary rental in Santa Monica. Helped by their two sons, they planned their next step.
Don’t worry, the original American Gidget (as in girls gidget) seems to be approaching its new reality with all the rebelliousness and fun that made the character an American icon in the 1960s, and the basis of films and TV shows starring the star. Sandra Dee and Sally Fields.
“At my age, just think: The house is gone, the place is gone, the community is gone,” Zuckerman said. “But the diamond in the rough is that Duke’s family and the diving community have come together. Thank you very much.”
Duke’s is a Malibu restaurant that reached the Palisades fire. The historic Pacific Coast Highway restaurant, at the bottom of Las Flores Canyon, was named after Hawaiian surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku. It used Zuckerman for many years as its “Aloha Ambassador.” He chatted with customers, pointed out photos of himself from his youth surfing and generally tried to fill the place with the spirit of “aloha.”
Zuckerman said Duke’s owners contacted him shortly after the fire took him home, not far from Marquez Elementary School. They informed him that, as soon as they opened again, they would accept him in his work, which he continues even though it has been several decades.
Zuckerman and her husband sat in Palisades Park atop the Santa Monica bluffs on Sunday, catching the warm California rays. On Monday, she was getting her nails done, another exercise to stay “bright and happy” in the face of loss.
You’ve also heard of big names in surfing like Jack McCoy, a well-known film producer, and Randy Rarick, who helped found a professional surfing league. Another surfer friend offered to give him a computer. John Leininger, who has been surfing in the South Bay since the 1950s and is a long-time surf shop operator, came to Santa Monica to bring clothing to the pioneer along with his husband.
Because of that, and the support of his family, Zuckerman said he is not afraid of the future.
“With all these calls, I re-entered the world I left a long time ago,” she said, “and that community has been amazing to me.”
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