'Gidget' surfboard shaped by Dale Velzy

• Main Author: Velzy Surfboards
• Other Authors: Velzy, Dale
• Format: Still Image
• Language: unknown
• Published: Pepperdine University Libraries 1951
• Subjects: Surfing; Surfboards; Surfboards > History; Malibu Historical Collection; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://cdm15730.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p271401coll8/id/89

Originally a novel about his daughter’s coming-of-age in the Malibu surf, Frederick Kohner’s "Gidget" would do as much as the Beach Boys to popularize surfing. Picked up by Columbia Pictures in 1959, "Gidget" became Hollywood’s first surf film and many sequels followed, including a short-lived television series on ABC starring a young Sally Field. This surfboard was originally shaped by celebrated Southern California board-maker Dale Velzy as one of his “rope logo” balsa boards. In 1964, the board found its way onto the set of the surf film "Ride the Wild Surf," where it received four coats of paint, a logo reading “Surfboards by Phil,” and was ridden by a character named Eskimo. The next year, Sally Field used the board in the Gidget television series. Field’s autograph, along with that of Dale Velzy and Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman (aka, the “real” Gidget), is visible on the board’s deck. The original Velzy logo has been exposed at the very base of the tail. 9 ft., 4 in.