Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey, Lost Tails listeners, it's Dana. I wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know that you can hear the entire new
Speaker 1: season of Lost Hill's ad free, along with other great
Speaker 1: binge listens by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or at pushkin dot Fm slash Plus. The Gidget movie
Speaker 1: came out in the spring of nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2: Gidget is the story of a young, blonde teenage Gallow
Speaker 2: spends a fabulous summer at Malibu Beach with the surfboarders.
Speaker 2: Of course, you know, Gidget was a very big best seller,
Speaker 2: and they made it into a tremendous motion picture in
Speaker 2: color and in Cinema Scope.
Speaker 1: It starred a sixteen year old Sondra d as Gidget
Speaker 1: him it's such fun living in California and being able
Speaker 1: to pick fresh flowers for my hair. Sondra D was
Speaker 1: tiny and blonde, the Hollywood version of the all American
Speaker 1: girl in the movie. Gidget's real name was Francis Lawrence,
Speaker 1: not Kathy Khner, and she had a bland American mom
Speaker 1: and dad right out of a fifty sitcom. But the
Speaker 1: real Gidget had a family that was much more layered.
Speaker 1: They were European and Jewish, and for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: Kathy had dark hair. In the early thirties, Kathy's father,
Speaker 1: Frederick Kohner, had been a screenwriter in Berlin. His first
Speaker 1: film premier, Justice Hitler was declaring a boycott on Jewish businesses.
Speaker 1: Here's Kathy.
Speaker 3: They took his name off the screen credit for a
Speaker 3: movie that did not show very long by Stefan Sweike,
Speaker 3: The Burning Secret. And he had a pen name because
Speaker 3: when he died we looked, you know, they came across
Speaker 3: the name called Alex Bang. So he had a pseudonym.
Speaker 1: Was that to disguise his Jewish?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that was.
Speaker 3: Difficult period in the time.
Speaker 1: Gidget's dad, Frederick, made its way to Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: continued writing movies. In nineteen thirty nine, he was nominated
Speaker 1: for an Academy Award. Two years later, Kathy was born.
Speaker 1: The family lived in La till the mid fifties, when
Speaker 1: Frederick took a job in Berlin. When they got back,
Speaker 1: Kathy didn't know where she fit in.
Speaker 3: We'd lived in Berlin for a year and a half
Speaker 3: when I was thirteen and fourteen.
Speaker 4: I came home and.
Speaker 3: I really you know, I'd missed out on the junior
Speaker 3: high school graduation and sticking with the girls, and so
Speaker 3: when I came back, I was a little bit where's
Speaker 3: my place? And then the folks, you know, you got
Speaker 3: to come to Malibu with us. You know you're not
Speaker 3: going to go to a movie theater on a Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 3: the Bruin Theater in Westwood Village. Yeah, you're gonna come.
Speaker 3: So it was sort of like, okay, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to learn how to I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: Frederick saw potential in Kathy's stories of a Malibu surf
Speaker 1: scene right away.
Speaker 3: I don't really know what he was working on, but
Speaker 3: he hit on when he decided, I'm going to take
Speaker 3: what Kathy's telling me.
Speaker 4: I'm going to write a book. And so he wrote
Speaker 4: that book in three weeks. He wrote Gidget in three weeks.
Speaker 1: Kathy's uncle, Frederick's older brother, Paul Kohner, was a famous
Speaker 1: Hollywood agent, so Frederick took the manuscript to him to
Speaker 1: see what he thought of it.
Speaker 4: And I remember Uncle Paul like, well, I what is this?
Speaker 3: You know, maybe this would be a good story for
Speaker 3: reader's ditches.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 3: You know it was so different that even though Malibu
Speaker 3: was twenty minutes from the house, it was.
Speaker 4: A world away.
Speaker 3: It was a world apart.
Speaker 1: A teenage love story set among the surfing beatnicks of
Speaker 1: Malibu didn't appeal to Uncle Paul. He encouraged Frederick to
Speaker 1: shop it around.
Speaker 3: I remember when a phone call came to my dad.
Speaker 3: It was around dinnertime, and my dad got off the
Speaker 3: phone and he said, this agent in at William Morris
Speaker 3: just thinks he said, mister Corner, you have hit the jackpot.
Speaker 1: Soon, Hollywood scouts would show up in Malibu looking for
Speaker 1: locations to film beach movies and actual bonafide surfers to
Speaker 1: do the stunts. Mickey Dora would be right there, auditioning
Speaker 1: for roles and getting paid handsomely. Friends of his told
Speaker 1: me it was actually the only honest money he made
Speaker 1: in his whole life, and he was still getting residual
Speaker 1: checks into his old age. But he also claimed to
Speaker 1: hate Hollywood and everyone who worked in the business or
Speaker 1: had a connection to it. About his work on the
Speaker 1: Gidget movie, he said, quote, my only regret is that
Speaker 1: I did not torch Gidget's palm Loveshack with that phony
Speaker 1: Fuffuni and all the rest of the cast and crew inside.
Speaker 1: What a glorious emu oven it would have made. We
Speaker 1: could have had a kama Aina luau with Hollywood Long
Speaker 1: Pig as the main course. It's pretty gross, especially when
Speaker 1: you consider Kathy was from a family of Eastern European
Speaker 1: immigrants who helped create the film industry in Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: Mickey Dora while he was the son of an Eastern
Speaker 1: European immigrant who came to Hollywood to make it. The
Speaker 1: two families, the Kohners and the Doros, had both escaped
Speaker 1: the rise of fascism in Europe for a better life
Speaker 1: in California. They shared roots, and as I discovered, they
Speaker 1: shared a specific history in Los Angeles at the Dawn
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills,
Speaker 1: Episode four, Gidget Goes to Hollywood, Part two. You can't
Speaker 1: tell the story of Hollywood about the story of the
Speaker 1: Khner family, especially Gidget's uncle Paul Koner, her father Frederick's
Speaker 1: older brother. He was a producer turned agent who helped
Speaker 1: define the Golden Age of Hollywood. This is Gidget's cousin,
Speaker 1: Paul's son He's a writer, director and producer.
Speaker 5: I'm Pancho Conor. I was born here in Los Angeles
Speaker 5: four years ago.
Speaker 1: Paul Koner, Poncho's father, had first come to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties to work for Carl Lemley, the
Speaker 1: founder of Universal Studios.
Speaker 5: My dad was the eldest of three brothers from Czechoslovakia,
Speaker 5: small town in Bohemia, which was German speaking Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 1: After Paul, there was Frederick Gidget's father. Their youngest brother
Speaker 1: was Walter.
Speaker 5: My grandfather Julius Khoner and templets. He had a cinema
Speaker 5: theater and he also published monthly Film Journal magazine.
Speaker 1: When Paul was eighteen, Julius asked him to do an
Speaker 1: interview with Carl Lemley, who was visiting.
Speaker 5: The area, and Lemley took a liking to him and
Speaker 5: hired him to come to America.
Speaker 1: Your Coner grandfather had a nickname. That is it Kainokoner.
Speaker 5: Corner Quino is a movie theater. People were nicknamed by
Speaker 5: what their profession was. My father here was nicknamed Phoner
Speaker 5: Coner because he was always on the phone.
Speaker 1: In Los Angeles, Paul met the Mexican actress Lupeita Tavar.
Speaker 5: My mother was Mexican. She was born in Wahaca, in
Speaker 5: the southern part of the state, outdoor plumbing dirt floores.
Speaker 5: The eldest of nine children.
Speaker 1: Lupita was discovered in Mexico by an American director, Robert Flaherty,
Speaker 1: the inventor of the feature length documentary film. Lupita was
Speaker 1: given a contract at Fox Studios in Hollywood and became
Speaker 1: a silent movie star. But soon the silent era was over,
Speaker 1: and that was problematic for a Spanish speaking actress, and.
Speaker 5: They weren't going to renew her contract. But the people
Speaker 5: at Fox sent her over to Universal where they were
Speaker 5: pictures into Spanish, and that's where she met my father,
Speaker 5: and it was sort of love at first sight. She
Speaker 5: did three nights dubbing and didn't know what to do
Speaker 5: and was going to go back to Mexico, but first
Speaker 5: she wisely went back to say goodbye to that nice man,
Speaker 5: Paul Corner, who said, give me twenty four hours. And
Speaker 5: he went to Lemley and said, we're wasting half the
Speaker 5: studio here. At six o'clock he turned off the lights
Speaker 5: till six in the morning. We should bring in another crew.
Speaker 5: Spanish speaking actors and shoot the same film in Spanish.
Speaker 5: It'll cost peanuts because we use all the same everything,
Speaker 5: And Lemley said, fantastic, do it. And my father said,
Speaker 5: there's an actress here thinking of going back to Mexico,
Speaker 5: and Lemley said, well, sign her two a year's contract
Speaker 5: right away.
Speaker 1: One of the first big talkies at Universal was a
Speaker 1: horror film that became iconic, I Am Not Cumor. During
Speaker 1: the day they shot Bela Lugosi. At night they filmed
Speaker 1: the Spanish version of Dracula, with Ponto's mother, Lupita, playing
Speaker 1: the female lead. Paul supervised the film, and two.
Speaker 5: Years later they got married in Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 1: Paul and his new bride decided to stay in Europe
Speaker 1: and make films. They moved to Berlin, where the political
Speaker 1: situation was taking a dark turn in the early thirties.
Speaker 1: When Paul and Lupita were living there, Hitler was consolidating power,
Speaker 1: ultimately declaring himself Furor of the German Reich in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four.
Speaker 5: My mother was Catholic and my father was Jewish, but
Speaker 5: he had an American passports, so he was fairly safe.
Speaker 5: But they were not allowed to live together a gentile
Speaker 5: and a Jew, so they had to move constantly. I
Speaker 5: have a letter from authorizing the accounting department to pay
Speaker 5: my father a bonus for living in Berlin in hazardous times.
Speaker 5: As they said, danger pay yes. They used to travel
Speaker 5: to Paris and to London for the opening of the
Speaker 5: films they were making.
Speaker 1: Because of their work and Paul's American passport, Paul and
Speaker 1: Lupita could travel freely, so they became smugglers, helping friends
Speaker 1: and family move money to the West.
Speaker 5: My mother describes how she used to carry jewelry in
Speaker 5: jars of cold cream or in her knitting in a
Speaker 5: role of knitting. She would hide cash and valuables to
Speaker 5: smuggle this stuff out for friends.
Speaker 1: It seemed to work until one day Paul and Lupita
Speaker 1: were stopped at the German Czech border. They were taken
Speaker 1: off the train and were about to be strip searched.
Speaker 1: Paul ran back on the train and saying he had
Speaker 1: forgotten his suitcase and got rid of a wad of
Speaker 1: cash he was carrying, so he threw.
Speaker 5: That bot of cash under an empty seat somewhere. Looked
Speaker 5: like he was going to be a problem, except my
Speaker 5: father loved to be photographed with personalities, with important people,
Speaker 5: and in his briefcase he had a photograph of himself
Speaker 5: with the Heish Marshal, the air Minister, shaking hands. And
Speaker 5: when they saw that, he said, ah, why didn't you
Speaker 5: tell us? And he said, we can call him at
Speaker 5: his home if you'd like il vouch for me. They
Speaker 5: said no, it's all right. So they let them go, but.
Speaker 1: Clearly someone had reported them for smuggling. It wasn't safe
Speaker 1: to go back to Berlin. They had to escape, so.
Speaker 5: Through Switzerland they went to Paris for six months. The
Speaker 5: news was worse and worse from what they heard from
Speaker 5: refugees in Paris, and so they finally took a book
Speaker 5: and came back to America.
Speaker 1: After Paul and Lupita returned to Los Angeles in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, Paul changed course and became a talent agent.
Speaker 5: It was a very successful agent of what they called
Speaker 5: a boutique agency. Didn't have a lot of clients. It
Speaker 5: was one big family. All of these clients were over
Speaker 5: at the house all the time, Sunday's dinner parties. These
Speaker 5: are it was a family affair.
Speaker 1: His clients were some of the biggest movie stars of
Speaker 1: the time, John Houston, Henry Fonda, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner.
Speaker 5: My sister and I used to put on puppet shows
Speaker 5: for Lana's daughter's birthday.
Speaker 1: But Paul specialized in the European emigres. Billy Wilder, Marlena
Speaker 1: dietrich ingmar Bergmann.
Speaker 5: Any with an accent was a client of the Koner Agency.
Speaker 5: They understood each other. They were a tight knit group.
Speaker 1: The late thirties brought a flood of Europeans into Hollywood,
Speaker 1: many of them refugees from Nazi oppression. They flocked to
Speaker 1: the Coner Agency.
Speaker 5: When anyone who came to Hollywood would go straight to
Speaker 5: nine point sixty nine Sunset Boulevard because that was a
Speaker 5: European refuge My father spoke their languages and got them jobs.
Speaker 1: The Coner Agency became a salon for the Emigray film community.
Speaker 5: His office on Sunset Boulevard is an Art Deco small
Speaker 5: building with large offices, and there's an Oval office in
Speaker 5: the Oval entry room with couches, and that's where these
Speaker 5: Europeans actors out of work would hang out would be
Speaker 5: And then the afternoon, my father's right hand as secretary
Speaker 5: also grown up in Berlin, there would be a coffee clutch.
Speaker 5: She would have pastries from poopies and coffee, and that
Speaker 5: was the meeting place for many of these European actors, writers.
Speaker 1: Direct They discussed the news from Europe endlessly and it
Speaker 1: was always horrible.
Speaker 6: Through the snow, the legions of occupation march into Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 6: This rapid stroke, which has outraged all freedom loving nations
Speaker 6: of the world, is carried out with military executitue.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight, the Nazis took over the part
Speaker 1: of Czechoslovakia that included Tapletz, the Koner's hometown.
Speaker 5: My grandmother Helena didn't want to leave because they were
Speaker 5: still uncles Nansen, until finally the situation became untenable and
Speaker 5: the Nazis were in tablets and she made a phone
Speaker 5: call saying get me out.
Speaker 1: Paul Koner was exceptionally well connected. One of his friends
Speaker 1: was the eldest son of President Franklin D. And Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: With his help, they were able to get Helena out
Speaker 1: of Europe.
Speaker 5: The rest of the family parish were sent to Terrasine
Speaker 5: Camp and other camps.
Speaker 1: Back in Los Angeles. The emigreve film community realized that
Speaker 1: the situation was dire and the US government was making
Speaker 1: it harder for refugees to immigrate. Paul and Frederick Kohner,
Speaker 1: along with Billy Wilder and Marlena Dietrich, decided they needed
Speaker 1: to do something to help their friends who were trapped
Speaker 1: in Europe.
Speaker 5: In order to get here, they had to have the visas,
Speaker 5: they had to have proof of financial support that they
Speaker 5: wouldn't be a burden on the United States. So my
Speaker 5: father had to get to Affi. David's offers of work
Speaker 5: are from the various studios of various employers round town
Speaker 5: and so financially my father was part of the group
Speaker 5: that started the European Film Fund.
Speaker 1: The Khoner saved some sixty people Jews from Germany, Poland,
Speaker 1: Czechoslovakia and Hungary in La The new refugees joined the
Speaker 1: tight knit Emigree community, and when they weren't hanging out
Speaker 1: at the Koner Agency eating pastries, they were at the
Speaker 1: restaurant down the street. That's where some of the best
Speaker 1: and most authentic European food in Los Angeles was served
Speaker 1: and where the European movie stars and directors hung out.
Speaker 1: At Little Hungary, the restaurant owned by Mickey Dora's dad.
Speaker 1: Mickey Dora and Kathy Kohner Gidget met on the beach
Speaker 1: in Malibu in nineteen fifty six, but their families have
Speaker 1: been deeply intertwined for decades through Mickey's dad's restaurant, Little Hungary. Miklos,
Speaker 1: with his young American wife and Little Mickey, had emigrated
Speaker 1: to America in nineteen thirty five. Little Hungary was a
Speaker 1: swanky place on Sunset Boulevard. The waiters wore bow ties
Speaker 1: and traditional Hungarian outfits, and a sign outside advertised Gypsy music,
Speaker 1: but it was also cozy. You could get Transylvanian gulash
Speaker 1: with an apple strudel for dessert. For the many many
Speaker 1: European emigrets living and working in Hollywood at that time,
Speaker 1: Little Hungary was a reminder of home. That was absolutely
Speaker 1: true for Gidget's family. The Kohners, Paul and Frederick, Gidget's
Speaker 1: uncle and her dad, were regulars, and when their youngest brother,
Speaker 1: Walter arrived in Los Angeles, he started working there. He
Speaker 1: was a pianist, playing Viennese waltzes for the after theater crowd.
Speaker 1: He'd later write that he played for quote ten dollars
Speaker 1: a week and all the gulash I could eat. Here's
Speaker 1: cousin Ponto again.
Speaker 5: It was marvelous when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: What do you remember that?
Speaker 5: Remember my uncle playing the piano there, my uncle Walter.
Speaker 1: Late one night in the spring of nineteen forty, Walter
Speaker 1: was at Little Hungary. Miklosch, Dora, mister Dora to Walter,
Speaker 1: was there too. Mieklosch came and sat next to Walter
Speaker 1: at the piano and delivered terrible news. The Nazis, Miklosch said,
Speaker 1: had invaded Holland. It was a solemn moment between boss
Speaker 1: and employee, two Europeans in grim solidarity. But to Walter
Speaker 1: the news was excruciatingly personal. His childhood sweetheart, Hannah, who
Speaker 1: like him was Jewish, was stuck in Amsterdam. Later, their
Speaker 1: dramatic reunion would be the subject of an episode of
Speaker 1: This Is Your Life.
Speaker 6: This Is Your Life television was most talked about program
Speaker 6: and our host, Ralph Edward Hey.
Speaker 1: On the show, which was wildly popular and ran for
Speaker 1: more than a decade, the host would surprise an unsuspecting
Speaker 1: member of the audience, filling the stage with the most
Speaker 1: important people in the subject's life.
Speaker 6: This is Your Life Hannah Blackconer, Oh No, Yes.
Speaker 1: The program told an extraordinary story how Hannah had defied
Speaker 1: the odds, enduring a series of concentration camps and escaping
Speaker 1: with her life. It was the first time the show
Speaker 1: was devoted to a survivor of the Holocaust. People from
Speaker 1: different parts of Hannah's wartime odyssey, people she had not
Speaker 1: seen in years and she thought she'd never see again,
Speaker 1: appeared on stage for Tearful Reunions. Hannah and Walter had
Speaker 1: met in Teplets when they were young, but when the
Speaker 1: war broke out in your they were separated.
Speaker 5: They were sweethearts in high school, and then Walter came
Speaker 5: to America and Hannah is sweet artist girlfriend. He was
Speaker 5: going to arrange try to arrange a visa for herticum,
Speaker 5: but that was delayed.
Speaker 1: Hannah fled home for the relative safety of Prague. When
Speaker 1: Prague became too dangerous, she went to Amsterdam.
Speaker 5: And she first as a housekeeper. Then the war started
Speaker 5: and she worked as a typist in the German Nazi offices,
Speaker 5: and she had access to all the lists of who
Speaker 5: they were going to round up.
Speaker 1: Once the Nazis invaded Holland, it became basically impossible for
Speaker 1: Hannah to get a visa to come to the United States.
Speaker 1: Then Hannah sent a letter that broke Walter's heart. She
Speaker 1: had fallen in love with someone else.
Speaker 5: She had a suitor, Carl was his name, and she
Speaker 5: hadn't heard from Walter in a long time, and her
Speaker 5: chances of getting a visa were slimmed to none. It
Speaker 5: was a five year waiting list. And then I think
Speaker 5: the American embassy there in Amsterdam was bombed or blew
Speaker 5: up and all the paper was gone. So she and
Speaker 5: Carl got married. They were rounded up and taken to
Speaker 5: a camp and released several times.
Speaker 1: Eventually they were sent to Auschwitz. Carl died there, Hannah
Speaker 1: miraculously did not.
Speaker 5: Her brother, who was a medical student, also was in
Speaker 5: the camps, and they actually saw each other through a
Speaker 5: fence once.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Walter had left his job playing piano for mister Dora.
Speaker 1: He'd been drafted into the US Army. Walter was in Europe,
Speaker 1: but he had no idea where Hannah was or if
Speaker 1: she was alive. Then one day, not long after the
Speaker 1: war was over, Walter got a letter. It was addressed
Speaker 1: simply to Walter Kohner. Sunset Boulevard. The letter had made
Speaker 1: it to his brother's talent agency and they had sent
Speaker 1: it to Walter, who was then in Luxembourg. The letter
Speaker 1: was from two American soldiers. They'd liberated a concentration camp
Speaker 1: and had found Hannah alive.
Speaker 5: So he borrowed a jeep and was racing from camp
Speaker 5: to camp trying to find her. At one point he
Speaker 5: i demolished the jeep common neared another vehicle. He got
Speaker 5: to Prague and by chance, in the streets of Prague
Speaker 5: he found freedol Hannah's brother and told him that his
Speaker 5: sister was alive, but they didn't know where, and so
Speaker 5: they thought, well, maybe she went back to Amsterdam. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so Walter went to Amstam. He knew the house how
Speaker 5: she had worked as a maid, and rang the doorbell
Speaker 5: and there she was.
Speaker 1: Hannah and Walter married in the fall of nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: They decided to return to Los Angeles, where Walter went
Speaker 1: back to playing piano at Mister Dora's restaurant, which he
Speaker 1: had renamed Little Gypsy. Hungary had joined the Axis during
Speaker 1: the war, and Mi Klose didn't want to be associated
Speaker 1: with the Nazis. Gidget's family knew first hand the evils
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism. They knew what a swastika meant. A
Speaker 1: swastikament you don't belong here. It meant you're not safe,
Speaker 1: it meant leave. All this made what happened at Malibu,
Speaker 1: what Kathy's so called friends did, even uglier and more personal,
Speaker 1: really unforgivable. When Kathy Koher returned to Malibu after college,
Speaker 1: the scene on the beach was unrecognizable and something else
Speaker 1: have changed. Kathy wasn't surfing anymore. She'd quit.
Speaker 3: So when I came home in nineteen sixty, I don't
Speaker 3: even remember having my own surfboard anymore, but I do
Speaker 3: remember it being pretty crowded. So the movie came out
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty nine, and that Gidget, the movie I
Speaker 3: think is the start of the billion dollar surf industry.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like, oh my gosh, I want
Speaker 3: to go to Malibu, I want to surf.
Speaker 4: I want to meet Moondoggie.
Speaker 3: Pretty dramatic change, actually, And the fellas that I had
Speaker 3: surfed with they were older than me always, so that
Speaker 3: when I came home they had sort of dispersed. They
Speaker 3: were in the military. Uh, maybe they went away to college.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't kind of the same crew, the same
Speaker 3: grouping of surfers that I had known in fifty six
Speaker 3: fifty seven and fifty eight fifty nine.
Speaker 1: But that's not really the whole story. The vibe at
Speaker 1: Malibu had turned toxic long before all those teeny boppers
Speaker 1: came looking for their Moondoggie. When Kathy was still surfing
Speaker 1: at Malibu. It would be whitewashed out of the movie
Speaker 1: and the TV show. The Gidget character played by Sandra
Speaker 1: d never had to deal with it. Here's what happened
Speaker 1: the second summer. Kathy Kohner, the real Gidget, surfed at
Speaker 1: Malibu the summer of nineteen fifty seven, when her father's
Speaker 1: novel was published and knew was already out that it
Speaker 1: would soon be a feature film. A symbol appeared on
Speaker 1: the side of tube steak shack. It was a swastika.
Speaker 1: Kathy told me about this reluctantly, and she got really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable when I asked her about another swastika i'd heard about.
Speaker 1: It's an incident Kathy doesn't like to discuss, because this
Speaker 1: time it was drawn in the gravel of the driveway
Speaker 1: at her family's home. This is something Kathy puts in
Speaker 1: the category of prank, like disconnecting the distributor on her car.
Speaker 1: She never found out who did it, but she refused
Speaker 1: to let it get to her.
Speaker 3: And had there been a swastika on the driveway or
Speaker 3: no swastik on the driver, we just kind of like
Speaker 3: it was not a big We kind of didn't want
Speaker 3: to deal with something like that, so we just kind
Speaker 3: of like, who cares, you know, you want to throw
Speaker 3: my board over the fence. So I had a drive,
Speaker 3: I mean I had a drive to want to learn
Speaker 3: how to surf, to prove it to you know, maybe
Speaker 3: to myself, but to the guys that I could be
Speaker 3: just when I could surf too, I'm going to surf.
Speaker 1: Talking to me, she didn't want to dwell on swastika's
Speaker 1: it's the gidget in me, she explained. She got over it.
Speaker 1: She learned to surf. Isn't that the story at Duke's Restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's literally Kathy's job to live in the past, to
Speaker 1: be that piece of living history talking about Moondoggie and
Speaker 1: tube Steak and the shack and the bitch in summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty six. She loves it.
Speaker 3: Hemingway wrote that story A clean, well lighted place, which
Speaker 3: I loved because you know, I kind of feel like
Speaker 3: the barefoot bar at Duke's somewhat like a clean, well
Speaker 3: lighted place.
Speaker 4: You go there, you can.
Speaker 3: See the people, They're regulars, they're welcoming you.
Speaker 4: I can go around and.
Speaker 3: Gets I got elevated to excellence. I have to thank
Speaker 3: the Duke's Corporation. The title now is Ambassador of Aloha,
Speaker 3: which means that I greet the guests when the doors
Speaker 3: are open. I'm pretty much walking around. I'm allowed to
Speaker 3: offer the free.
Speaker 4: Hula pi, which is our signature dessert.
Speaker 3: I sometimes help seat, but usually I just I dress up,
Speaker 3: which is fun for me, and I walk around and
Speaker 3: I smile, and if somebody smiles.
Speaker 4: Back, I'm like, have you been here before?
Speaker 3: Where are you visiting from? Oh? If I'll take them
Speaker 3: to a table where I'm happening to walk by photos
Speaker 3: that are of me on the wall, I'll say that's.
Speaker 4: Me when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Sixty five years after her dad's book came out, people
Speaker 1: still care about Gidget.
Speaker 3: This little girl said, I'm Angelie and Devin from Nando Beach,
Speaker 3: I wrote a paper report about you in high school.
Speaker 3: We met you years ago here at Duke's We love you,
Speaker 3: And when she came in last Sunday, the face was familiar.
Speaker 4: But oh, I'm so.
Speaker 3: Glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. Speak hug.
Speaker 3: I met you several years ago. You were going to Hawaii.
Speaker 3: You remember me? Do you remember me? I don't remember,
Speaker 3: my guess I've been there twenty years. But there's that
Speaker 3: feeling of warmth that may generate to me or just
Speaker 3: to the type of climate that Gidget represents to people today.
Speaker 1: And what is that?
Speaker 4: What is that climate?
Speaker 3: Well, that climate is this was fun, This was clean,
Speaker 3: you know, not it was.
Speaker 4: There weren't any you know, I didn't. I wasn't aware
Speaker 4: of drugs.
Speaker 3: I wasn't aware of homelessness, you know, I mean except
Speaker 3: Toobsteak lived in the shack. So I thought, you have
Speaker 3: a path to follow, and that path in like the
Speaker 3: Judy Garland movie, you know, to the Yellow Rick Road.
Speaker 1: So it's two innocent times.
Speaker 3: An innocent time, I think, so an innocent time.
Speaker 1: But what really endures about Gidget and why the story
Speaker 1: inspires women and girls today, has to do with Kathy's
Speaker 1: incredible spirit. She was determined to surf, and she did it.
Speaker 1: She carved out a place for herself.
Speaker 3: The Gidget story may have an element of, you know,
Speaker 3: it does have an element of don't drop in on me.
Speaker 3: That's a cerfect expression. So you know, the book has
Speaker 3: an element of nobody's going to take this spirit away
Speaker 3: of the young girl, and nobody's going to drop in
Speaker 3: on her. She's going to, you know, in the last
Speaker 3: line of the book, maybe I'm just a woman in
Speaker 3: love with a surfboard.
Speaker 1: Kathy moved on from Malibu, and.
Speaker 3: In college, I had discovered, you know that, Hey, I'm
Speaker 3: Jewish and I'm in Corvallis, Oregon. I better join the
Speaker 3: Hillel Club or I wanted to. I wanted some identification.
Speaker 3: And I came home I thought, oh wow, I'm going
Speaker 3: to join the Peace Corps.
Speaker 1: She met her husband, Marv. He's a retired professor of Yiddish.
Speaker 1: They have two sons and three granddaughters. From about nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty to about two thousand and one, when Gidget the
Speaker 1: Book was reissued, she pretty much disappeared from surf culture.
Speaker 1: While surfing was ballooning into the gigantic industry it is today.
Speaker 1: I asked Matt Warshaw, the surf historian, what Gidget meant
Speaker 1: for surfing.
Speaker 7: Kathy was the beginning of selling surfing to everybody. It
Speaker 7: was going from Hollywood across the country and then across
Speaker 7: the world. Literally see Gidget posters in all these different languages.
Speaker 7: So I mean it really went around the world and
Speaker 7: it's just this call to come to the beach.
Speaker 1: Mickey, he had a different message.
Speaker 7: I think Mickey was the one who was going to
Speaker 7: originate surfers, you know, sort of telling everybody. Then the
Speaker 7: rest of the surf world and a lot of surfers
Speaker 7: as well, you know, stay away from this break. You
Speaker 7: know that Mickey was the one who brought sort of
Speaker 7: theater to surfing, being a nonconformist, anti establishment thing. Came
Speaker 7: in and trolled the people that didn't surf or you
Speaker 7: railed against those who had sold out. So he invented
Speaker 7: that sort of rebellious version of the surfer.
Speaker 1: So it's also you could say that Gidget's contribution was
Speaker 1: surfing is for everyone.
Speaker 7: Right, and Mickey's in a way was to try to
Speaker 7: with as much flair as possible, push everyone away.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: It was it was him and a few other hardcore
Speaker 7: surfers against everyone. Mickey was just as angry and sort
Speaker 7: of performative against other surfers as he was against nonsurfers.
Speaker 7: More so in fact, you know, he there was no
Speaker 7: you know, it was a real purity test that you
Speaker 7: had to pass with him to be okay.
Speaker 1: With Next time, I'm Lostel's Mickey Police's Malibu Beach.
Speaker 8: So now we've got like a rich kid in fancy
Speaker 8: sunglasses and fancy clothes in a fancy sports car, passing
Speaker 8: bad checks and putting swastikas on his board and being
Speaker 8: a jerk to outsiders because they don't know how to surf,
Speaker 8: and spewing all this vile stuff. I don't know, it
Speaker 8: just kind of started to turn, you know, green and
Speaker 8: gross inside and feel to me like there's something wrong
Speaker 8: with this.
Speaker 1: That's next in episode five. Surf Nazi Lost Tails is
Speaker 1: written and reported by Me Dana Goodyear. It's created by
Speaker 1: me and Benadere and produced by Western Sound and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can binge the entire
Speaker 1: season right now ad free. Find Pushkin Plus on the
Speaker 1: Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin
Speaker 1: dot fm. Slash plus