WEBVTT - 2. Death in Mexico 0:00:15.036 --> 0:00:22.036 Pushkin Hey, Lost Tails listeners, it's Dana. I wanted to 0:00:22.076 --> 0:00:24.196 let you know that you can hear the entire new 0:00:24.236 --> 0:00:27.556 season of Lost Hills ad free, along with other great 0:00:27.596 --> 0:00:31.836 binge listens by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin 0:00:31.916 --> 0:00:35.156 Plus on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts, 0:00:35.356 --> 0:00:38.996 or at pushkin dot fm slash Plus. 0:00:45.516 --> 0:00:47.716 I first saw him in fifty six. I went out 0:00:47.716 --> 0:00:50.276 there and he was very dark, you know, dark tan, 0:00:50.556 --> 0:00:54.916 you know, he's just dark figure, a swarthy kind of guy. 0:00:55.436 --> 0:00:58.596 And I saw him out there on this board and 0:00:59.276 --> 0:01:02.836 he was all by himself. My brother Tom, Mickey Chapin, 0:01:03.156 --> 0:01:05.796 and that's what they called him back then. It wasn't 0:01:05.876 --> 0:01:08.556 Mickey do it was Mickey Chapin. Oh, that's Japin. 0:01:10.076 --> 0:01:13.356 This is Danny Auburg again. He's talking about the first 0:01:13.436 --> 0:01:16.476 time he laid eyes on Mickey Dora. This was three 0:01:16.556 --> 0:01:18.636 years before he had his run in with Mickey in 0:01:18.676 --> 0:01:21.396 the water when Mickey refused to kick out of the 0:01:21.436 --> 0:01:25.356 wave and Danny nearly drowned. Danny used to hang out 0:01:25.396 --> 0:01:28.076 at the beach with his older brother Kemp, and Kemp 0:01:28.156 --> 0:01:28.916 was friends. 0:01:28.596 --> 0:01:32.516 With Mickey for the first few years. I only knew 0:01:32.596 --> 0:01:37.756 him as Chapin, and that's because his stepdad was Guard Chapin, 0:01:38.436 --> 0:01:41.516 who was a very well known early surfer from the forties. 0:01:42.476 --> 0:01:45.196 For many years, my brother, they'd always talked about Chapin. 0:01:45.276 --> 0:01:47.956 I mean, Chapin did this, Chapin did that. And then 0:01:48.036 --> 0:01:51.836 all of a sudden, I remember distinctly. Oh no, his 0:01:51.956 --> 0:01:55.316 name's Dora. Now he's called himself Dora. Don't use Chapin, 0:01:55.396 --> 0:02:00.196 you know. And the story is that Guard Chapin got murdered, 0:02:00.236 --> 0:02:03.436 you know, down in baj Or something like that, and 0:02:03.516 --> 0:02:06.516 so Mickey got kind of paranoid using that name. It 0:02:06.596 --> 0:02:10.396 was like the story. So he said, I'm going to 0:02:10.436 --> 0:02:12.956 call myself Dora for no on and they can't find me. 0:02:14.636 --> 0:02:17.236 That's the way he thought. But so from then on 0:02:17.356 --> 0:02:18.636 he was Nicky Dora. 0:02:19.836 --> 0:02:23.196 This was something Mickey would do again and again, ease 0:02:23.276 --> 0:02:26.636 out of one identity into another, like a snake shedding 0:02:26.716 --> 0:02:31.036 its skin. He liked to keep everyone guessing, especially the cops. 0:02:31.556 --> 0:02:34.116 They couldn't catch him if they couldn't figure out who 0:02:34.156 --> 0:02:38.316 he was. When his stepfather, Guard was alive, Mickey had 0:02:38.356 --> 0:02:42.516 called himself Mickey Chapin spelled m I c K E 0:02:42.676 --> 0:02:48.036 Y like the mouse. The name was pure California surfer boy, 0:02:48.516 --> 0:02:54.956 almost wholesome. Then overnight when Guard died, Because Guard died, 0:02:55.636 --> 0:03:01.716 he became Mickey m I K I Dora. Mickey Dora 0:03:02.076 --> 0:03:07.516 was mysterious. Mickey Dora was secretive and paranoid and shifty. 0:03:08.516 --> 0:03:15.196 Mickey Dora was Malibu's dark prince. I'm Dana Goodyear and 0:03:15.276 --> 0:03:44.836 this is Lost Hills, Episode two, Death in Mexico. 0:03:48.116 --> 0:03:50.876 The thing about Mickey and the facts of his life 0:03:50.916 --> 0:03:52.476 is that no one knows the truth. 0:03:53.476 --> 0:03:57.436 This is David Renson. He wrote the definitive oral history 0:03:57.516 --> 0:04:01.356 of Mickey Dora. It's called All for a Few Perfect Waves. 0:04:02.356 --> 0:04:05.836 And as I will tell you, I'm sure this will 0:04:05.836 --> 0:04:08.196 be a great podcast, but you will never find out 0:04:08.276 --> 0:04:08.676 the truth. 0:04:09.516 --> 0:04:12.716 Even after doing hundreds of interviews about Mickey, David says 0:04:13.076 --> 0:04:15.716 he still finds Mickey unknowable. 0:04:16.716 --> 0:04:18.156 And I need to read the part in my book 0:04:18.156 --> 0:04:21.716 where John Millius is saying, it's like Citizen Kane. You 0:04:21.756 --> 0:04:24.516 know just as much about Cain at the beginning as 0:04:24.516 --> 0:04:26.396 you do at the end. But it's a fabulous ride. 0:04:26.516 --> 0:04:27.836 It's a fabulous ride. 0:04:29.996 --> 0:04:33.716 Mickey's contradictions start right at the moment of his birth. 0:04:34.636 --> 0:04:39.476 The ultimate Southern California beach god, was born in Budapest, Hungary, 0:04:39.676 --> 0:04:45.076 in nineteen thirty four. His mother, Ramona Stancliffe, was from California. 0:04:45.676 --> 0:04:48.276 She had just graduated from Beverly Hills High and was 0:04:48.356 --> 0:04:52.556 traveling around Europe with her mother and younger siblings. Seventeen 0:04:52.636 --> 0:04:56.676 years old and strikingly attractive, she was on a riverboat 0:04:56.676 --> 0:05:00.036 on the Danube when she met Miklo Stora, a law 0:05:00.076 --> 0:05:05.116 student and second lieutenant in the Hungarian cavalry, and he thought, I'll. 0:05:04.916 --> 0:05:09.436 Talk to this girl. Then they started flirting and she 0:05:09.596 --> 0:05:12.516 was enchanted. And Miklos has told me, he said, you know, 0:05:12.796 --> 0:05:15.996 you can't get with a girl in Hungary because they're 0:05:15.996 --> 0:05:19.316 too proper. But maybe I get lucky. And anyway, they 0:05:19.316 --> 0:05:21.396 spent a few months there and he I guess she 0:05:21.476 --> 0:05:23.276 did get pregnant, but hit it. 0:05:24.276 --> 0:05:26.636 Ramona wrote a letter to her best friend back home, 0:05:27.196 --> 0:05:30.316 boasting about her adventures without mentioning her pregnancy. 0:05:31.196 --> 0:05:34.556 She says, you'll never guess I'm married. I missus Miklostor, 0:05:35.636 --> 0:05:38.276 she's pregnant. He does the right thing, he marries her. 0:05:39.156 --> 0:05:43.156 Ramona and Miklos Senor decided to bring young Mickey to California, 0:05:43.196 --> 0:05:46.476 a few months after he was born. Miklosch said it 0:05:46.516 --> 0:05:48.996 was because Ramona was sick of Europe and missed the 0:05:49.036 --> 0:05:53.116 malted milks at the drugstore counters in La. He really 0:05:53.156 --> 0:05:56.556 did not understand his new bride, but he agreed to emigrate. 0:05:58.116 --> 0:06:04.236 They arrived in La in January nineteen thirty five. Miklos 0:06:04.276 --> 0:06:07.516 Senior later credited the unplanned birth of his son Micky 0:06:07.716 --> 0:06:11.276 was saving his life. During World War Two, the Nazis 0:06:11.316 --> 0:06:14.116 took over Hungary and Miklosch's regiment was sent to the 0:06:14.196 --> 0:06:20.716 Russian Front, where most of them died. In La Miklosch 0:06:20.796 --> 0:06:24.796 reinvented himself in the hospitality business. With some money from 0:06:24.876 --> 0:06:29.636 Ramona's family, he started a Hungarian restaurant called Little Hungary. 0:06:31.196 --> 0:06:32.956 Was that kind of his first venture when he came 0:06:32.996 --> 0:06:33.396 to La. 0:06:33.876 --> 0:06:38.596 Yeah, he'd sold some wines. I believe he worked at 0:06:38.796 --> 0:06:43.076 Victor Hugo's restaurant, But then you know it started his 0:06:43.156 --> 0:06:46.236 own little place, and it was on Sunset West, on 0:06:46.316 --> 0:06:47.796 the same side of the street as a Whiskey a 0:06:47.876 --> 0:06:49.796 Goo Goo up a few stores. 0:06:50.956 --> 0:06:54.036 Little Hungary sat at the center of Golden Age Hollywood 0:06:54.356 --> 0:06:57.596 and was in particular a gathering place for European emigres. 0:06:58.236 --> 0:07:01.156 People like the actress and singer Marlena Dietrich and the 0:07:01.196 --> 0:07:05.636 director Billy Wilder hung out there. Ramona loved the glamour, 0:07:06.396 --> 0:07:10.436 maybe more than she loved the daily grind of parent I. 0:07:10.396 --> 0:07:15.956 Guess, you know. She adored Mickey, but really was what's 0:07:15.996 --> 0:07:20.596 the word self indulgent, you know, wanted to connect with 0:07:20.636 --> 0:07:22.916 all the famous people that came into a little hungry. 0:07:25.276 --> 0:07:28.476 There's a picture I've seen of Mickey with Ramona. He's 0:07:28.516 --> 0:07:31.236 about two years old and is wearing a little military 0:07:31.276 --> 0:07:36.716 type suit. She's ravishing, head tilted back, eyes closed like 0:07:36.836 --> 0:07:41.156 a starlet on a movie poster. He's kissing her cheek intently, 0:07:41.556 --> 0:07:44.916 holding onto her chin as if for dear life, and 0:07:44.996 --> 0:07:49.116 she looks like she's a million miles away. 0:07:49.196 --> 0:07:51.596 So, you know, micklas was working all the time and 0:07:51.716 --> 0:07:54.956 Ramona was sleeping until the afternoon. I don't know if 0:07:54.956 --> 0:07:58.676 she was drinking. I mean, that's what happened to her 0:07:58.756 --> 0:08:02.956 later in life. She drank and ended up just tithing 0:08:03.036 --> 0:08:07.436 money to an I'm a TV evangelist, Mickey. I think 0:08:07.476 --> 0:08:11.916 it was a complex relationship for Mickey, you know, and 0:08:12.236 --> 0:08:15.196 carried on through all of his relationships with women, they 0:08:15.276 --> 0:08:17.636 want to nest, but he didn't want to nest. 0:08:18.596 --> 0:08:22.756 Ramona definitely wasn't the nesting type. In nineteen thirty nine, 0:08:22.796 --> 0:08:25.676 she went to Las Vegas and filed for divorce from Miklosch. 0:08:28.356 --> 0:08:28.596 Mickey. 0:08:28.676 --> 0:08:35.556 Dora was definitely, unquestionably robbed of having a secure, comfortable childhood. 0:08:35.556 --> 0:08:37.196 There's a zero question about that. 0:08:38.116 --> 0:08:40.676 This is the surf historian Matt Warshaw. 0:08:41.476 --> 0:08:44.716 Mickey was born to this gorgeous alcoholic mother who married 0:08:45.436 --> 0:08:50.116 a Hungarian sort of gentleman, and the marriage I think 0:08:50.596 --> 0:08:52.956 was unhappy almost from the jump. 0:08:54.156 --> 0:08:58.636 Mickey's parents just basically had nothing in common. Ramona was 0:08:58.676 --> 0:09:02.156 on a path to self destruction. Miklosch was an old 0:09:02.196 --> 0:09:06.676 world athlete, a wine connoisseur, an art lover, the epitome 0:09:06.796 --> 0:09:11.916 of the European gentleman. After the divorce, Ramona moved on quickly, 0:09:12.556 --> 0:09:16.596 and the person she found, Guard Chapin, was nothing like Miklosch. 0:09:17.796 --> 0:09:22.676 Guard was six foot one, buff a carpenter. People who 0:09:22.756 --> 0:09:29.716 knew him described him as a quote aryan blonde. 0:09:28.036 --> 0:09:32.236 And Ramona almost right away started dating the hottest, the 0:09:32.276 --> 0:09:36.916 best surfer in California and possibly the world. Which didn't 0:09:36.916 --> 0:09:39.076 mean a whole lot in the nineteen forties because there 0:09:39.076 --> 0:09:39.756 weren't a whole. 0:09:39.556 --> 0:09:40.396 Lot of us. 0:09:41.596 --> 0:09:44.276 The problem with Guard Chapin was that he was a bully. 0:09:45.196 --> 0:09:48.836 According to his contemporaries, he was aggressive and narrow minded 0:09:49.236 --> 0:09:52.236 and always going on about who was or was not 0:09:52.556 --> 0:09:58.276 a jew. Miklos Senior thought he was a disaster. Miklos said. 0:09:58.636 --> 0:10:01.916 Guard thought laws were for his own protection, but didn't 0:10:01.956 --> 0:10:05.436 believe he had to abide by them as a grown man. 0:10:05.636 --> 0:10:07.876 Guard would steal from the ice cream vendor at the 0:10:07.916 --> 0:10:12.916 beach and think it funny. He was that guy. Guard 0:10:12.956 --> 0:10:17.196 took to fathering Mickey in an erratic, eccentric way. Mickey 0:10:17.276 --> 0:10:35.636 revered him and feared him. Mickey's stepdad. Guard Chapin was 0:10:35.676 --> 0:10:39.836 a surf pioneer, part of the first generation of Californians 0:10:39.876 --> 0:10:44.716 to try the ancient Polynesian pastime of riding waves in 0:10:44.756 --> 0:10:48.276 the nineteen thirties. When Guard started surfing, it was largely 0:10:48.396 --> 0:10:52.516 unknown on the California coast, just a few extreme guys 0:10:52.796 --> 0:10:57.316 doing a very offbeat thing. The early California surfers rode 0:10:57.396 --> 0:11:01.876 heavy homemade redwood planks. They could weigh over one hundred pounds. 0:11:02.596 --> 0:11:06.396 That's like riding a dining room table, especially when compared 0:11:06.436 --> 0:11:10.756 to the fiberglass potato chips people ride today. Here's Matt 0:11:10.756 --> 0:11:12.716 warshaw surface story in again. 0:11:13.876 --> 0:11:17.516 Before the war, surfboards were mostly all wood. They were 0:11:17.516 --> 0:11:21.036 either hollow or solid wood, and they were mostly finless, 0:11:21.476 --> 0:11:22.636 and so there. 0:11:22.516 --> 0:11:23.436 Wasn't much control. 0:11:24.236 --> 0:11:27.116 Most of the early surfers didn't move around on the wave. 0:11:27.596 --> 0:11:32.036 They just went straight locked into a rigid statuesque stance. 0:11:33.036 --> 0:11:33.796 A lot of it was. 0:11:33.796 --> 0:11:37.276 Just standing up and looking good, just sort of holding 0:11:37.316 --> 0:11:39.516 your arms or your shoulders a certain way and just 0:11:39.556 --> 0:11:41.236 trying to look like you were in control. 0:11:42.036 --> 0:11:46.676 Guard didn't do that. Guard was a charger. You do 0:11:46.756 --> 0:11:48.876 this move where he would drop to one knee and 0:11:48.956 --> 0:11:50.996 cut back toward the breaking part of the wave to 0:11:51.036 --> 0:11:53.916 pick up speed and momentum, then turn back toward the 0:11:53.996 --> 0:11:56.116 unbroken wave and fly. 0:11:57.236 --> 0:11:59.956 If you're riding the right kind of wave and you're 0:11:59.956 --> 0:12:02.756 coming in at an angle and the wave's barely breaking, 0:12:02.836 --> 0:12:04.836 and you do a big swooping turn kind of back 0:12:04.876 --> 0:12:07.636 towards breaking a little bit more. 0:12:07.196 --> 0:12:07.996 It's a cutback. 0:12:09.156 --> 0:12:13.516 Ving to Matt, Guard invented the cutback. That's like in 0:12:13.596 --> 0:12:17.756 skiing being the person who invented the pole plant, and. 0:12:17.716 --> 0:12:19.716 The surfers who were all around in the forties, there 0:12:19.716 --> 0:12:22.716 were the surfers that everyone sort of heard of, much 0:12:22.756 --> 0:12:26.316 more famous than Guard to a man, and it's all 0:12:26.396 --> 0:12:28.836 men say that Guard was the guy. 0:12:28.996 --> 0:12:30.436 He was the high performance guy. 0:12:31.596 --> 0:12:35.356 Guard surfed just like he lived on the edge of aggression, 0:12:35.916 --> 0:12:36.956 spoiling for a fight. 0:12:37.636 --> 0:12:40.276 Guard Chapin knew how to turn his board ride high. 0:12:40.356 --> 0:12:44.916 He could literally surf past surfers, and as he was 0:12:44.956 --> 0:12:47.116 doing that, he'd beat, you know, yelling. 0:12:46.796 --> 0:12:47.836 Abuse at everybody. 0:12:47.876 --> 0:12:50.836 He just get out of here, coop coming through. And 0:12:51.036 --> 0:12:51.956 that was Guard Chapin. 0:12:52.036 --> 0:12:52.356 He was. 0:12:52.596 --> 0:12:55.276 He was the best surfer. He was the most aggressive surfer. 0:12:57.396 --> 0:13:00.396 Guard was a regular at Santa Nofre, a long stretch 0:13:00.436 --> 0:13:03.116 of beach in Orange County where the waves are soft 0:13:03.156 --> 0:13:07.116 and crumbly and roll in one after the next. It 0:13:07.236 --> 0:13:10.556 was a community. The surfers made big bonfires and brought 0:13:10.556 --> 0:13:14.876 their ukuleles and slept on the beach. After Guard got 0:13:14.876 --> 0:13:18.156 together with Mickey's mom, Ramona, he started taking Mickey there 0:13:18.996 --> 0:13:23.116 and sometimes he just left him there to fend for himself. 0:13:25.316 --> 0:13:29.916 Mickey's nickname at Sano was Meatball. He was a sandy, 0:13:30.036 --> 0:13:33.876 sunburned version of a Victorian street urchin. He had a 0:13:33.916 --> 0:13:37.396 reputation as a petty thief, and Mickey was. 0:13:37.436 --> 0:13:40.676 Just this, I mean, middle school age kid hanging around 0:13:40.716 --> 0:13:42.636 these older guys and going up the point to go 0:13:42.756 --> 0:13:46.596 serve a place called Trestles and stealing food to sort 0:13:46.596 --> 0:13:48.996 of he was hungry, and he was just sort of 0:13:49.076 --> 0:13:52.876 semi abandoned, having a great time, I think, having a 0:13:52.956 --> 0:13:56.156 huge adventure. But you know, then Guard would show up 0:13:56.276 --> 0:13:58.476 later on and say where's Mickey, and somebody would find 0:13:58.516 --> 0:14:02.516 him and off they'd go back up to La. 0:14:04.036 --> 0:14:08.196 Over time, miklosch Mickey's father began to lose influence over 0:14:08.236 --> 0:14:12.276 his son. Miklos was busy at his restaurant Little Hungary, 0:14:12.676 --> 0:14:15.236 a reality that Guard seemed to make a mockery of. 0:14:16.116 --> 0:14:18.436 He would come into the restaurant, hot off the beach, 0:14:18.716 --> 0:14:21.956 Mickey in toe, shouting that his wife owned the place. 0:14:23.156 --> 0:14:26.036 Guard and his sidekick Mickey would storm into the kitchen 0:14:26.116 --> 0:14:27.956 and grab whatever food they wanted. 0:14:28.756 --> 0:14:28.956 You know. 0:14:29.076 --> 0:14:31.356 For his part, Miklos, who I get the feeling, was 0:14:31.396 --> 0:14:33.916 just sort of in over his head because again he's 0:14:33.956 --> 0:14:36.676 the one coming over from far away, and he was 0:14:36.876 --> 0:14:41.996 very handsome, sophisticated. He also loved the beach. But with 0:14:42.116 --> 0:14:45.276 Guard and with Ramona, Miklos still had the thick accent. 0:14:45.596 --> 0:14:47.476 He can only be so sort of so cool. 0:14:48.516 --> 0:14:53.596 Guard seemed determined to turn Mickey into an American boy. 0:14:53.756 --> 0:14:57.836 Over Miklos's objections, he forced Micky to get circumcised at 0:14:57.836 --> 0:15:04.236 the age of twelve. I wonder what kind of mockery Guard, 0:15:04.716 --> 0:15:08.676 a quote unquote arian and a xenophobe, subjected Mickey too. 0:15:09.396 --> 0:15:13.356 This dark, complexed child from Budapest whose father spoke heavily 0:15:13.396 --> 0:15:19.596 accented English. God was a carpenter and worked with a 0:15:19.676 --> 0:15:23.716 legendary surfboard shaper named Bob Simmons. Micky hung around the 0:15:23.756 --> 0:15:27.476 shop and learned a lot from them, but as an adult, 0:15:27.556 --> 0:15:30.676 he really didn't talk that much about God and his influence. 0:15:31.836 --> 0:15:38.076 Occasionally he dropped cryptic hints about God's odd disciplinary programs. Once, 0:15:38.156 --> 0:15:40.516 toward the end of his life, Mickey made the offhand 0:15:40.516 --> 0:15:45.516 remark that God was a dangerous psychopath. When Nicky did 0:15:45.556 --> 0:15:49.916 open up about God, the stories were alcohol soaked and violent. 0:15:51.436 --> 0:15:52.956 Every now and then Micky would get in sort of 0:15:52.956 --> 0:15:56.516 a confessional mode and say, yeah, you know. Guard used 0:15:56.516 --> 0:15:58.876 to come home drunk, wake me up, and beat the 0:15:58.916 --> 0:16:01.996 shit out of me. There was a lot of famous 0:16:02.036 --> 0:16:04.516 surfers from that period in the forties and fifties who 0:16:04.556 --> 0:16:07.276 said all seemed to say the same thing, which was 0:16:07.276 --> 0:16:10.316 that they thought he was, you know, in their words, 0:16:10.316 --> 0:16:13.556 the living in when it came to surfing. But he 0:16:13.716 --> 0:16:16.196 was just someone that you want to do keep a 0:16:16.396 --> 0:16:18.836 distance from at a party, you know, especially as it 0:16:18.876 --> 0:16:20.636 got later. He just wanted to sort of stay away 0:16:20.636 --> 0:16:23.196 from him. The story that I've been told a few times, 0:16:23.236 --> 0:16:26.076 and I think Mickey tells the story, is that one 0:16:26.156 --> 0:16:30.996 night Guard came home drunk, woke up, Mickey said, come 0:16:30.996 --> 0:16:35.076 with me, and they drove somewhere in LA. I don't 0:16:35.116 --> 0:16:37.316 know what street it was, but it was the first 0:16:37.316 --> 0:16:41.956 street where La had just put in parking meters and 0:16:42.036 --> 0:16:45.196 Guard got out of the car drunk. He grabbed a 0:16:45.196 --> 0:16:47.436 baseball bat and just went down the block and just 0:16:48.516 --> 0:16:51.996 smashed the head off every meter and said something like, 0:16:51.996 --> 0:16:53.556 this is what they're trying to do to us. Mickey, 0:16:53.556 --> 0:16:55.796 look at what they're trying to do. And then, you know, 0:16:56.396 --> 0:16:58.036 I don't even know why he had to have Mickey there, 0:16:58.036 --> 0:17:00.236 but he wanted Nicky to see him doing this, committing 0:17:00.276 --> 0:17:02.076 this act of violence because you know, the city of 0:17:02.196 --> 0:17:05.996 la or you know the county was you know, screwing them, 0:17:06.276 --> 0:17:09.756 screwing everybody over by putting in parking meters, put Mickey 0:17:09.836 --> 0:17:11.876 back in the car and drove home and passed out. 0:17:13.996 --> 0:17:16.676 I do think Mickey later realized that Guard. 0:17:16.596 --> 0:17:17.116 Was a monster. 0:17:18.916 --> 0:17:22.116 Miklos Senior grew concerned that Mickey might be in danger 0:17:22.636 --> 0:17:24.236 and did the best thing he could think of at 0:17:24.236 --> 0:17:24.596 the time. 0:17:25.836 --> 0:17:29.636 At one point, when Guard and Ramona were both being 0:17:29.676 --> 0:17:35.356 you know, sort of particularly bad parents, Miklos sent Mickey 0:17:35.396 --> 0:17:40.476 to a boarding school, and Mickey hated. 0:17:40.156 --> 0:17:44.396 That Mickey was sent to Saint John's Military Academy, which 0:17:44.476 --> 0:17:46.996 was run by the Sisters of Mercy Nuns. 0:17:47.276 --> 0:17:50.036 I do think that Miklos did that not as punishment. 0:17:50.036 --> 0:17:52.076 I think that he felt that Mickey, living with Guard 0:17:52.236 --> 0:17:54.756 and Ramona was in a situation that Mickey needed to 0:17:54.796 --> 0:17:55.556 be removed from. 0:17:56.676 --> 0:18:00.996 Mickey wasn't cut out for military boarding school if a domineering, 0:18:01.196 --> 0:18:05.156 unpredictable stepfather had given him an uneasy relationship to authority 0:18:05.996 --> 0:18:11.676 a bunch of drill sergeants and nuns only intensive. Mickey 0:18:12.076 --> 0:18:15.676 was not a good boy at school. There's even a 0:18:15.716 --> 0:18:19.436 story of him putting fiberglass shavings from shaping a surfboard 0:18:19.916 --> 0:18:24.996 in the head nuns Cotex. Micky was about fourteen when 0:18:25.036 --> 0:18:29.596 Miklosch sold Little Hungary. Miklosch, who had remarried and fathered 0:18:29.596 --> 0:18:32.876 a daughter, moved to South America to get into shrimp farming. 0:18:34.476 --> 0:18:40.676 Micky was set adrift, but on the beach he was someone. 0:18:41.596 --> 0:18:47.356 He was Mickey Chapin Guard's kid. He wasn't abandoned. He 0:18:47.476 --> 0:19:06.156 decided he was free. When Mickey Dora became a famous 0:19:06.156 --> 0:19:09.316 surfer in the nineteen sixties, an interviewer for so For 0:19:09.436 --> 0:19:11.996 magazine asked him why he had dropped the name Chapin. 0:19:12.876 --> 0:19:19.436 Mickey's answer quote, Guard's untimely, premeditated murder in Mexico can 0:19:19.556 --> 0:19:23.796 only be linked with his individualistic personality. For my own 0:19:23.796 --> 0:19:26.076 peace of mind, I felt it would be safer to 0:19:26.196 --> 0:19:29.996 use my given name. The events that led up to 0:19:30.036 --> 0:19:34.276 Gard's death in the late fifties were depressing, a noirresh 0:19:34.356 --> 0:19:38.156 downward spiral for the beautiful Ramona and her surfing stud 0:19:39.236 --> 0:19:41.036 surf historian Matt Warshaw. 0:19:42.396 --> 0:19:45.676 Guard was rear ended while waiting in a traffic light 0:19:46.116 --> 0:19:49.996 and broke his neck and he couldn't work and he 0:19:49.996 --> 0:19:52.596 couldn't surf for something like a year. He was in 0:19:52.676 --> 0:19:55.956 a lot of pain for the rest of his life, 0:19:56.516 --> 0:19:59.676 and that didn't help with his drinking, so he became 0:19:59.716 --> 0:20:03.316 a worse drunk and he would dry out and then 0:20:03.436 --> 0:20:04.356 go back to drinking. 0:20:05.556 --> 0:20:09.076 Ramona and Guard broke up, and Ramona became a secretary downtown, 0:20:09.716 --> 0:20:14.036 living in hotels with various boyfriends. According to Mickey's half 0:20:14.076 --> 0:20:17.916 brother God and Ramona's son, Guard got addicted to codine, 0:20:18.156 --> 0:20:21.596 an absinthe that he smuggled in from Mexico. He was 0:20:21.636 --> 0:20:25.996 already a liability. Now he came fully unglued. 0:20:27.076 --> 0:20:29.036 At some point he was down in Mexico, I think, 0:20:29.076 --> 0:20:32.996 fishing and trying to not drink, and then he was 0:20:33.036 --> 0:20:35.836 going to row a dinghy out to a friend's boat. 0:20:36.156 --> 0:20:38.396 And the dingy turned up the next day, and Guard's 0:20:38.436 --> 0:20:41.036 body turned up five days later. And it looks like 0:20:41.116 --> 0:20:43.836 he just had been drinking or something and fell off 0:20:43.836 --> 0:20:49.076 the boat or some kind of late night one man accident. 0:20:50.076 --> 0:20:53.076 Micky talked about it as if Guard knew too much 0:20:53.116 --> 0:20:55.596 about too many people and he was killed, you know, 0:20:55.836 --> 0:21:00.596 And again you're just cutting through layers of weirdness. Micky 0:21:00.676 --> 0:21:03.436 tried to make it sound like Guard was murdered, which 0:21:03.476 --> 0:21:04.156 I don't think is. 0:21:04.116 --> 0:21:09.036 True, but Mickey believed it, or said he did. He 0:21:09.196 --> 0:21:14.316 hinted at dark conspiracies. Micky told his friends that Guard 0:21:14.596 --> 0:21:20.476 knew too much about what he said. The state was 0:21:20.516 --> 0:21:25.756 somehow after him. It was all very mysterious. What's clear 0:21:26.556 --> 0:21:29.356 is that Mickey was not the same after Guard's death. 0:21:30.196 --> 0:21:35.356 He became more enigmatic, more paranoid, but he also started 0:21:35.356 --> 0:21:38.716 to seem much less like a California kid and more 0:21:38.796 --> 0:21:44.836 like a European dandy. Mickey was back in touch with 0:21:44.876 --> 0:21:48.156 his birth father, Miklosch, who had returned from South America 0:21:48.316 --> 0:21:52.196 and was working in the wine business. Eventually, Mikloch would 0:21:52.196 --> 0:21:55.716 work for the eminent winemaker Baron de Rothschild, representing his 0:21:55.796 --> 0:22:00.236 wines in the United States and frequently traveling back to Europe. 0:22:00.516 --> 0:22:03.436 He got Mickey a job working for a distributor, but 0:22:03.516 --> 0:22:07.556 it didn't last. Micky slept with the boss's wife. That 0:22:07.676 --> 0:22:11.916 was okay. Didn't want to work, he wanted to surf. 0:22:13.796 --> 0:22:18.036 Rerent wasn't an issue. Micky crashed with Mieklosch's mother, Nadina 0:22:18.076 --> 0:22:21.716 at her place in West Hollywood. Nadina, who was born 0:22:21.756 --> 0:22:24.196 in Russian spent most of her adult life in Vienna, 0:22:24.596 --> 0:22:27.276 was a voice coach, known to her students as Madame 0:22:27.356 --> 0:22:31.956 de Sanctis. Now Mickey started talking with an accent and 0:22:32.036 --> 0:22:36.316 using quirky Eastern European hand gestures. It was like he 0:22:36.436 --> 0:22:42.596 was becoming some impressionistic air quotes version of Miklosch. When 0:22:42.636 --> 0:22:46.556 Guard died, Mickey Chapin died with him. From then on, 0:22:46.756 --> 0:22:50.156 in most circumstances, he would be known as Mickey Dora. 0:22:50.916 --> 0:22:56.996 The name and the mannerisms would stick. Matt Warshaw again, Mickey. 0:22:56.676 --> 0:23:00.316 Dora did have this way of talking that apparently everybody 0:23:00.316 --> 0:23:02.876 at maliveryone else where would started emulating where you know, 0:23:02.996 --> 0:23:04.956 a lot of sort of hand gestures and a lot 0:23:04.956 --> 0:23:06.796 of there was sort of a pause in the way, 0:23:06.956 --> 0:23:09.836 and it wasn't He didn't talk like other surfers at all. 0:23:09.876 --> 0:23:12.796 There was none of that kind of California nasally thing 0:23:13.196 --> 0:23:15.476 that surfers do. You know. He talked in a sort 0:23:15.476 --> 0:23:18.436 of a precise way. Or if you see people in conversation, 0:23:18.556 --> 0:23:22.596 you'd see people doing these kind of gestures that Mickey did, 0:23:23.676 --> 0:23:25.676 and it was all kind of old world. Somehow it 0:23:26.076 --> 0:23:30.156 wasn't southern California surfy stuff. That's all coming from Miklos 0:23:30.356 --> 0:23:30.836 the father. 0:23:35.556 --> 0:23:40.716 He was this really uneasy split between two very different fathers. 0:23:41.636 --> 0:23:41.876 DV. 0:23:41.996 --> 0:23:45.956 Divasentis, the film writer was fascinated by Mickey's two dads 0:23:46.276 --> 0:23:47.236 and how they shaped him. 0:23:47.956 --> 0:23:53.036 He had Michlas as his birth father, who was this erudite, aristocratic, 0:23:53.956 --> 0:23:57.756 accomplished businessman, lover of the arts, expert of fine wine, 0:23:58.036 --> 0:24:01.236 and by all accounts, a real gentleman and a lovely man. 0:24:01.516 --> 0:24:05.796 And then you had Guard his stepfather, who is, you know, 0:24:06.116 --> 0:24:10.236 widely recognized to be a very very difficult, problematic person, 0:24:10.596 --> 0:24:13.956 and he was paranoid, He fought a lot, loved guns. 0:24:14.116 --> 0:24:18.396 He was a very angry man by all accounts. And 0:24:18.636 --> 0:24:21.276 you can see both of these things in Mickey. You 0:24:21.316 --> 0:24:26.676 can see all of the appreciation of art and imagination 0:24:27.156 --> 0:24:31.996 and curiosity about culture and seeing culture where others might not. 0:24:32.436 --> 0:24:38.676 And then you also see the fierce, almost violent protectionism 0:24:38.716 --> 0:24:43.796 about territory and paranoia, thinking people want to know what 0:24:43.796 --> 0:24:46.516 you're doing, thinking people want to break into your house. 0:24:46.516 --> 0:24:48.196 I mean, Mickey had a bear trap inside of his 0:24:48.196 --> 0:24:51.236 front door. There's nobody trying to break into Mickey's house. 0:24:51.276 --> 0:24:52.876 Nobody cares for Mikula, you know what I mean, Like 0:24:53.236 --> 0:24:57.956 it's paranoid, and you see these very distinct fathers very 0:24:57.996 --> 0:24:59.556 much alive in him. 0:24:59.956 --> 0:25:03.676 As a child, Mickey had been more or less abandoned. 0:25:04.796 --> 0:25:09.436 Ramona hadn't taken care of him, Miklosch hadn't either. Guard 0:25:09.556 --> 0:25:14.836 seemed to mostly nurture Mickey's weaknesses. I get the sense 0:25:14.876 --> 0:25:17.316 that Mickey grew up with this feeling of having been 0:25:17.356 --> 0:25:21.556 denied his birthright, the elegance and sophistication and air of 0:25:21.636 --> 0:25:25.596 wealth that clung to his father, and he was pissed. 0:25:26.876 --> 0:25:30.236 He used to doodle the word retribution on his drawings. 0:25:31.836 --> 0:25:35.996 Mickey wanted that mister Dora suave, but he'd grown up 0:25:36.036 --> 0:25:39.436 with Guard and Guard's questionable ethics. 0:25:40.636 --> 0:25:42.356 I think when it came to the criminal stuff, it's 0:25:42.356 --> 0:25:43.436 a synthesis. 0:25:42.956 --> 0:25:43.676 Of the two. 0:25:43.876 --> 0:25:49.356 It's the willingness to take a sucker from Guard, and 0:25:49.356 --> 0:25:52.876 it's the sophisticated way of doing it is for Michlas. 0:25:56.476 --> 0:25:59.356