“He was a golden boy and everyone wanted to be like
him.”
The wildly gorgeous and athletic star of the 1966 breakout
hit Endless Summer, Californian surfer Mr Mike Hynson, died a
few hours ago in Encinitas, California.
His step-daughter Haley Ogden wrote on Facebook,
“Mom’s partner and best friend in life, out stepdad for 24
years, passed away today at 12:38pm. In the surfing community he
was a legend and known as Mike Hynson from Endless Summer. To us he
was family and we all loved him with all of our hearts. This
doesn’t feel like real life right now. There’s so much to share
about Mike but for now I’m gonna leave it short and sweet because I
can’t even process this. We are so heartbroken I can’t even
articulate the words to describe how much our hearts are
hurting.”
This is how Warshaw tells the story
of Mike Hynson:
In 1963, right when Hynson began looking for a reason to leave
the country to avoid the draft, filmmaker Bruce Brown asked if he
wanted to go around the world to shoot The Endless
Summer. Hynson jumped at the chance. The blond-haired
regularfooter was paired with dark-haired goofyfooter Robert
August; along with Brown, the two surfers visited Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii. Hynson’s sublime first
ride at Cape St. Francis—the right-breaking point surf the group
discovered in South Africa, memorably presented as the answer to
“the search for the perfect wave”—was the movie’s high point.
Hynson was a surfer of great composure, never straining, and
subtly arranging his arms, legs, head, and torso into positions
that would come to define proper surfing style. He was one of the
sport’s great masters of trim, often letting his board run on a
straight, elegant line. Handsome and cocky, Hynson was also a
trendsetter on the beach, with surf racks on his Jaguar sports car,
a wardrobe full of stylish clothes, and his hair always combed
neatly back from his forehead, even while in the water. “He was the
golden boy,” his former wife said in 2001, “and everyone wanted to
be like him.”
We finally got to this huge point, and pulled into a little
village, and got ourselves a couple of little clay and straw huts
called rondavels. We’d been driving for three straight days, and
I’m the 72-hour man, baby. I had a little tube of Benzedrine, and
my little bag of grass. I was prepared. Purely medicinal, all
right? I didn’t want to sleep. I was in Africa, man!
I woke up before sunrise and walked down to the beach by myself.
Robert had diarrhea. I was looking way up the point and saw these
unreal waves coming through. I watched and watched until I couldn’t
stand it anymore, then I started screaming and woke everybody up.
They were tired, didn’t want to be hassled, but I knew this was it!
Finally, Bruce and Robert stumbled out of their huts, and I pointed
up the point, but they weren’t into it! It was too far away, they
said. So they started setting up the cameras there in the bay, to
film these crappy little waves! I was fuming! I was yelling at
Bruce, “Goddamit, get those cameras up to that point! Look at those
waves!” But Bruce made Robert paddle out at this shitty little
shorebreak left, and started filming. Meanwhile, I’m looking at
most perfect waves I’d ever seen! They were looking up there too,
but all they saw was the long stretch of beach. They didn’t know
what they were looking at, man! So I starting walking up the point,
alone. About halfway up the beach, everything just went WHOOOOSH!!!
And a big voice said “Michael, do you want an experience? Do you
want to see God?” It was same the feeling I used to get when I’d
anticipate a hole-in-one. Walking up that point at Cape St.
Francis, it was just like when you hit the ball 200 yards into the
wind, and you turn your back and don’t even have to watch it, cause
you just know it’s going in the cup.
I paddled out by myself, and it was Heaven on earth. Just
golden. My paddling was absolutely perfect. Total economy. My
fingers dipped in just deep enough to shoot me forward. I watched
these waves going down the point, and I thought to
myself, “less movement, more perfect.” So I took off on that
first wave and stood absolutely still. It’s hard
to fathom unless you’ve experienced waves like that. And I
rode that way for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, down in the bay, I could just make out Bruce and
Robert jumping up and down, freaking out. They finally realized
what I was doing! And I see them pack up their gear and run up the
beach with all their crap. August is so blown away, he’s running as
fast as he can, baby. He dragged his board all the way! He paddled
out like he was in a race, man, and immediately got into it. Bruce
got his shit together on the beach, pulled a blanket over his head,
and started filming. We knew that there was only an hour before the
tide was gonna wax it. Bruce did not move from under that blanket
for 90 minutes! He never took his finger off the button! He’d rip
one film cartridge of the camera, and pop in another, just BOOM!
And that was it, baby. We all knew what had happened, that we’d
just made the movie.
RIP ol Mike Hynson.
