Aloha No to a guy that has given us countless years of fun. Sadly, Bruce Brown has passed. Gratefully of natural causes(as hopefully we all go). I don’t know about you, but I will be still watching his movies 'til the end. Many thanks for many treasures. R.I.P.
R.I.P. Bruce Brown.
Thanks for the ride Bruce .
I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Endless Summer. Bruce has taken us all over the world. Condolences to his family.
Bruce was a cool guy. His one son, Wade, sanded for me when I owned The Surfing Underground ('81-'89). We went up to Bruce’s house in the canyon below Gaviota on our way to the ranch one day… he had just come back from diving in the islands and was just hanging out. That residence was set up with a large, open. common area with a hand water pump in the kitchen area and some rustic wood furniture and wood paneling throughout. There were large blown up photographs of his illustrious career as a photographer & film maker up high above the paneling in a sort of surround of the immense open area. (There was a real building which must have been the individual bedrooms, etc. .)
Wade told me his dad had done very well from purchasing real estate in the Dana Point area many years before the land/development boom.
He was very cordial, just hanging out in a Rolling Stones lips & tongue t shirt… he reclused even further from the public with the next house way up in the northern ranch area nestled in out of the wind below Government’s.
He had a full life… condolences to Wade and the rest of the Brown family.
When The Endless Summer was released in 35mm format (1966) and played in movie theaters it came to a movie house near me. It was an old theater in the midst of the Brown U campus. After the first viewing, we discovered that you could climb the fire escape and enter through a men’s room window. So, three or four of us would chip in and buy one ticket. The ticket holder would go up to the second floor where the men’s room was and open the window. Then the rest of us would climb the fire escape and sneak in. I saw the movie 22 times during the week it played in Providence 
Here’s my Endless Summer story. I had already seen the film in NYC. The following summer it was playing in Seaside Heights NJ and a few of my friends wanted to go see it. My older brother was kind enough to drive us the five miles to the theater. As I was exiting his car I saw a load of dog crap on the side walk and I was very grateful for not stepping in it. When the movie got out my brother was waiting for us in the exact same spot that he had dropped us off. As soon as all the doors were closed, one of the guys started to complain about the smell. I said close the window it’s the dog crap that I saw on the way in. Low and behold guess who stepped in it?
Bruce not only gave us a great movie, but we still laugh about this story to this day.
I finally just saw the movie the other day. Do those boards have like little to no nose rocker or something? And some of those guys have some proper bottom turns. I’ve never ridden a d fin board like that but I’d imagine it’s hard to project off the bottom. Was one of the waves in south Africa actually j bay, or just one that looked like it?
And in the Pipeline part they said you could drive over a surfboard but not break it, yet pipeline can. Could you really drive over one of those boards with a car from that era? I know they were glassed heavy with wider or multiple stringers but… Those cares were heavy no?
Those cores were heavy, yes.
No. It’s Cape St Francis, just like they say it is in the movie. J Bay is nearby, but a different spot completely.
And, the older boards had slightly denser foam , and were glassed with double 10 oz cloth.
Bruce often varnished his narrative a bit. It was entertainment, after all. Driving a car over one of those boards would severely damaged it, despite the heavier materials and glass job.