Mike Heinsohn embodies the image of a bronzed surfing god as the star of the 1966 hit surfing documentary “Endless Summer,” embodying the sport's rebellious spirit with outlaw instincts and being hailed as a world giant. I walked the path to Carl passed away on January 10th in Encinitas, California at the age of 82.
Donna Claassen Jost, who collaborated with Heinsohn on his 2009 autobiography, Transcendental Memories of a Surf Rebel, confirmed his death at the hospital. The cause is not yet known.
Heinsohn was inspired by a time when surfing was often marginalized as a strange ritual of West Coast teenage culture, thanks to bubbly lunchtime fare like “Beach Blanket Bingo” (1965) and hits by the Beach Boys. was born in He was praised not only for his skill on the waves, but also as a prominent builder of boards, particularly the popular Red Fin longboard he designed for manufacturer Gordon & Smith in 1965.
His life was “one of the greatest surfing lives of all time,” Jake Howard wrote in Surfer Magazine after Hinson's death, calling him “a hot dog performer and model who changed the sport and culture of surfing.” He was described as a genius and a cosmic adventurer. In countless ways. ”
Heinsohn's life became legendary in 1963. Film director Bruce Brown invited him to join fellow young Southern California surfer Robert August on a trek through Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, and Australia. Tahiti, New Zealand and Hawaii fly over the equator to escape the slight winter chill in search of the perfect wave.
Heinsohn was only 21 years old, but he had already built a reputation as a maverick power surfer on the beaches around San Diego. He was brash and aloof, his friends recalled, but not without reason. He had already proven his mettle as one of the first non-Native Hawaiians to ride the Pipeline on Hawaii's Oahu's North Shore, also known as the most dangerous wave. 1961 in the world.
He certainly looked camera-ready, with his caramel tan and sun-bleached hair pulled back into a Dracula-esque pomade, a hairstyle that would soon be emulated by surfers around the world.
Mr. Brown's project required only $50,000 in funding, and the stars had to pay for their own tickets around the world. To finance the trip, Heinsohn turned to Hobby Alter, a famous board manufacturer where he previously worked, to provide $1,400 for airfare, but he said, “A few years ago, I stole nine surfboards.'' “Nevertheless,” he wrote in a 2017 paper. Interview with the British newspaper The Guardian.
Unbeknownst to his Strictly associates, Heinsohn had brought with him a stash of amphetamines and a three-month supply of Tijuana marijuana. “I was young and stupid and full,” he said in a 2009 interview with OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California.
Their first stop was Senegal, where locals were “bellyboarding in the waves using wooden planks,” Heinsohn told the Guardian. “So when they saw Robert and I standing there surfing, they were blown away.”
A bigger game awaited them. Heinsohn finally found their quarry at Cape St. Francis on the south coast of South Africa. As Surfer Magazine once described him, he was “the perfect reeling right-hand man, invisible to the surfer.”
“The first time Mike rode it, he knew within the first five seconds that he had finally found the perfect wave,” Brown said in the narration of “Endless Summer.” The waves “looked like they were made by some kind of machine,” he added. The ride was so long that I couldn't fit it into one film. ”
In his autobiography, Heinsohn recalled the experience as follows: It was electric. The hair on my neck stood on end. ”
Michael Leah Heinsohn was born on June 28, 1942 in Crescent City, California, near the Oregon border, the eldest of two sons of Robert and Grace (Wheaton) Heinsohn, an engineer who worked in the Navy. Ta. During his early years, the family divided their time between Hawaii and San Diego, finally settling in Southern California when he was 10 years old. As a teenager, he started surfing with a crew called the Sultans.
After graduating from San Diego's La Jolla High School, Heinsohn found himself dodging letters from draft boards during the early years of the Vietnam conflict. “I have been avoiding them for three years,” he writes in his book. The film's trip around the world “was the miracle I needed,” he added.
This journey came with many challenges. During a layover in Mumbai en route from South Africa to Australia, Heinsohn took five canisters of 16mm film containing rare footage of Cape St. Francis in order to evade Indian customs officials who had confiscated his cameras. I had to tape it under my baggy Hawaiian shirt. Use film to crack down on unauthorized photography.
Distributors initially showed little interest. Warner Bros., Heinsohn wrote, “predicted that it would never be more than 10 miles from the beach.” Mr. Brown ultimately proved them wrong, forming a line around the block during a snowstorm for a screening in Wichita, Kansas. “Endless Summer'' grossed more than $30 million at the box office.
By the late 1960s, Hinson set out on another quest. This time it was to find enlightenment with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a group of psychonauts and drug smugglers in the Laguna Beach area. The Brotherhood combined elements of Eastern religion with a belief in the transformative powers of psychedelic drugs, and trafficked in such quantities that authorities branded them the “hippie mafia.”
Heinsohn was soon taking LSD regularly, but was able to evade arrest and move on to other films. He was the mastermind behind Rainbow Bridge (1972), which was originally conceived as a surfing movie. Directed by Chuck Wein, a protégé of Andy Warhol, the film evolves into a pseudo-documentary about mysticism, surfing, and drugs, culminating in a Jimi Hendrix concert at the foot of Maui's Haleakalā volcano.
In one scene, Hinson enthusiastically breaks a surfboard and removes a hidden bag of hashish (actually Ovaltine), echoing the smuggling tactics he used with the Brotherhood.
Despite the film's dizzying portrayal of drug use, Heinsohn's addiction to drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamines, led to a steep decline, with him eventually being sentenced to prison for drug possession. was invited. “I hit rock bottom,” he told OC Weekly. “Then it stayed there for a while.”
He eventually snapped out of the spiral and started making surfboards again. He believed his ex-wife, former Ford Agency model Melinda Merryweather, and his longtime partner, Carol Hannigan, to be “angels.”
Mr. Hannigan is survived by his son from his first marriage, Michael Heinsohn Jr.;
In a 1986 video interview, Heinsohn reflected on his perfect ride in South Africa and wondered whether he and his comrades thereby fabricated the illusion of surfing, or simply the illusion of surfing already embedded in the consciousness of surfers. I wondered if it was just a reflection. “What if there wasn't 'Endless Summer,'” he asked. “Do you think the quest for the perfect wave was still there? Do you think anyone would care?”
“I didn’t really care,” he said. “But when I saw it, it was clear to me that we had burst the bubble and made our dream come true.”
