American surfer Mike Hynson stands holding his surfboard on a sandy beach in Nigeria, West Africa, 1966. Photo: Getty Images
Mike Hynson epitomised the image of the bronzed surf god as a star of the hit 1966 surfing documentary The Endless Summer. In arguably the most important film made about surfing, Hynson’s surfing skills enraptured audiences and took a pastime often marginalised as a curious ritual of West Coast teenage culture to something to be taken seriously, indeed as a sport. The Californian native was approached by film-maker Bruce Brown in 1963 and asked to travel the world, a offer too good to turn down. Having already been one of the first non-native Hawaiians to ride Pipeline, on the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, he was intimidated by few waves worldwide. Initially rejected by distributors, The Endless Summer went on to gross more than $US30 million. Plunging headlong into drug addiction, Hynson helped make 1972’s Rainbow Bridge a quasi-documentary about narcotics, mysticism and surfing. The law eventually caught up with Hynson, but after serving prison time for drug possession he turned his life around and became a successful surfboard manufacturer. Mike Hynson died on January 10 aged 82. — APL/Agencies
