It’s not really about her, yet it it is about her – sort of.
67 years ago, Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman was the inspiration for her father’s fictional book about a girl who broke into the men’s world of surfing back in the 50s.
A girl named Gidget.
Actress Sandra Dee is probably the figure most people associate with the title, “Gidget,” because she played the lead role in a Hollywood film based on the 1957 novel.
But there is a face that is the real life Gidget, and that is Kohner-Zuckerman, who is making an appearance in Coronado on July 12 for the Gidget Beach Bash event at the Hotel Del.
“I would share a lot with my dad,” Kohner-Zuckerman said about her father, Frederick Kohner. “I think my dad really captured the essence of a young girl or a tween.”
Kohner-Zuckerman kept a diary of her early life, including visits to the beach in Malibu, her feelings, her crushes. She wanted to write a book, but a diary was as far as she got until she started talking with her father.
Kathy’s love
She loved the ocean. She loved the waves.
The footprints left in the sand and being erased by people she would see everyday in Malibu fascinated her.
That was what Kohner-Zuckerman wanted to write about.
And that was what her father was able to accomplish through her.
The name Gidget came from a portmanteau of the words ‘girl’ and ‘midget’ because the boys at the beach thought she was short and nicknamed her Gidget.
[There is] sort of a philosophical content to it, that it isn’t just about finding a girl on the beach or falling in love with a boy on the beach. There’s that third place out there, the waves, the ocean.
Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman
“[There is] sort of a philosophical content to it, that it isn’t just about finding a girl on the beach or falling in love with a boy on the beach,” Kohner-Zuckerman said. “There’s that third place out there, the waves, the ocean…and then my dad, who is a very successful writer, he said, ‘I’ll write that story for you.’”
The original book was such a hit that it spawned multiple film sequels as well as 1960s TV show, also titled “Gidget.”
Not for her
And Kohner-Zuckerman just wanted to surf – maybe with the boy she thought was cute.
Surfing back then was even more heavily dominated by males than it is today.
But Kohner-Zuckerman didn’t care, and her parents supported her love of the beach.
In the final analysis, she said the story was really just about a young woman in love with a board and the waves.
“I was the only girl in my high school that surfed,” Kohner-Zuckerman said.
A girl wrote to her once, “Good luck with your water skiing,” Kohner-Zuckerman said with a laugh.
And back then, surfing wasn’t really a competitive sport, Kohner-Zuckerman explained.
The sport has been around for hundreds of years, but it was something you did on your own, she added.
“There was no surf music, there was no surf clothes,” Kohner-Zuckerman said. Yet, with the entire world telling her she couldn’t, she knew she wanted to do – what she loved. So, like the fictional Gidget, she ignored naysayers and critics.
Kohner-Zuckerman went to college at Oregon State University, but recalls being different from the girls up north.
She had a poster in her dorm room of a guy surfing a big wave and she had that beachy vibe that some people knew of because of the movie; and here and there she started becoming known as the original Gidget.
Meet Gidget
Today, at 83 years old, she doesn’t surf anymore, but she is still surrounded by the world she once broke into.
Kohner-Zuckerman has worked at Duke’s Malibu for 20 years – the restaurant is named after surfing legend, Duke Kahanamoku – and said she transfers the Gidget spirit to the present at Duke’s.
“I embrace the surf culture. I embrace the aloha spirit,” Kohner-Zuckerman said. “You can have a love when you’re 19 or 20, but you carry that love or lover with you. And that’s how I feel about the beach and surfing and the fact that people like the Gidget story.”
Gidget will be in Coronado for two events put on by the Coronado Island Film Festival, the Gidget Beach Bash on July 12 and a documentary screening on July 13. She will be answering questions following a showing of the 1959 movie with actress Sandra Dee on the 12th and signing books and participating in a Q&A as well on the 13th following the documentary screening.
Tickets are available here.
