Miki Dora

Miki "Da Cat" Dora ( born August 11, 1934 in Budapest, Hungary Miklós Sándor Dóra; † January 3, 2002 in Montecito, California ) was a stylist of surfers on the beaches of Malibu in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century. Dora worked both as a stunt double and as a performer with several movies and played himself in the film The Endless Summer Surf and Surfers: The Movie. Dora is one of the most important surfers of the 20th century.

Career

Dora's parents Miklos and Ramona Dóra divorced when he was six years old. In the 50s, bought Dora's stepfather, who was then known surfer Gard Chapin, the boy a new longboard the designer Joe Quigg, decreed the first time about special fins, and brought him to the California beaches to surf at. In the following years, the beach and surfing became increasingly Dora's life mission. Due to its extraordinary technical ability, his relaxed style and his social behavior, he acquired over the years in the then small local surf community nicknamed "Da Cat".

The great commercial success of Frederick Kohners novel Gidget (1957 ) and on this based film April discovers the men ( Gidget, 1959) drew the following decade a wave of so-called surfer movies by himself, playing usually in the region of Malibu and the popularity sport and the beach area increased enormously. Dora took in many of these productions the stunts and played due to his name recognition in 1966 in The Endless Summer finally itself

During the same period Dora took repeated part in various competitions and won Surf eg 1967 trophy at the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championships on Oahu's North Shore.

The increasing number of technically uninhibited surf beginners to his favorite beaches as well as the concomitant overcrowding of the waves themselves were met with Dora in the course of the 1960s more and more on great resentment. The same was true for the ever more kommerzialisierende competitive scene. As he demonstrated this by his behavior towards beginners and officials repeatedly on the water and on land, he soon received a second nickname, "The Black Knight ". Dora then be decorated board with a swastika and was known to carry regularly beginners who crossed his waves with tricks from the board into the water.

While increasingly felt repelled by the effects of the surf boom Dora, he went at the same time in the 1960s a business partnership with the surfer legend Greg Noll a, the weekly up to 175 Da Cat surfboards manufactured in a row and sold. His last competition in 1967 at the Malibu Invitational Surf Classics ended Dora in front of thousands of spectators, by himself, as he along a shaft slid in the semifinals, turned on his board with his back to the audience and organizers, over bent it and his naked rump presented.

Dora's public image in these years was a lasting influence over again by these and many similar unconventional behaviors.

Dora left in the early 1970s, the United States and surfed and lived in the next three decades, including in South Africa, Australia, the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean. He had mainly in France center of his life. He financed his life in these years repeatedly with fake credit cards and bad checks, after his return to the United States in the early 1980s he first had in custody.

After his release, Dora lived again and again in Guéthary in the French department of Pyrénées- Atlantiques and was invited as one of the " legends " of surfing regular meeting of international surfing scene.

After Dora had fought for half a year against a pancreatic tumor, he died on 3 January 2002 in his father's house in Montecito Miklós Dóra.

The magazine LA Weekly summed Dora's life in 2006 as follows:

" [ ... ] If you Took James Dean's cool, Muhammad Ali's poetics, Harry Houdini's slipperiness, James Bond's jet -setting, George Carlin 's irony and Kwai Chang Caine 's Zen, and rolled them into one man with a longboard under his arm, you ' d come up with something like Miki Dora, surfing 's mythical antihero, otherwise known as the Black Knight of Malibu. [ ... ] His surfboard what his magic carpet and his wits were his wings, and from the late '60s up until his death in 2002, excepting a couple postage prison stints, Dora lived the Endless Summer lifestyle, -defining What It Means to be a surfer [ ... ]. "

" [ ... ] If one were to James Dean's cool, Muhammad Ali's poetry, Harry Houdini's suppleness, James Bond's jet set life, George Carlin's irony and Kwai Chang Caine's Zen and put it all in one [ single ] man with a longboard under his arm, so would someone like Miki Dora out, the mythical anti-hero of surfing, also known as the Black Knight of Malibu. [ ... ] his surfboard was his magic carpet and his mind was his wing. From the late 60s until his death in 2002, lived Dora, with a few short stays in prison, the lifestyle of the "Endless Summer" and defined as what it means to be a surfer. [ ... ]. "

Steve Pezman, publisher of the trade publication Surfer's Journal described life Doras as follows:

" [ ... ] He's probably the most notable California surfer in the history of the sport [ ... ] If you had to pick one surfer did epitomized California surfing in the 20th century, it would be Miki Dora - everything that's wrong with it and everything that's right with it. "

" [ ... ] He is probably the most prestigious Californian surfers in the history of the sport [ ... ] When you select a surfer would that represents the epitome of surfing in California of the 20th century, it would be Miki Dora - with all which in this [ sport ] is wrong and right. "

Film rights

The Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way production company acquired in 2004 the rights to the biography of David Rensin All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora. Various discussions with Dora herself had failed in the years before his death again and again. Among other things, had both Art Linson and John Milius tried to appropriate projects.

Double Surf Scenes ( excerpt)

• Beach Party (1963 )
• Surf Party (1964 )
• Muscle Beach Party (1964 )
• Bikini Beach ( 1964)
• Beach Blanket Bingo (1965 )
• Ski Party (1965 )
• How to Stuff a Wild Bikini ( 1965)

Publications

• Miklos S. Dora: The Aquatic Ape, The Surfer's Journal, 2003, Volume 12 NO. 1 ( online at surfersjournal.com (. Jpg) )

Documentation

• Surfers: The Movie (1990 )
• Beaches of the Sixties ... surf forever ( Samuel Lajus, ARTE, France, 2010, 43mn )
• In Search of da Cat (1996 )

Literature on Miki Dora

• Drew Kampion, C. R. Stecyk: Dora Lives: The Authorized Story of Miki Dora. T. Adler ( U.S. ), 2005, ISBN 1-890481-17-3.
• David Rensin: All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora. It Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-06-077331-1.
• Greg Noll: The Saga of Da Cat, The Surfer 's Journal, May 12, 2010 (PDF)
• Mickey Dora - The angry young man of surfing, surf magazine, October 1963 ( cover story )
• Malibu Characters and Waves, surf guide, ' Malibu Issue ' November 1964 ( cover story )
• Chris Mauro: Breaking Dora 's Code, Surfer Magazine, April 2008
• Joel Tudor: # 14: Miki Dora - Surfer Celebreates the 50 Greatest Surfers of All Time, Surfer Magazine, online at surfermag.com
• Sheila Weller: Malibu 's Lost Boys; Surfing what quiet a strange and exotic art in 1961, When Mike Nader, Duane King, and Larry Shaw escaped Their troubled homes for the beach at Malibu., Vanity Fair, August 1, 2006, online at surfwriter.net