By Carrie Bell
Kathy Kohner Zuckerman was the inspiration behind the Hollywood character as the real-life Gidget surfing in Malibu, Calif.
“It’s bitchin.”
Not exactly the words one expects to hear come out of an 85-year-old woman’s mouth to sum up the opposites-attract origin story of her six decades-long marriage. But then again, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman isn’t your average little old lady. Although she is definitely little, rather famously so, as Zuckerman is Gidget.
Yes, that Gidget. The one played by Sandra Dee in a series of beach-party movies starting in 1959 and by future Oscar winner, then-unknown Sally Field in a 1965 TV series. The character, whose nickname is a portmanteau of girl and midget, alongside a storyline about a plucky, pint-sized and boy-crazy teenager determined to learn to surf in order to win the hearts and minds of the exclusively male 1950s Malibu surf scene were based on the bestselling novel Zuckerman’s father Frederick Kohner published in 1957.
“I forget that some people don’t know that the book, movies and the TV show were based on a real person and I myself always think of ‘Gidget’ as my father’s success, not mine even though it was based on my experiences,” Zuckerman said. “My father was a great listener and never judged, so I told him everything. I also kept extensive notes in my diaries.”
Zuckerman had no idea her teenage escapades would make her a role model and spark copycat interest in surfing. The Brentwood native first learned to hang 10 because her parent dragged her to the beach every Saturday for “fresh air,” and surfing looked like more fun than sitting bored with her parents and their friends.
“I thought it might be fun to go to a movie with other girls but they insisted I go with them,” she said. “I started noticing people surfing and my mom would even pick up surfers along the way in her Model T. I was bored and athletic so I figured, ‘If they’re going to keep making me go, I’m going to buy a board.’”
According to her diaries, Zuckerman hopped on board for the first time on June 24, 1956, and she was hooked. Not only did she fall in love with the sport’s lack of competitiveness, but also paddling out with the immense “sense of freedom” she felt when it was “just her and a wave.” Although, she does admit that it didn’t hurt that point breaks were full of boys.
“I was boy crazy,” she recalled. “There was a fellow, Moondoggie, in the book. I would be disappointed if I didn’t see his car or if he didn’t see me catch a wave. So, I went back almost every day — there was no traffic on PCH back then — for two and a half summers trying to make him notice me. They didn’t know what to think of a girl surfing because there were no other girls back then. They tried to discourage me. Eventually, they got used to me and stopped playing pranks on me like burying my board and disconnecting the distributor in my car.”
“Malibu became home to me so I didn’t care what they did to me,” Zuckerman, who returned to live in the Pacific Palisades, where she raised two sons with her husband Marvin, after attending college in Corvallis, Ore., said. “I wasn’t going to let them stop me.”
Zuckerman was still seen riding waves until a few years ago. “No wet suit or leash for me, and Malibu is a challenging point break. I was surfing more in Hawaii until Covid because in Waikiki it’s a luxury water sport — warm water, beach break. They basically push you into a wave. Now I just surf in my dreams.”
Zuckerman remains humble whenever the words “role model” come up. Others note her impact much more frequently and enthusiastically. She was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame in 2011. After interviewing Zuckerman for an article in Surfer Magazine in the ’80s and being impressed by her “assertiveness,” writer-director Brian Gillogly made the 2010 documentary “Accidental Icon: The Real Gidget Story.”
“The Gidget character meant so much to so many young girls in the ’50s and ’60s, Gillogly said. “Screenwriter Frank Pierson called her a proto feminist and I certainly agree. When I traveled with Kathy to book signings and later went on the road [to promote] the movie, I marveled at her gift of gab, intelligence and spunk.”
Zuckerman has had to call on that “can-do” spirit a lot in the last year as she lost her home of 60 years along with many prized possessions including diaries and her surfboard in The Palisades Fire in 2025. The devastating fire also left her out of her job of 20 years as an Ambassador of Aloha at Duke’s as the damaged restaurant had to close after the disaster.
“So much is gone and that’s really sad. PCH is very different. I don’t see the landmarks,” she said. “Because I’m a just-keep-moving kind of person I’m not struggling as much as other people that I’ve met. I get a little anxiety in the morning and think of things I’ve lost, but I also have the opportunity to go on.”
Choosing to focus on the positives helps. “It also reminded how incredible it is to be a member of the surf community,” she said. “They sent me T-shirts and a computer, and were there when we moved. Though not by blood, they are my family. Community and friends will always be more important than things.”
Zuckerman paused and her tone changed just a smidge at this point in the interview, as a lightbulb seemed to have gone off, and said, “Although I do think it’s time to have someone make me a new surfboard.”
