1. Born Kathy Kohner in 1941.
2. Spent her childhood on Malibu Beaches.
3. She was surfing by the age of 15.
4. She hung out with Surfers Nat Young and Bill "moondoggie" Jensen.
5. She wrote about her surf trips to malibu in a journal and her father read it/ turned it into a novel. The Little Girl with Big Ideas. 500, 000 copies sold!
6. Fredreick Kohner was a screen writer for Columbia Pictures and turned the novel into the film Gidget.
7. Kathy attended Oregon State University and later taught in LA.
8. She did not marry Moondoggie:( but she did marry a professor named Marvin Zuckerman, who had no idea about Gidget.
9. Kathy still surfs annually to benefit cancer charities.
10. She was named #7 in Surfer Magazines top 25 influential people in surfing.
11. Kathy and Marvin have 2 children.
She is still alive and well and cute as a button! I can't believe how beautiful this woman still is? I guess
surfing really does a woman good.
"Some people have Alcoholic Anonymous, Starbucks, church, I was retreating, trying to get away from high school and boys and movies on Saturday night ... I had Malibu."
“The book is a work of fiction, but the core was there,” Zuckerman said. “I was called Gidget. I was the only girl. It’s a story of surfing. It is also a story of falling in love, and I really did. I was mad for this surfer named Bill Jensen. Mad! He was the alleged Moondoggie.”
“It was June 24, 1956 — it’s in my diary pages. They called me Gidget. And I felt like, ha! I got a name! I’m one of them!”
Im really glad this girl surfed and told her story. She really had an impact on girls and I believe Kathy is responsible for so many women in the surf industry today.
B