Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, nicknamed Gidget (a portmanteau of “girl” and “midget”) was a fifteen year-old surfer girl who hung out on Malibu beach in the 1950s. She was the inspiration for a series of wildly popular novels written by her father Frederick, which in turn became Hollywood movies starring Sandra Dee and a TV series starring Sally Field. Gidget’s a key player in Lost Hills: The Dark Prince podcast (Pushkin, eps 1-4 out now) which beautifully captures the surprisingly sinister reality of early American surf culture. Surf legend Miki Dora is the series’ eponymous antihero but it’s Gidget – now 82 and working at Duke’s retired surfer’s bar in Malibu – who steals the show. Her teenage diaries reek of salty air and lost innocence.
Photograph Dave Benett/Getty Images
