Countdown to 2000: Culture
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Alex Coolman
The movie was dopey, inane and inaccurate. “Gidget,” which was released
in 1959, was also a huge hit and it encouraged the blossoming of popular
surf culture in the ‘60s in Newport Beach.
“It was a combination of that, and [1966 surf movie] ‘Endless Summer,”’
said Bill Sharp, publisher of the Newport Beach-based surfing
publication, “Surf News.”
Sharp noted that foam surfboards coincidentally began to replace heavy
wooden boards during this period, meaning that every would-be Big Kahuna
from here to Flagstaff suddenly found it easier to paddle into the
surfing lifestyle.
Newport Beach had an odd reputation for a time during the ‘60s, Sharp
said, because it was the only city around where the lifeguards required a
license for surfing.
“You had to have a sticker on your board, and every so often the
lifeguards would come around to check,” he said.
But surfing wasn’t all that was going on. The same countercultural
sensibility that was behind the beach lifestyle’s popularity also spawned
some of the first organized environmental efforts. Friends of Newport Bay
was formed during this decade and promptly began locking horns with the
development plans of the Irvine Co.
In 1964, Martin Benson and David Emmes formed South Coast Repertory, with
Moliere’s “Tartuffe” kicking off its first Orange County performance and
Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” gracing the stage of SCR’s Second Step
Theater.
Don Took, who appeared in some of the first productions, recalled the
early days nostalgically.
“We did all the roles,” he said. “And all of our patrons came to see us
-- this handful of guys in this little theater. They watched us sweat.”
Harbor-area comedians Bill Skiles and Pete Henderson came into vogue
during this period, performing with the likes of Dean Martin and Red
Skelton.
The 1960s also saw serious progress in local support of fine art. In
Newport Beach, Flo Stoddard, Betty Winckler and 11 other women worked to
form the Newport Harbor Art Museum -- what would eventually become the
Orange County Museum of Art.
It also saw the short-lived flowering of the Newport Pop Festival, an
event that was actually held in Costa Mesa at the Orange County
Fairgrounds. The 1968 rock concert showcased acts like Sonny and Cher and
Steppenwolf and devolved as the day went on into a muddy, disorderly
mess.
“They were a bunch of animals,” former Costa Mesa Police Chief Roger Neth
said of the concert crowd. “We lived through it by the grace of God and
cool policemen.”
Sources: The Daily Pilot; “Newport Beach, the First Century:
1888-1988,” James P. Felton; Bill Sharp of “Surf News.”
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