“Handsome and cocky” star of Endless Summer Mike Hynson, dead at 82

“He was a golden boy and everyone wanted to be like him.”

The wildly gorgeous and athletic star of the 1966 breakout hit Endless Summer, Californian surfer Mr Mike Hynson, died a few hours ago in Encinitas, California. 

His step-daughter Haley Ogden wrote on Facebook, 

“Mom’s partner and best friend in life, out stepdad for 24 years, passed away today at 12:38pm. In the surfing community he was a legend and known as Mike Hynson from Endless Summer. To us he was family and we all loved him with all of our hearts. This doesn’t feel like real life right now. There’s so much to share about Mike but for now I’m gonna leave it short and sweet because I can’t even process this. We are so heartbroken I can’t even articulate the words to describe how much our hearts are hurting.” 

This is how Warshaw tells the story of Mike Hynson: 

In 1963, right when Hynson began looking for a reason to leave the country to avoid the draft, filmmaker Bruce Brown asked if he wanted to go around the world to shoot The Endless Summer. Hynson jumped at the chance. The blond-haired regularfooter was paired with dark-haired goofyfooter Robert August; along with Brown, the two surfers visited Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii. Hynson’s sublime first ride at Cape St. Francis—the right-breaking point surf the group discovered in South Africa, memorably presented as the answer to “the search for the perfect wave”—was the movie’s high point.

Hynson was a surfer of great composure, never straining, and subtly arranging his arms, legs, head, and torso into positions that would come to define proper surfing style. He was one of the sport’s great masters of trim, often letting his board run on a straight, elegant line. Handsome and cocky, Hynson was also a trendsetter on the beach, with surf racks on his Jaguar sports car, a wardrobe full of stylish clothes, and his hair always combed neatly back from his forehead, even while in the water. “He was the golden boy,” his former wife said in 2001, “and everyone wanted to be like him.”

In an interview by Scott Hulet in 1991, Hynson described the miracle of “discovering the perfect wave”, the premise of Endless Summer.

We finally got to this huge point, and pulled into a little village, and got ourselves a couple of little clay and straw huts called rondavels. We’d been driving for three straight days, and I’m the 72-hour man, baby. I had a little tube of Benzedrine, and my little bag of grass. I was prepared. Purely medicinal, all right? I didn’t want to sleep. I was in Africa, man!

I woke up before sunrise and walked down to the beach by myself. Robert had diarrhea. I was looking way up the point and saw these unreal waves coming through. I watched and watched until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then I started screaming and woke everybody up. They were tired, didn’t want to be hassled, but I knew this was it! Finally, Bruce and Robert stumbled out of their huts, and I pointed up the point, but they weren’t into it! It was too far away, they said. So they started setting up the cameras there in the bay, to film these crappy little waves! I was fuming! I was yelling at Bruce, “Goddamit, get those cameras up to that point! Look at those waves!” But Bruce made Robert paddle out at this shitty little shorebreak left, and started filming. Meanwhile, I’m looking at most perfect waves I’d ever seen! They were looking up there too, but all they saw was the long stretch of beach. They didn’t know what they were looking at, man! So I starting walking up the point, alone. About halfway up the beach, everything just went WHOOOOSH!!! And a big voice said “Michael, do you want an experience? Do you want to see God?” It was same the feeling I used to get when I’d anticipate a hole-in-one. Walking up that point at Cape St. Francis, it was just like when you hit the ball 200 yards into the wind, and you turn your back and don’t even have to watch it, cause you just know it’s going in the cup.

I paddled out by myself, and it was Heaven on earth. Just golden. My paddling was absolutely perfect. Total economy. My fingers dipped in just deep enough to shoot me forward. I watched these waves going down the point, and I thought to myself, “less movement, more perfect.” So I took off on that first wave and stood absolutely still. It’s hard to fathom unless you’ve experienced waves like that. And I rode that way for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, down in the bay, I could just make out Bruce and Robert jumping up and down, freaking out. They finally realized what I was doing! And I see them pack up their gear and run up the beach with all their crap. August is so blown away, he’s running as fast as he can, baby. He dragged his board all the way! He paddled out like he was in a race, man, and immediately got into it. Bruce got his shit together on the beach, pulled a blanket over his head, and started filming. We knew that there was only an hour before the tide was gonna wax it. Bruce did not move from under that blanket for 90 minutes! He never took his finger off the button! He’d rip one film cartridge of the camera, and pop in another, just BOOM! And that was it, baby. We all knew what had happened, that we’d just made the movie.

RIP ol Mike Hynson.