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Square-jawed regularfoot surfer from Queensland, Australia; winner of the 1968 Australian National Titles, and described by 1978 world champion Wayne Bartholomew as having "the most beautiful style in surfing."

Paull was born (1946) and raised on Queensland's Gold Coast, and began riding waves at age 14. The master of what was called the "power-crouch" style, Paull defeated world champions Midget Farrelly and Nat Young to win the 1968 Australian National Titles, prompting 

 magazine to introduce the well-built vegetarian as "the most powerful all-around performer in Australian waters today." He also finished runner-up in the 1968 Bells Beach event, won the small-wave portion of the 1969 Peru International, and finished third in the 1970 Australian National Titles. A respected surfboard shaper, Paull opened Keith Paull Surfboards and Harmony Surfboards in the Gold Coast, around 1970.

LSD amplified Paull's long-undiagnosed schizophrenia, which began taking over his life in the early '70s. Some of Paull's breakdowns would be recalled as perversely funny. At a 1975 surf contest event in Queensland, he drove his panel van up the stairs and halfway through the front door of a hotel pub, then stepped out of the car wearing silver knee-high boots and blue Superman briefs, with concentric blue circles painted on his shaved head. What was never mentioned publically, until decades later, was that Paull had become dangerous to himself and others. The day following his Superman stunt, he grabbed his six-month-old son off the beach and tried to drown him in the surf.

Paull quit surfing and shaping altogether in 1976. For nearly 30 years, as reported in 2018's 

Paull's life was relentlessly grim, filled with confinement, drug smuggling, drinking, drug use (prescribed and otherwise), poverty, continued schizophrenic breaks, and general poor health. He died in 2004, of a heart attack, age 57, in a nursing home.

Colette Paull, Keith's wife, helped build Billabong into an international surfwear giant; she worked for the company in one capacity or another from 1973 to 2014.

Paull, Keith

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