California has a long, rich history of handsome dark-haired pointbreak stylists. Matt Kivlin was the original. That hands-low, back-knee-tucked-in, slightly jazzy, easy-on-the-eyes way of getting from the top of the point all the way to the cove? Kivlin invented that. Dora copied it. Everyone else copied Dora, and eventually you get to Tom Curren.

Kivlin died on Sunday night, at age 85, of complications from heart disease. While he lived in Los Angeles his entire life, he more or less checked out of surfing in the early 1960s, moving on to career and family, and (my guess) not willing to be part of a lesser version of the sport he'd known prior to the Gidget-launched boom.

I had very little to go on when I originally wrote Kivlin's EOS entry, in 2002. Thankfully, Jeff Duclos had done an excellent first-rate Kivlin profile for 

 a few years earlier, and that was almost all I needed. With Jeff's permission, I've gone through that profile and excerpted quotes from and about Kivlin and posted them below. (If you can find a copy of the full article—it's in the June 1998, issue—it's a fine read; our loss that Duclos isn't doing more surf work.)

Malibu, in the first decade after the war, was a surfing paradise. And paradise was lit up by Kivlin's generosity, his beaming good-guy smile, and his Gary-Cooper-meets-Fred-Astaire trim line. How deserving it would be to have him up on his own marble plinth, next to Dora. The sport would be so much nicer.


By 1943, the war had changed a bit. There wasn't a big threat of being invaded. I was 14, and working at the Jonathan Club [a beachfront club in Santa Monica]. There was a lot of rationing and this and that, but we put out umbrellas and people went to the beach. I met Buzzy Trent down there. He was a beachboy too. I had a paddleboard that I'd made in wood shop, and one day Pete [Peterson] came by and asked if I'd like to go surfing at Palos Verdes. He took me to the Cove and pushed me off on a few waves and I was really hooked. (Matt Kivlin)


It was sort of tough then. There wasn't really anybody to copy [during the war years]. Everybody was gone, so you kind of learned from pictures in 

 or something. Gard Chapin was around, and he was pretty good for that time. Very showy. (Matt Kivlin)


He pioneered progressive surfing. Matt Kivlin invented the style that I call performance cruising. He was a real gentleman, with a mature demeanor, who enjoyed surfing without a lot of yahoo around it. Looking at guys before Matt's time, they were happy just to be moving. (Kemp Aaberg)


Matt had quite a following. [And] when you bring women into the picture, it affects riding style. (Joe Quigg)


I remember VJ Day. August 15th, 1945. The surf had come up big at Malibu and we were sitting out there bemoaning the fact there were 12 guys in the lineup.(Porter Vaughn)


When I first saw Rabbit Kekai [in Waikiki], he was light years ahead of anybody. He ruled the beach down there. He was the King of Queens. The Malibu style was set by Rabbit: stall, run to the nose and shoot the curl. We brought that back here to Malibu. Before that, everybody just kind of stood on the tail. To accommodate this new style, we began making the front of the board kind of pointy, so it wouldn't pound. The center was flatter and tail kicked up so it would be easier to turn. (Matt Kivlin)


[Bob Simmons and I] worked out of my mother's garage, but we didn't get along real well. Simmons had already tried working out of his own house, but he didn't get along with his brother. He opened a shop in Santa Monica at 20th and Olympic, among a bunch of sheet metal shops. He built a little box in the back which was his personal room, and he lived there. There were other shops available and they were very reasonable, so I rented one and Joe [Quigg] rented one. Joe and I got along real well. I'd build some boards. He'd build some boards. We'd try something a little different each time, and take them down to Malibu, one or two boards a week, and try them out. We'd go surf Malibu every day at five o'clock. If a board worked well, someone would usually come up and ask to buy it. (Matt Kivlin)


Matt was a quick shaper. With Quigg, you could wait awhile. Consequently, Matt put more boards in the water. When people talk about Malibu boards of that time, they're probably talking about Kivlin boards. (Dave Rochlen)


You say [Matt's] not a legend, it's to his credit. Just take a look at some of those who are. While this guy becomes a surfing legend, another guy [Kivlin] becomes an architect, marries and has a family, and does all beautifully and gracefully. (Dave Rochlen)

REMEMBERING MATT KIVLIN, 1929 - 2014

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