Bud Browne, 96, known as the 'father of surf films'
LOS ANGELES - Bud Browne, a onetime lifeguard who became known as "the father of surf films" after he began showing his 16mm movies commercially up and down the California coast in the early 1950s, has died. He was 96.
Mr. Browne, a Boston native, died in his sleep Friday at home in San Luis Obispo, said close friend Anna Trent Moore, daughter of surfing legend Buzzy Trent.
"Bud created the genre of surf films," Steve Pezman, publisher of the Surfer's Journal, said Monday. "What was unique about Bud and his films was the water footage and the fact that he lived with the surfers he was filming.
"All those surfers actually just loved the guy, and he was a great athlete himself."
A former captain of the University of Southern California swim team who learned to surf while working as a lifeguard at Venice Beach in 1938, Mr. Browne bought an 8mm movie camera two years later and began making home movies of his fellow surfers.
In 1947, after serving in the Navy during World War II, he upgraded his camera to a 16mm Bell & Howell and became more serious about shooting the action on the waves, particularly during his annual trips to Hawaii.
Several years later - after working as a junior high school physical education teacher and attending USC's film school - Mr. Browne had enough footage to edit into a 45-minute movie.
With handmade posters nailed to telephone poles near local surf spots, he debuted his first film, "Hawaiian Surfing Movies," at John Adams Junior High School in Santa Monica in 1953.
Mr. Browne, who charged 65 cents for admission, introduced his film on stage before hurrying back to the projection booth to narrate it via microphone with a taped musical accompaniment.
A couple of other successful beach-town showings followed, and Mr. Browne gave up teaching to launch his career as a surf filmmaker. Between 1953 and 1964, he released a new surf film each year, including "Trek to Makaha," "The Big Surf," "Surf Down Under," "Cat on a Hot Foam Board," "Surf Happy," and "Gun Ho!"
In the process, he captured on film longboard-era greats such as Phil Edwards, Miki Dora, and Dewey Weber; and first-generation short-board heroes, including David Nuuhiwa and Gerry Lopez.
Mr. Browne, who shot big-wave action from the water with a waterproof camera housing of his own design, was known to be fearless.
"He was completely at home in the water," Matt Warshaw, author of "The Encyclopedia of Surfing" and a former editor of Surfer magazine, said. "With a camera cased in housing, he was willing to go out and take lumps and get angles no one else wanted to get."
As a surf film pioneer, Mr. Browne predated other early surf filmmakers such as Bruce Brown, Greg Noll, and John Severson.
Brown, whose surf film "The Endless Summer" became a phenomenon after opening nationally in 1966, remembered watching Mr. Browne's surf films as a teenager. "That was a big deal to go to Bud's movies and to see if you were in it," Brown said.
Mr. Browne, who never married, leaves two nieces and a nephew.
