Beach Culture | KCET
Beach Culture
Season 3, Episode 3
One of Southern California’s great international exports has been its beach culture. This episode explores how surfers, bodybuilders and acrobats taught Californians how to have fun and stay young at the beach — and how the 1966 documentary “The Endless Summer” shared the Southern California idea of the beach with the rest of the world.
In this episode, we cover the evolution of surfing with surfer Dick Metz, including the contributions made by legendary early Hawaiian surfers George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku. Metz inspired Bruce Brown’s film “The Endless Summer,” and his collection at the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center covers every development in surf technology, which has been heavily influenced by aerospace. We also chat with the first female professional surfer, Joyce Hoffman, about the appeal of Southern California beach culture and its export to the rest of the world.
A collaboration between the USC Libraries and KCETLink, Lost LA features the member collections of L.A. as Subject, a research alliance dedicated to preserving and telling the sometimes-hidden stories and histories of the Los Angeles region.Related
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surfing
Lost LA Field Notes: Surf’s Up!
Before we made this episode, I didn’t realize how far surfing’s influence extended, even to my own childhood. Conversations with surf culture historians Dick Metz and Peter Westwick, and a visit to Muscle Beach, helped to tell the story.
Related
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surfing
Lost LA Field Notes: Surf’s Up!
Before we made this episode, I didn’t realize how far surfing’s influence extended, even to my own childhood. Conversations with surf culture historians Dick Metz and Peter Westwick, and a visit to Muscle Beach, helped to tell the story.
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surfing
How Southern California’s Aerospace Industry Helped Revolutionize Surfing
The aerospace industry and surfboarding have a historic connection through technology, and have worked together to popularize the California Dream across the globe.
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Venice Beach
How Muscle Beach Started in Santa Monica — But Ended Up in Venice
Muscle Beach started near the Santa Monica Pier as a haven for Southern California fitness advocates, frequented by some of the most well-known names in fitness today. In spite of a wildly popular reception, politics drove it to relocate to Venice.
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Full Episodes
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Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E1: Griffith Park - The Untold History
Season 4, Episode 1
Griffith Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. Its founder, Griffith J. Griffith, donated the land to the city as a public recreation ground for all the people — an ideal that has been challenged over the years.
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Lost L.A.
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Season 4, Episode 2
During World War II, three renowned photographers captured scenes from the Japanese incarceration: outsiders Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams and incarceree Tōyō Miyatake who boldly smuggled in a camera lens to document life from within the camp.
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Season 4, Episode 3
Prohibition may have outlawed liquor, but that didn’t mean the booze stopped flowing. Explore the myths of subterranean Los Angeles, crawl through prohibition-era tunnels, and visit some of the city’s oldest speakeasies.
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Lost L.A.
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S4 E4: Paul Revere Williams - An African-American Architect in Jet-Age L.A.
Season 4, Episode 4
Although best known for designing the homes of celebrities like Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra, the pioneering African-American architect Paul Revere Williams also contributed to some of the city’ s most recognizable civic structures.
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Lost L.A.
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S4 E5: Discovering the Universe - Exploring the Cosmos Atop Mount Wilson
Season 4, Episode 5
As recently as a century ago, scientists doubted whether the universe extended beyond our own Milky Way — until astronomer Edwin Hubble, working with the world’s most powerful telescope discovered just how vast the universe is.
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Clips & Segments
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Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E1: Griffith Park - The Untold History Preview
At more than 4,500 acres, Griffith Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States and it holds a wealth of hidden stories.
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Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E2: Three Views of Manzanar - Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake Preview
Despite the trauma of their incarceration during World War II, Japanese Americans built new lives while detained. Three renowned photographers captured their everyday lives: outsiders Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams and incarceree Tōyō Miyatake.
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Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E3: Bootlegger Tunnels - A Journey Through LA’s Prohibition Lore Preview
It is no secret that throughout the Prohibition Era individuals living in the city continued to enjoy their vices as much, if not more, than they ever had before. But it is how they subverted the law that still remains unclear.
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Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E4: Paul Revere Williams - An African-American Architect in Jet-Age L.A. Preview
Although best known for designing the homes of celebrities like Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra, the pioneering African-American architect Paul Revere Williams also contributed to some of the city’s most recognizable civic structures.
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Upcoming Airdates
Articles
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Lost L.A.
Lawrence Lipton's book “The Holy Barbarians” was a celebration and canonization of the “Venice West” scene. It also became the biggest hit of his career, around which he revolved on for much of his life.
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Lost L.A.
There was a time that Los Angeles powered a lively Hispanic vaudeville scene, and its legacy still lives on in many performers today.
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Lost L.A.
The Chicano Moratorium and the death of Rubén Salazar continue to reverberate today as communities of color speak out against police brutality and discrimination, and as journalists are once again targeted, attacked and undermined by government officials.
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Lost L.A.
In the face of overwhelming harassment and persecution of homosexuals during the 1950s, a certain plucky queer magazine based in downtown Los Angeles was steadfast in its political mission to elevate gay and lesbian Americans.
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Lost L.A.
The L.A. Pride Parade and Festival in West Hollywood is a fixture of Los Angeles life, but 50 years ago, it was at the center of a heated battle between the authorities and the LGBT community’s wish to be publicly gay.
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