Blonde, boyishly cute, and powerfully built, Johnny Fain was able to parlay his surfing expertise into a brief movie career. One of the legendary champion Malibu surfers of the late fifties and early sixties he surf doubled in Gidget (1959) and Beach Party (1963). Due to his diminutive stature, Fain was just under 5’5”, he was able and happy to land lots of screen time (unlike his friend/rival Mickey Dora who tried to hide in the background) in the remaining Frankie and Annette beach films since he as shorter than the height conscious Avalon. His films include Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo (infamously being slipped a hot dog into his waiting mouth from surf buddy Mike Nader while Donna Loren sings about a lost love making us gays in the audience go hmmmm), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Don’t Make Waves plus a few surf docs such as Strictly Hot and Golden Breed. He concentrated solely on surfing during the later part of the sixties and then gave acting a second try during the seventies. Fain was excited to get cast in the surf epic Big Wednesday (1978) but he expected to get a bigger part and was further disappointed that he didn’t do much surf stunts as he anticipated. He was then cast as one of the three main supporting actors in California Dreaming (1979), which he was hoping would finally exploit his acting ability. His hot shot Malibu surfer Tenner who befriends Dennis Christopher’s awkward T.T. and teaches the Ohio native how to surf. It is believed in currently still resides in Malibu. You can read more about Fain in my book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969