James Darren, aka Moondoggie From "Gidget," Passes Away at 88

When Hollywood released "Gidget" in 1959 it unleashed one of the first waves of mainstream attention and popularity for surfing in America. All of a sudden, that young teenage girl from Malibu was everywhere, and the rise of the beach blanket surf genre was underway. The character of Gidget, who was modeled after author Frederick Kohner's daughter Kathy, was originally played by Sandra Dee, while her love interest, Moondoggie, was played by James Darren.

A career television and film actor, Darren passed away on September 2, 2024. He was 88 years old. 

“I was in love with Sandra,” Darren would later say. “I thought that she was absolutely perfect as Gidget. She had tremendous charm.”

According to Darren's obituary by the Associated Press, he later starred and directed a number of popular shows, including "The Love Boat," "Hawaii Five O," "Fantasy Island," "Guns of Navarone,"  Beverly Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place." He also dabbled as a singer and was notably godfather of Nancy Sinatra’s daughter A.J. Lambert.

Originally, producers of "Gidget" had tapped Elvis Presley to play Moondoggie, but he was serving in the Army at the time and was unable to commit to the role. Once cast as Moondoggie, Darren held onto the part. He's the only actor to star in all three "Gidget" movies. While Dee left after the first one, Darren appeared in 1961’s “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and 1963’s “Gidget Goes to Rome.”

Of course, neither Dee or Darren did their own stunts and the surfing in "Gidget" was primarily the magic of Miki Dora and Mickey Munoz, who's smaller stature made him an ideal stand-in for Dee (he even wore a blonde wig for the part). The original 1959 film was largely shot at L.A. County's Leo Carrillo State Park.

The story of how Kohner came to write "Gidget" in the first place could be a movie and and of itself. A Czechoslovakian Jew who spent his formative years as a screenwriter in the German film industry, when the Nazi regime began to take over the country in 1933, he decided it was a good time to get out of the country and landed in Hollywood, where he started writing for Columbia Pictures.

Kohner's daughter, Kathy, came into the world in 1941, and by the mid '50s she'd famously traded a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a chance to ride Terry "Tubesteak" Tracy's board. Bit by the surf bug straight away, Kohner saw what he daughter was experience and fictionalized it in the book "Gidget: The Little Girl With Big Ideas."

Kohner's book was released in 1957 and was an immediate hit. Only two weeks after it was released he sold the novel rights to Columbia Pictures for $50,000, with five percent going to Kathy. Two years later "Gidget" was riding high on the silver screen and surfing would never be the same again.

Leveraging the success of the first Gidget movie, two more were quickly churned out. Dee would be replaced by Deborah Walley in "Gidget Goes To Hawaii," then by Cindy Carol in "Gidget Goes To Rome."

“They had me under contract; I was a prisoner,” Darren told Entertainment Weekly in 2004. “But with those lovely young ladies, it was the best prison I think I’ll ever be in.”

And while Darren wasn't a surfer per se, the impact him and his co-stars had on the sport and culture continue to reverberate through lineups around the world today.

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