Farewell to Moondoggie

By Michele Willens

I don’t know what you did every Saturday afternoon in 1959, but I walked from my home in Santa Monica to the Aero Theatre (Robert Redford’s lifetime favorite, by the way) to see “Gidget.” Played by Sandra Dee, she was the ultimate tomboy who discovered a relatively new sport called surfing, I did not ask for a board, but I recall my mom valiantly making me bathing suits to emulate Dee’s boy-short ones.

Mostly, I wanted to meet a guy like the one they called Moondoggie. I bring this up because the man who played him, James Darren, died this week. Like millions of other Gidget wanna- be’s, I cried real tears.

Besides making Dee and Darren teenage idols, the movie brought the sport of surfing to the forefront. And today, almost as many females as males tackle those waves. When I wrote a piece on New Yorker writer William Finnegan’s book, “Barbarian Days,” the author admitted he was surprised and thrilled with the reaction: especially because it was a challenge to appeal to hard-core surfers and non-surfers alike. “I’ve heard reviewers and readers say this book isn’t really about surfing,” he told me. “That it’s about obsession. Others say it is a memoir and still others call it long-form reporting.” It was all of the above, and made best-seller lists on both coasts. And yes, he said “Gidget” was a key contributor to the craze.

Dee and Darren are both gone now, but their characters live on. Years later, my own daughter and her friends fell in love with the film and yes, with Moondoggie. In fact, I learned of Darren’s death when I opened my email and heard my daughter singing “There’s no such thing as the next best thing to love.” That’s the song Moondoggie sings before their first kiss.

James Darren went on to other movies and appearances, but playing that role at that time mattered. His character (real name (Jeffrey) was scheduled to start college after that summer. He threatened to just hang with the great Kahuna (their leader) and follow the waves. Of course, that didn’t happen. Real life beckoned. But not before he “pinned” Gidget.

All this was created by one Fred Kohner, an immigrant who wrote the original book based on his own daughter. Interestingly, the hostess of the legendary Malibu restaurant, Dukes, is the real Gidget herself, now 80. How I wish Moondoggie — uh, James Darren — were still with us for one more summer.

Michele Willens is the author of From “Mouseketeers to Menopause.’