de Rosnay, Joel (1937 – )

Worldly, well-educated French surfing pioneer. De Rosnay was born (1937) in Mauritius, moved with his family to the coastal resort town of Biarritz, France, at age two, and to Paris at seven. He began bellyboarding at 10, during family vacations in Biarritz. In the summer of 1957, American screenwriter Peter Viertel, while in France to shoot The Sun Also Rises for 20th Century Fox, wired to California and had his Hobie balsa surfboard freighted over. Viertel rode the warm beachbreak waves in ...