Katin, Nancy (1900 – 1986)

Owner and cofounder of Kanvas by Katin surf trunks, one of the original surfwear lines; known from the 1960s to the '80s as the "First Lady of Surfing." As California surfer Mike Doyle later recalled, "Nancy was a little 89-pound lady who chain-smoked; very nervous and excitable, but the sweetest woman I ever met."

Nancy Alexander was born (1900) and raised in Long Beach, California, and worked as a vaudeville dancer in the '20s and '30s. She married Sears & Roebuck salesman Walter Katin in ...