JOHN MILIUS ON LANCE CARSON: "HE IS A SURFING NATIONAL TREASURE"

Paul Holmes interviewed John Milius for Holmes' 1999 Longboard feature In Trim: Lance Carson. This version has been slight edited.

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It's no secret that the Warner Bros surf epic Big Wednesday, cowritten by Denny Aaberg with screenwriter-director John Milius, was inspired by the Malibu scene both men experienced growing up as teenagers in the late '50s and early '60s. But just how much of Matt Johnson, Big Wednesday's main protagonist, was based on the life and times of Lance Carson?

"Lance was the central character at Malibu" says Milius with a gruff laugh. "He was intelligent but haunted. He was the best surfer, not only more skilled but intuitively superior. He read the waves better. He was so good that when he took off you knew he was always going to make it. He never made a mistake. He would only fall off deliberately, at the end of a ride, or if he was drunk—and I remember seeing him paddle out when he was absolutely reeling."

Even among Malibu's many colorful surfing personalities Lance was different, says Milius. "He was the most radical character I knew as a teenager; he was so radical it's impossible to describe." At the same time, he adds, "Nobody had a better nature. What I remember most is that Lance was this happy-go-lucky kind of person who could also be incredibly intense. He had an 'every man' quality about him, along with a sort of Zen calm—as well as this raging side."

Surf stars, observes Milius, can be an elitist bunch, aloof and stand-offish to outsiders and other surfers lower in the hierarchy. "Lance wasn't like that at all. I remember walking up the beach one day with Porkchop, and we saw Lance rescuing some little kid's board off the rocks. There he was, the best surfer in the world, staggering around getting all cut up on the mussels and sea urchins, cursing and swearing, but saving some little kid's board."

If there was a problem with Carson on the set of Big Wednesday (as Carson relates), Milius does not, or cares not, to remember. "I was just sorry we weren't able to use more of him surfing in the film," says the director.

"The truth is," he adds, "Lance was a total alcoholic at age 19. It just seized him. He was a victim. What's really remarkable is that he was able to come back at all. It's been 20 years since he stopped drinking. Most people don't make it. It says a lot about his character that he was able to do that."

Concludes Milius: "Throughout his youth nobody ever dropped in on him because people recognized that this was extraordinary surfing. People were awed by Lance. People would just want to watch. Lance Carson is a Surfing National Treasure. I think that Surfrider Foundation or some other authority should institute a program for Surfing National Treasures where they're allowed to go out and get as many waves as they want without anyone dropping in."

[Carson photo by LeRoy Grannis; Milius photo by Tom Servais]