Miki Dora (1963)

Los Angeles, 1963

When I'm on the beach, it's a battle. Every guy is a potential threat.

“Mickey Dora: the Angry Young Man of Surfing,” by Bill Cleary, ran the October 1963 issue of Surf Guide. Dora was 27.

 *  *  * 

Mickey, how did it all begin; what was your early life like and what made you begin surfing; who were some of the others who were surfing then? 

When I was pretty young we went to live in South America for a year or so—my father was in the import business there. We moved back here, but I spent most of my early life locked in boarding schools. That wouldn’t have been ...