That--combined with his dark tan, curly brown hair and resemblance to a young James Garner--turned Dora into what a friend once described as "the ultimate surfing celebrity."
When Hollywood discovered the sport in the late 1950s, Dora doubled on the waves for James Darren, who played Moondoggie in the movie "Gidget."
Dora also worked in the rash of beach movies that followed: "Gidget Goes to Rome," "Ride the Wild Surf," "Gidget Goes Hawaiian," "Surfing Wild," "Beach Party," "Bikini Beach" and "For Those Who Think Young."
But the movies brought more crowds to Malibu, and Dora condemned the commercialization of surfing and the "[San Fernando] Valley cowboys and aircraft workers" who took over his favorite surf break.
Dora, who painted a swastika on his board, "had no mercy on those around him," Pezman said. "He'd push them off. He was always [angry] at the crowds and the Valley kooks."
All of which made him fodder for the surf press, whose attention he spurned.
"If you had to pick one surfer that epitomized California surfing in the 20th century, it would be Miki Dora--everything that's wrong with it and everything that's right with it," Pezman said.
Born Miklos Sandor Dora in Budapest, Hungary, on Aug. 11, 1934, Dora moved to California with his family as a child. His parents divorced when he was 6, and he spent some time in military schools. He later attended Hollywood High School, where he sometimes skipped class to go surfing.
He had been introduced to the sport at San Onofre in the late 1940s by his stepfather, Gard Chapin, a well-known surfer at the time.
"When I went to school . . . they never let you alone," Dora once told Surf Guide Magazine. "But with surfing I could go to the beach and not have to depend on anybody. I could take a wave and forget about it."
By the early 1950s, Dora was among the relatively small band of regulars surfing at Malibu, whose popularity soared with the publication of Frederick Kohner's 1957 book "Gidget" and the 1959 Sandra Dee movie.
"Miki had a tremendous influence on us as surfers," said writer-director John Milius, a friend of Dora's who began surfing at Malibu in the late 1950s. "Everybody tried to surf like him and have his grace and his style and cool."
'A Sense of Absurdity'
But it was also his way of looking at life, said Milius.
