Bruce Brown

Born December 1st, 1937, in San Francisco, BRUCE BROWN revolutionised the art of documentary film making with his 1966 epic, The Endless Summer, a story of two surfers in pursuit of the perfect wave. Brown filmed the movie himself on a 16mm camera, directed, did the voice over and editing. He borrowed $50,000 to blow up the print to 35mm to allow it to be shown in movie theatres, and it took off, grossing US$30 million over the next two decades. Surfing was his life-long passion, but in the late ‘sixties, along with a generation of Californians, he also discovered dirt bikes. It was this passion that led him to devise a script that basically documented the 1970 year in motorcycling terms. Brown, directed, filmed, and narrated On Any Sunday in 1971, which went on to become the movie that pitched leisure motorcycling to a worldwide audience and was partly responsible for the off-road boom of the ‘seventies in USA. The film made Malcolm Smith and Mert Lawwill household names. Despite having the runs on the board with The Endless Summer, finding the finance for On Any Sunday proved to be difficult. Eventually, Brown contacted Steve McQueen. “Even though I’d never met him, I set up a meeting to talk about doing On Any Sunday. We talked about the concept, which he really liked. Then he asked what I wanted him to do in the film. I told him I wanted him to finance it. He laughed and said he acted in films, he didn’t finance them. I then jokingly told him, ‘Alright, then you can’t be in the movie’. The next day, I got a call and it was McQueen. He told me to go ahead and get the ball rolling with the movie – he’d back it.” On Any Sunday was nominated for an Academy Award in 1972 but lost to The Hellstrom Chronicle, a documentary about the insect world. In 1999, Brown was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He continued surfing until 2008 when he suffered a shoulder injury, but still rode motorcycles. He died on December 10, 2017 from heart failure.