Surfer Dudes, No Duds
Legendary surfer George Downing had never even heard of Abercrombie & Fitch when he learned the popular clothing line had published his photo in its 1999 catalog hawking beachwear. “When I heard of the name, I thought they were stockbrokers,” he said by phone Thursday, calling from the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.
When the 72-year-old Hawaii resident got a look at the glossy pages, however, he was startled to find a 1960s-era photo featuring him and 11 other surfers next to a series of provocative photos of models who appeared to be surfing nude. The photo spread was titled “Surf Nekkid” and was used to sell replicas of the T-shirts and shorts that the surfers wore in the picture, Downing said.
“I was ... angry about how they took away this right of mine by using something in a publication I felt [was so] offensive that I wouldn’t want to show it to my grandchildren, and [that was] attempting to describe the sport as something it wasn’t,” Downing said. (Abercrombie & Fitch representatives were not available for comment.)
Downing rallied six other surfers from the photo, including Paul Strauch, Rick Steere, Richard “Buffalo” Keaulana, Ben Aipa Joey Cabell and Mike Doyle, and filed suit against Abercrombie & Fitch, claiming that the Ohio-based company had violated their right to privacy and defamed their character by publishing the photo without permission. (Of the five pictured surfers who aren’t party to the lawsuit, two have a case against Abercrombie & Fitch pending before the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals, two others couldn’t be located and one is dead.)
The surfers are suing for punitive and real damages, which by their estimate equals the $9 million they say the company made from catalog sales of the T-shirts and shorts.
The photo, taken after a surfing contest on Makaha Beach in Hawaii, features the 12 young surfers wearing numbered T-shirts and standing on the sand in front of their surfboards. Their names were handwritten under each individual’s picture. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real threw the case out in 2000 on numerous grounds, including the company’s 1st Amendment right to use the image, according to the plaintiffs. The surfers appealed his ruling and won.
The case returned to Real’s courtroom for a jury trial that began Tuesday. The trial is scheduled to resume today.
Queen of the Boogie Still Woogies
With sparkly eyes rivaling the sequins on her dress, Hadda Brooks sashayed between the tables at Michael’s Room on Vermont Avenue on Wednesday night, flirting and singing. At the cocktail lounge, it was standing room only as a crowd of about 50 fans gathered to hear the 85-year-old “Queen of Boogie” go through a repertoire of blues and ballads.
Backed by “the Senator,” her 79-year-old stand-up bassist Eugene Wright, Brooks played the piano and told stories about encounters with Humphrey Bogart and Jack Nicholson, as little butterfly clips bounced in her hair. “I’ve never met a man so delightful, so sweet,” she said of Bogart, remembering a breakfast at his house many years ago. And Nicholson? After a compliment from the actor, she recalled, she made this tart reply: “And who are you?”
In addition to making music for five decades, Brooks has appeared in several films, including “In a Lonely Place” with Bogart and “The Crossing Guard,” with Nicholson. In the 1950s, she became the first black woman to host her own television show.
Resting her chin on her palm, 35-year-old Gianna Chachere sighed as the singer made her way through “Don’t Go to Strangers.” Next to Chachere in the leather booth was a little bouquet of orchids she had brought Brooks. “It’s good to see her again,” said Chachere who had caught one of the singer’s performances in New Orleans. “She’s a sweet version of Nina Simone. They were in similar circumstances being black female pianists in the 1950s and ‘60s,” she said. “But Brooks came out of it with a sweet disposition.” She repeated, dreamily. “The sweetness ... the butterflies.”
A guest on the outdoor patio stuck a cell phone through a crack in the door to share Brooks with a person on the other end. A couple fed each other risotto, as others hummed into their martinis.
Brooks turned to Austin Young, who was filming her for the documentary, “Hadda Brooks--Queen of the Boogie.” “I’m done with you,” she said, as she struck a pose for the camera. (Young and his partner, 41-year-old Barry Pett, have followed the singer for three years. “She still goes out every night,” Pett said. “Daddy’s, Goldfingers.” Wherever she goes, he said, doormen and bartenders know her. “Her [drink] will be on the bar.”)
Dean Miller, former owner of the Shim Sham Club in New Orleans, said he booked Brooks when he ran Mr. Phat’s Royal Martini Club night at the Viper Room several years ago. “This woman is the queen of the boogie-woogie,” he said. And the Senator “is a jazz great.” For filmmaker Darryl Wharton-Rigby, 33, this was a Brooks first.
“God was working tonight,” he said.
Maybe, but the diva wasn’t quite happy.
“After 50 years in show business,” she said, “I had to bring my own piano.”
Woman to Fight in
Bobbitt’s Place
In an ironic twist, John Wayne Bobbitt, who was arrested Monday in Las Vegas for allegedly beating his wife, has been replaced by a woman on the Fox TV show “Celebrity Boxing 2.” Bobbitt was removed from the show after his arrest and replaced by professional wrestler Joanie Laurer, known in the ring as Chyna and popular because she only wrestles men. Laurer wrestled Joey Buttafuoco in a taped match Tuesday that will air Wednesday.
City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com
