Accidental Icon: The Real Gidget Story on AllMovie

In the summer of 1956, a Los Angeles teenager named Kathy Kohner became enchanted with boys, surfing, and Malibu beaches. None of this might sound particularly newsworthy, though it became such when Kohner vividly captured all of it in her diary. She turned the volume over to her father, screenwriter Frederick Kohner (The Lady and the Monster), who saw the material as a potential goldmine, given its colorful stories about such characters as surfers Moondoggie, Tubesteak and Kahuna. Kohner promptly turned the diary into a bestselling novel, woven around Gidget (amalgam of 'girl' and 'midget') - a fictional character based on Kathy. Sequels followed, as well as movies, two television series (one of which helped launch the career of Sally Field), a meteoric rise in the popularity of surfing, and much more. This documentary from director Brian L. Gillogly reexamines the "Gidget phenomenon." It includes newly-shot interviews with Field, the late Cliff Robertson, actor Gregory Harrison, director Paul Wendkos,Kohner herself (here credited by her married name, Kathy Zuckerman) and many others.