Legendary Filmmaker Bruce Brown has died, aged 80.

Famous for 1964’s Endless Summer, arguably the greatest surf film ever made, Brown’s surf movie career spanned five decades, culminating in 1994’s The Endless Summer 2, and including Slippery When Wet, Barefoot Adventure, Surf Crazy and Surfing Hollow Days, featuring the very first ever footage of Pipeline being surfed, by Phil Edwards.

I happened to meet and interview Bruce in San Sebastian in 2014, where he was promoting the remake of Academy Award nominated motorbike documentary Any Given Sunday, directed by his son.

He seemed funny, curmudgeonly and sharp witted if physically less so.

He said “I’m old, man. I can’t control when I pee.”

We’ve all been there, right?

While Endless Summer, starring Robert August and Mike Hynson was epic for so many reasons, for shaping the way surf films would be made for decades, for coming up with the concept of ‘the search for the perfect wave’, for its story telling, cinematography and its characters, my own personal favourite was the narration, which Brown absolutely nailed.

In fact, watch it now, particularly the part where he says, “Here’s Mr Phil Edwards, noseriding in Hawaii… etc’

Staggeringly fucking good.

RIP