It was the late 70s, and I was dancing with a revue in Surfers Paradise, Australia. The show was modelled on those at the Lido and Moulin Rouge in Paris. Topless girls, feather plumes and jazzy choreography. I’d been in Australia for a couple of years, initially with a ballet company, and this was a change of pace. I was having a good time.
One day, a bunch of surfers hit town. There was a big contest up the coast and some of them came to see the show. Afterwards, they came to a party at the apartment block at the place where we lived. One of them, word went round, was taken with Amanda, a lead dancer.
When the surfers arrived, I stared. The guy who fancied Amanda was not some local hotshot, it was Reno Abellira, one of the most stylish wave riders in the world. I’d seen him on film, inscribing long, flowing lines on the Hawaiian North Shore. He had a distinctive stance, very low over his board, carving his turns with streamlined precision. And he was brave. Four years earlier, in what some still consider the greatest big-wave contest ever, he had won the Smirnoff Pro on a thunderous day at Waimea Bay, charging down the near-vertical face of a 30-footer to snatch the victory from fellow Hawaiian Jeff Hakman.
And here he was, on a sweltering night in Queensland, surrounded by thirsty, excitable dancers. Amanda was slim as a willow wand, with red hair cascading down her back. A few years later, she would be principal dancer at the Lido in Paris. Reno was all muscle, with a down-turned 70s moustache and skin tanned the colour of Pacific mahogany. He was a handsome guy and a surf god, but this cut no ice with Amanda. She was lovely, with a wicked sense of humour, but when the occasion demanded she could summon a cool ballerina hauteur. She was polite to Reno, but that’s as far as it went.
Seeing Reno standing alone, I joined him. I asked him what it felt like to drop into a giant wave like those at Sunset and Waimea, and he told me you felt the fear, but did it anyway. As we talked his eyes followed Amanda, who was prowling around the apartment like a restless jaguar. “I don’t think she’s interested,” he said, with the ghost of a smile. “Hang in there,” I told him, but it wasn’t long before he left.
The next day Amanda and I were warming up before the show. “I think I’ve made a mistake,” she told me. “I really, really liked Reno.” But the surf tour had moved on.
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