Laird John Hamilton

Laird Hamilton is an American big-wave surfer who helped invent tow-in surfing and has also worked as a model and occasional actor. Born in San Francisco and raised in Hawaii, he left school at sixteen to model, and a photographer spotted him on a Kauai beach for L'Uomo Vogue. He turned away from competitive surfing, and in 1987 he played the antagonistic Lance Burkhart in North Shore (1987). In the early 1990s he and a group of friends pushed the limits of surfing at the Jaws break on Maui, and in late 1992 he, Darrick Doerner and Buzzy Kerbox began towing one another into waves too big to catch by paddling, the technique that became known as tow-in surfing. That work is chronicled in Riding Giants (2004). He also appeared in Step Into Liquid (2003), doubled for Kevin Costner in Waterworld and for Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day, and rode a celebrated wave at Teahupoo in 2000.