When I first met Larry Bertlemann 49 years ago he was still a teenager – only just – but he was already a phenomenon, cover boy (there were no cover girls, yet) on every major surf magazine around the world, star of Hal Jepsen’s soon-to-be-released ‘Super Session’, third in the 1972 World Titles at 17, US champ the following year, recognised as the originator of a new, low-centre-of-gravity style that would change the direction of both surfing and skateboarding.

As Drew Kampion would later write: “The Rubberman opened the door. Arriving amid a period of flux, he demonstrated that no limits exist beyond our imagination.”

So, I suppose he had every right to keep Tracks photographer, Frank Pithers, and me waiting in Ala Moana Park for an hour or more that afternoon in June 1975 while he ripped the bag out of a crowded, windswept AM Bowl, but jeez I made him pay for it! I don’t know why I was so mean to Larry, not so much in that first Tracks article but in what came later. There was no personal animosity that I can recall, I just felt that such early fame had turned him into a wanker and a whinger whose only redeeming attributes were extraordinary talent, a precocious vision of what might be, and a wicked sense of humour. On balance, I should have been nicer.

The only son (he had four sisters) of a military man turned auto mechanic, Bertlemann was born in Hilo on the Big Island in 1955 and spent his formative years fishing with a handline and hunting pigs. Surfing didn’t enter the picture until his mum split from the dad and fled to Oahu when Larry was 11, where he was soon riding Queens on hired longboards. As he told an interviewer (I think it might have been me): “I still remember my first wave at Queens. I rented a board for an hour and stayed out all day. They had to chase me in. Rabbit Kekai was up there yelling at me, but then my mom told him who I was. Our family had a lot of pull at the time — on both sides of the law, so he left me alone.” Mmmm.

Within a couple of years, he had been talent-spotted by shaper Ben Aipa and as boards became shorter, he was a standout performer on the South Shore. Against the advice of Aipa, he went pro at 13 with a sponsorship from a Honolulu rust-proofing company. And so, it began.

After that first Tracks interview, I ran into Rubberman occasionally in Hawaii or California – usually at trade shows, where he was an outlandish, exuberant skatey/surfie presence – but the first major interview I did with him was for ‘Surfer Magazine’ in 1979, a longish piece with a longish title: “The Secret to Making the Cover, $80,000 a Year, and 360s: or Why Larry Bertlemann had to have his Phone Disconnected, and Other Startling Facts About Surfing’s Rubberman.” Don’t hold back, Phil. And please remember, $80K was a hell of a lot of money in 1979. The piece starts like this:

“To hear Larry tell it, he’s doing rather well. In fact, to hear Larry tell it, he’s doing somewhat better in the field of professional sport than Ali, Jimmy Conners and OJ Simpson put together. To hear Larry tell it, you better sit down and order a drink or three because it’s gonna take a while.

“Modest is not the word that springs to mind in connection with Larry Mahau Bertlemann, 24. Unassuming doesn’t fit either. Bertlemann has – and he’ll be the first to admit it – an outrageously overblown ego. He also has an overblown, almost weird ability to set new standards in performance surfing. Erratic and often just plain ugly to watch, Bertlemann will occasionally explode into a manoeuvre that defies not only gravity but rational expectations as well. He is a truly gifted surfer who will stand out in the history of the sport as one of the originals, and yet he will never grace the record books. Too erratic, unpredictable and inconsistent to ever pose a contest threat, Bertlemann’s dynamic presence on the pro circuit nonetheless often generates more excitement than the event itself.”

And that remained true well into the next decade, where his whirly-bird approach blew minds in all kinds of surf. But he had also become a royal pain for the IPS, ASP and event directors.

As I put it in the ‘Surfer’ article: “The man is an enigma. In 1978, he endeared himself to Australian contest officials by telling them he could be making more money posing for pictures at the Big Surf wave pool in Arizona. In 1979, he befriended a television crew and staged a public confrontation over the wearing of official contest shorts [at the Stubbies]

Look, he’s a talented, crazy, almost likeable pain in the ass. He says he’s making $80,000 a year, and I for one don’t believe him. Still, he is doing quite nicely, thank you; better than most of the guys who constantly thrash his butt on the circuit. Work that one out.”

Roll on the years. Larry has his moments with the law – even doing some time for armed robbery and pulling a gun on a bartender – works his way through two marriages and two divorces, has kids, then becomes a grandpa with a pronounced limp from all that circular pressure on his lower body. And he comes back into my life when Andy McKinnon brings him to the Noosa surf festival. And guess what? He charms everyone he meets.

It’s been a roller coaster kind of surf stardom which I suppose is appropriate, but anyone who saw him surf at his peak will never forget the Rubberman.