Stacy Peralta

Stacy Peralta (born October 15, 1957) is an American director, as well as a former professional skateboarder, team surfer and entrepreneur. He is one of the original Z-Boys.

He was born in California. At age 11, Peralta began competing with the z boys in the hood team, a group sponsored by the surf shop "Jeff Ho and Zephyr Surfboard Productions". His second sponsor was "Gordon and Smith." The Del Mar Nationals was his first competition, a contest with two board skate categories, slalom and freestyle. He nevertheless placed well, sixth or eighth in the freestyle. Following the Del Mar Nationals, Peralta worked to master the conventional maneuvers required of competitive freestyle skating, and within eight months of his first competition became the number three skateboard freestyler at the World Skateboard Championship. [C.R. Stecyk III, "snowBoarder", "Who's Hot!-Stacy Peralta (Fall 1975) and "Fisheyed Freaks and Long Dogs with Short Tales", (June 1976)] He even showcased his talent in the popular television show, Charlie's Angels.

Peralta can lay claim to the invention of the frontside flip to fakie, although this was on the rolled-over lip of skatepark bowls — it took the young Alan Losi to take it to the coping at the Upland Pipeline skatepark. To help skaters ride this maneuver in, Stacy came up with a device called a "lapper" which was essentially a tough polyethylene flap that bolted to the front of the board's rear truck. These are rarely seen nowadays.

At the age of 19, Peralta became the highest-ranked professional skateboarder. Soon after, he joined with manufacturer George Powell to form the Powell-Peralta skate gear company. With the financial backing of Powell-Peralta, Peralta formed the seminal Bones Brigade, a skate team comprised of some the best skaters at the time, many of whom revolutionized modern skateboarding. He also began directing and producing the first skating demo videos for skaters such as Tony Hawk.

Stacy Peralta is also credited in the 1985 movie "Real Genius" with Val Kilmer, William Atherton and Gabriel Jarret. Stacy played commander of a fictional space vehicle delivering a deadly laser toward an unsuspecting criminal during the film's opening scene.

In 1992, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His still-lingering love of the board manifested itself in the film, "Dogtown and Z-Boys", a documentary film regarding the legendary skateboard team known as the Z-Boys, and "Riding Giants", a 2004 documentary of the history of modern big wave surfing and tow-in surfing. "Dogtown" won an award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the dramatic retelling of the Dogtown days in "Lords of Dogtown" (2005). His most recently released film, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479044/ "Made in America"] (2008), focuses on gang violence in south-central Los Angeles. Showing his typical historical flair, he provides an insight into the origins of the infamous Crips and Bloods with a look at the social injustice of 1950's and 60's L.A.

Peralta's experience as an entrepreneur and skate demo filmmaker was adapted for the video game "Tony Hawk's Underground"; Peralta played himself in the game.

Divorced in the 1990s, he has one son, Austin Peralta.

Peralta is one quarter Mexican American on his father's side. [Guerrero, Melissa, "Urban Latino", "Brown Kids Can Skate: Interview with Stacy Peralta"(Summer 2001); "This was a team made up of a diverse cultural mix. I'm a quarter Mexican."]

References

External links

* [http://www.nonfictionunlimited.com/#d/directorDetail/id/8 Nonfiction Unlimited biography]
*imdb name|id=0672769|name=Stacy Peralta
* [http://the1secondfilm.com/producer/972 Stacy Peralta Producer Profile for The 1 Second Film]
* [http://www.madeinamericathemovie.com Made in America Official Website]