Patti McGee, widely renowned as a trailblazer and legend in the sport of skateboarding, died peacefully at her home two weeks ago on Oct. 16. Her death was announced by her daughter, Hailey Villa, on McGee’s Instagram page. McGee was 79.
McGee lived in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego during the surfing scene of the 1950s and ’60s. In an interview with LIFE Magazine in May 1965 that was republished in the skateboarding magazine Juice in 2017, she said she saw skateboarding as a way to continue the action when there was no surf.
“In the afternoon, the beach break always blows out and I wasn’t ready to go home and do my homework, so we skateboarded up and down the street in Ocean Beach. We started skating the hill on Loring Street in Pacific Beach. That was a challenge. That was like surfing a big wave, if you could make it,” McGee told the magazine.
Her thrill-seeking nature led her to place first in the women’s division at an early skateboarding contest at the Santa Monica Surf Fair. Eventually, she nabbed the top spot in the women’s contest at the First Annual National Skateboard Championships on Jan. 3, 1965.
In the years that followed, McGee appeared in movies and on TV shows, including an appearance on “The Tonight Show” where she tried teaching Johnny Carson how to skate. She was also a guest on the game show “What’s My Line?”
For her contributions to the world of skateboarding, McGee was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2010.
Former American pro skateboarder Tony Hawk posted a tribute on Instagram to McGee on Oct. 18, saying, “Goodbye Patti McGee. Thank you for helping to pave the way for all of us when skateboarding was simply considered a ‘menace’ in the 1960’s. … She ripped and we were lucky to have her. My condolences to her family and friends.”