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One of the top freestylers of the 1970s, Ed Nadalin was born in Ridgecrest, California in the Mojave Desert in 1955. He began skating in 1968 in Cupertino when he saw the Hobie team on TV. His first board was a Hobie Super Surfer with clay wheels. By 1975, Ed had progressed enough to turn pro for Hobie, Speed Springs, Power Paw, and California Pro. He wasted no time dominating the contest circuit by scoring first place as an amateur at the Hang Ten World Pro Am and as a pro at the Belmont South Bay Open—both in 1975; as well as first place pro at the Northern California Pro-Am at Cow Palace and the California State Championships in Ventura—both in 1976. Ed quickly followed up his contest wins with ample amounts of coverage, including a Who’s Hot! in the June 1976 issue of Skateboarder, a Pro File the August 1977 issue of Skateboard World, and a bubble gum card. On the big screen, Ed appeared in The Magic Rolling Board, which was a sequence in a surf film called Five Summer Stories. (It eventually became an award winning documentary circulated in United States libraries for education purposes).
After his pro career winded down around 1980, Ed moved to Rome, Italy in 1982, where he skated ramps and enjoyed slalom with his Italian friends. While there, he appeared in a Jeans West TV commercial. As for career highlights, Ed lists getting to know Russ Howell, and touring with the Hobie Team (Bob Skoldberg and his now wife Gloria, Skitch Hitchcock, Mike Weed, Steve Shipp) in the United States and Europe, as well as six weeks on a solo demo tour tour in New Zealand. By 1989, Ed had stopped skating when he became an assistant film editor in Rome. Today, Ed works at home as a freelance video / film editor and holds down two part time jobs at a garden center and a salon / spa wellness center in Carson City, Nevada. He enjoys listening to music at home, playing his Guild 12-string acoustic guitar and cooking.
ED NADALIN
Ed Nadalin has raked in several men’s-freestyle firsts in his short competitive ca-reer. An all-around skater, Ed has it all down the jumps (using the Skitch Hitchcock toe grip), the tricks, the gymnastics. But what he’s got most is style and a mastery of continuity and fluidity which turn his routines into powerful skateboard dances.
Ed works on his routine four to five hours a day, choreographing and refining his routine.
“What I’m trying to do is show the poetry of skateboarding, not so much how many tricks I can do. It’s the execution and the continuity that are important, where one trick flows into the next. Sometimes my tricks aren’t the most difficult, but when the rhythm gets flowing, that’s where the poetry comes in.”
And what about showmanship? (Skip wore a dazzling all-white tie and tails with top hat at the Masters Competition.) “Wherever it is, whether it’s a contest or exhibition, it’s important to capture the audience. I wore this costume when we were filming Five Summer Stories on a hot summer day at the Huntington Beach Pier and the crowd went wild. Skateboarding is becoming a spectator sport and this is part of the show.”
Source: Laura Torbet, The Complete Book of Skateboarding (Funk and Wagnalls, 1976), p. 100
Check out this classic French commercial featuring Ed from 1978:
