Name	Laird Hamilton
Height
Naionality	Amarican
Date of Birth	March 2, 1964
Place of Birth	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Famous for

Laird was born in San Francisco on March 2, 1964, in an experimental bathysphere designed to ease the mother's labor.[1] His Greek birth father, L.G. Zerfas, left the family before his first birthday. Afterwards but while he was still an infant, Laird and his mother, Joann Zyirek Zerfas, moved to Hawaii. Even as a child Laird was adventurous, as is shown in footage of him jumping off a sixty foot cliff into deep water at 7 years old.

While still a young boy living on Oahu Island, Hawaii, Laird met with later-legendary 1960s surfer Bill Hamilton, a bachelor at the time, on Pupukea beach of the North Shore of Oahu. Laird recounts in the big wave-riding documentary picture Riding Giants that the two became immediate companions. After bodysurfing with his new acquaintance, the young Laird "coerced" Bill Hamilton to follow him home to "meet [his] mom." As Laird recounted of his match-making efforts, Bill Hamilton was smitten by the beauty of Laird's then single mother and married her, becoming Laird's adoptive father.[2]

Bill Hamilton was a professional surfboard shaper and glasser on Oahu in the 1960s–1970s, and owned a small business that made handmade, custom, high-performance surfboards for the famous Oahu "North Shore big wave riders" of the era. The family later moved to a remote valley home on the island of Kauai. Joann and Bill had a second son, Laird's younger half-brother, Lyon Hamilton, who also became a surfer. Laird's mother, Joann, died of a brain aneurysm in 1997.[2]

Also according to "Riding Giants," in Laird's childhood, teen years, and early adult years, he had the reputation for an aggressive demeanor around others of his age. This hostile attitude was in part due to Laird and his brother Lyon being bigger than their classmates, fair-skinned, and blonde: unusual in their predominantly Hawaiian-populated neighborhood. The role of the outsider profoundly affected Laird through to his teen years and early adult life. He became used to this role and was uncomfortable being in the center of anything. He was also known for his physical and mental toughness; nothing and no one seemed to intimidate him.[3]

As he grew up through the 1970s and 1980s, Laird Hamilton lived in one of the greatest surfing regions in the world, the north coast of Oahu, which he enjoyed with a well-known surfer as his father and coach. His father's friends and customers were other surfing greats of the modern surfing era. This environment contributed to Laird Hamilton's growth into a surfer who would ride the largest and most complex ocean waves ever ridden, as documented in film and photographs.
[edit] Men's Fashion Modeling

At the age of sixteen, Hamilton left the eleventh grade at Kapaa High School to pursue a modeling career and work in construction. At seventeen, Hamilton was discovered on a beach in Kauai by a photographer from the Italian Men's Vogue magazine L'Uomo Vogue which landed him a modeling contract and later a 1983 photo shoot with the actress Brooke Shields.[4][5] Hamilton continues to do occasional men's action sportswear print modeling.

Hamilton had his own line of clothing ("Wonderwall") at Steve & Barry's until that retailer shut down at the end of January 2009.[6]