The Star has received word that Allan Weisbecker, “a surfer, a seeker, an author, and, above all, a pirate,” in the words of a friend, died on Sept. 24 in Northern California. The cause of death is uncertain. Mr. Weisbecker, who spent many years in Montauk, was 75.
“He pulled from his life’s adventures for his books and scripts he wrote for the shows ‘Miami Vice,’ ‘Crime Story,’ and numerous others,” said the friend, Lee Bieler of Hawaii, who met Mr. Weisbecker in Montauk in 1971.
According to the website Surfer Today, his love for the waves “was cemented when he learned to surf at Ditch Plain” in Montauk “in 1965.” His love of surfing “led him to adventures around the world, from the North Shore in Hawaii to the captivating waters of Costa Rica.”
Mr. Weisbecker, who was born in 1948 in New York City to Allan and Anne Weisbecker, loved Montauk, Mr. Bieler said, “and spent a significant part of his life there, with many surf trips and adventures in between.” He had spent the last decade of his life on the road, writing, taking photographs, and surfing.
A regular at Ditch Plain Beach, he and his dog were well known there. “He was an integral part of the original Montauk surf crew from the ‘70s,” Mr. Bieler said. “If he wasn’t surfing, he was sitting in his beach chair with his dog.”
“I’m a writer,” Mr. Weisbecker wrote on his website, “with three books in print: A cult-hit autobiographical novel called ‘Cosmic Banditos’ and two memoirs, ‘In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer’s Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road’ and my latest, ‘Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer’s Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise.’ The first two have been bought for the movies, by John Cusack (with New Crime Productions) and Sean Penn (with Radar Pictures) respectively. In both deals I was hired on as screenwriter.”
“His literary contributions are characterized by a brazen honesty and a unique ability to combine seemingly disparate elements into a coherent narrative,” according to Surfer Today.
Mr. Weisbecker also described himself as a journalist whose work appeared in magazines including Men’s Journal, Smithsonian, The Surfer’s Journal, Popular Photography, and American Cowboy. “I was a ‘Hollywood writer’ for over twenty years,” he wrote. He wrote the screenplay for “Beer,” which he called “a comedy about a beer advertising campaign that gets out of hand.”
“I made a good living in Hollywood right into the mid-1990s,” he wrote, “then, for personal, aesthetic reasons, I decided to get back to living life; I wrote some books.”
“In his book ‘In search of Captain Zero,’ in many ways Allan was searching for himself,” Mr. Bieler said, “and I sure hope he found him.”
Mr. Weisbecker was cremated. A paddle-out in his memory will happen in Montauk this summer on a date to be determined, Mr. Bieler said. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons at arfhamptons.org.
