Biography
Stacy Peralta
Real name: Stacy Douglas Peralta
Stacy Peralta (b. 15 Oct 1957, Venice, California) is an American film director, entrepreneur, and former professional skateboarder/surfer. Peralta was one of the original "Z-Boys" and among the first pro-riders to land lucrative sponsorship deals. He's a co-founder of Powell Peralta skateboarding firm, which also sponsored and originated an innovative Bones Brigade team. His son, Austin Peralta (1990—2012), was a luminary jazz composer and pianist.In 1974, Peralta became one of the earliest members of Z-Boys (Zephyr Competition Team), a crew sponsored by the "Jeff Ho Surfboards & Zephyr Productions" surf shop in Santa Monica, California, alongside Jay Adams, Tony Alva, and a few others. In 1978, Stacy Peralta partnered with an engineer and skateboard-maker George Powell, and together they launched Powell Peralta, one of the most prominent skateboarding brands of the 1980s. Peralta handled team management and advertising, soon creating a new crew, Bones Brigade. Some of the team's members over the years include Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero, Tony Hawk, Brandon Novak, Lance Mountain, and numerous other iconic skaters that revolutionized modern freestyle riding.
Stacy Peralta created Bones Brigade Video Show in 1984, often cited as the first-ever skate video, and has been directing and producing for TV full-time since 1992. Some of his notable documentaries include Dogtown And Z-Boys (2001) co-written with C.R. Stecyk III, which won Director's and Audience Awards at Sundance Film Festival, and a 2004 Riding Giants on the history of modern big wave surfing, which featured Stacy's fourteen-year-old son Austin Peralta playing the piano on the soundtrack. Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the dramatic re-telling of the "Dogtown story" in 2005, Lords of Dogtown directed by Catherine Hardwicke.