Bunker Spreckels

Taschen the world’s coolest publishing house recently released a new coffee table book about Bunker Spreckels, the one time hottie surf champ and errant stepson of Clark Gable. The book Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence was authored by TR Strecyk and has a slate of photos by surf veteran Art Brewer. Strecyk who co-wrote the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys was a close friend of Spreckels and one of the first on the California skate and surf scene. Stecyk’s glossy book is a decadent document that records the short and privileged life of one of the true Princes of Bel Air.Thrice married Kay Williams Spreckels was a model and stock actress for MGM when she took the plunge with Clark Gable and became his fifth wife. Bunker Spreckels born Adolph Spreckels III was five at the time and the child of William’s third husband, Adolph Spreckels II, the dissolute heir to a sugar fortune. The Spreckels of San Francisco were well known, wealthy, and occasionally loony. Besides alcoholism, early death, and reckless behavior Spreckel’s great grandfather, Adolph Spreckels I was convicted of shooting San Francisco Chronicle editor, Michael de Young. Seemed de Young had de famed him. De Young survived and Adolph Spreckels was declared insane.

And then there’s this tidbit:

By far one of the most unusual accidents in the ’30s occurred at Seattle’s Green Lake. On June 14, 1936, Adolph Spreckels was driving an F Class Hydroplane owned by Finley Webb. As he returned to the pit area after a heat, the throttle stuck open. Spreckels hit the beach at top speed. The boat flew over one woman’s head, then struck several other spectators before coming to rest against the sound truck. Spreckels was thrown from the boat and landed on a telephone pole, a climbing spike impaling his upper left arm. He hung there until rescuers were able to lift him down. Spreckels was badly injured and needed several operations to restore his arm and face. More tragic, however, was the fate of spectator Ord Lockhard, who had been watching the race from his wheelchair. He was struck by Spreckels’ boat and subsequently died.

Bunker started out with a bit of a stacked deck. A talented surfer in his teen years he made a name for himself in the sport, but when he turned twenty-one he went to the bank with an armored car and took his 50 million home in cold hard cash according to reports. Not long after he began his rapid descent into a hedonistic lifestyle filled with drugs and sex. In an interesting and weird move Spreckels invited both Strecyk and Brewer to photograph and film his life, but before the project called “The Player” was finished Spreckels suddenly died of heart failure. Quentin T. is rumored to be interested in the bio-pic, but even he may not be able to find a through line.