Surfer and filmmaker Greg Browning, known for his movie series “Drive Thru” which took him around the globe with some of the top surfers in the world, died last week from complications related to ALS. He was 50.
Browning was inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame in 2024 as a “cultural legend.”
“(He was a great brother, great family man, great father,” Browning’s older brother, Jeff Browning, said on Tuesday, April 15.
He died on Friday, April 11, after watching “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and half of “Return of the Jedi.”
“He was always a huge ‘Star Wars’ fan, and that was his wish,” said Jeff Browning. “He made sure that he never forgot what it was like to be a kid.
“He had a credo, or a mantra, that he would say all the time,” his brother added. “‘Be cool to everyone,’ and he lived by it.”
There will be a paddle-out sometime next month to honor his life, Jeff Browning said, but a date has not been scheduled.
“He was just an incredible person, just a true athlete, a true spirit and a true kind gentleman,” the elder Browning said in a phone interview. He also had a great sense of humor.
During a KCAL News interview prior to his induction to the Surfers Walk of Fame last year, Greg Browning said, “I still feel like I’m that 10-year-old running around the beach.”
“I’ve had so many amazing role models growing up that I just tried to be as good as they were to me, to everybody I meet,” he added, “and hope that that is the difference in somebody’s life.”
Greg Browning grew up in Hermosa Beach and graduated from Redondo Union High School in 1992.
Browning, who surfed and skateboarded with his brother, eventually became part of what was known as the “Momentum Generation,” along with Rob Machado, surfing icon Kelly Slater and more. That generation was a group of professional surfers in the 1990s who hung out on the North Shore of Oahu, according to surftoday.com.
From there, he transitioned into the world of filmmaking.
Taylor Steele, a fellow filmmaker who worked with Browning on the “Drive Thru” series beginning in 2002, said on Instagram that his friend of more than 30 years lived with “such quiet kindness and courage that it leaves the rest of us in awe.”
“Greg was consistently the most considerate person I’ve ever met,” Steele wrote on Instagram on Sunday, April 13. “But it was in his final chapter — facing ALS — that he revealed a deeper power. Not just in how he endured, but in how he showed up for others, even as his body faded.”
Steele said he is still coming to terms with Browning’s ability to give to others.
“He stayed kind, curious, and deeply intentional,” Steele said, “offering laughter, perspective and still lifting people around him when he had every reason to fold inward.”
Donavon Frankenreiter, a surfer and musician who was one of the featured surfers in the “Drive Thru” films, described his friend as one-of-a-kind.
“He was an inspiration in and out of the water,” he wrote on Instagram, and a “legend that will never be forgotten and always asked about.”
Jeff Browning said his big brother received visits from his friends — some of the best surfers in the world — up to the day he died.
In the KCAL interview, Browning said he first felt “something was wrong” in November 2022.
“I had a little bit of weakness in my left arm (while) paddling,” Browning told KCAL, “which is really weird.”
After a surfing accident in January 2023, he went to doctors to find out what was wrong.
One doctor asked him to check his tongue and it was “quivering.”
“It’s just like a little alien is living in my tongue,” he said.
And then, on Aug. 16 of that year, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the famed baseball player who died from the disease in 1941.
ALS, which has no cure, is a “progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,” according to the ALS Association.
Friends, family and the community came out in support of Browning following his diagnosis.
In August 2023, for example, brothers Keith and Derek Brewer started a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $214,000 to help in Browning’s medical costs.
On the GoFundMe page, Keith Brewer said he and his brother “honed our surfing skills at 16th St., Hermosa Beach with the help of our good friend, Howard Eddy, who would film all of us, every day, twice a day.
“Not only did Greg out-surf everyone in the South Bay by winning multiple amateur contests,” he added, “he went on to have a successful career as a nationally recognized free-surfer.”
After Eddy mentored him on film editing, Brewer said, Browning “released several local underground videotapes featuring my brother and I, along with other local rippers.”
Many friends expressed their love and respect for Browning on social media following his death.
“You were a ripping surfer in small waves and had the courage of a lion in big waves,” wrote Jim Lindberg, lead singer of the band Pennywise.
When Browning was diagnosed with ALS, Lindberg said, “your only selfless concern was not wanting to see your loved ones suffer and the spirit you showed through it all was astonishing to experience.”
“The life you lived was the definition of surfer stoke,” Lindberg added, “and your legacy in the South Bay and beyond is solidified.”
Spyer Surfboard founder Dennis Jarvis said Browning faced his diagnosis fearlessly and boldly.
“Greg was like my little brother and he was a main reason our brand Spyder Surfbaords became the number one selling boards in the world through the ’90s,” Jarvis said in a Monday email. “We will all miss his smile and light.”
Before the annual Los Angeles Walk to Defeat ALS in November 2023, Browning discussed his diagnosis on Instagram.
“I wake up everyday thinking this is all just a crazy dream,” he wrote. “I guess it’s time to embrace the reality.”
Browning encouraged others to support the ALS Association Golden West Chapter and its annual walk.
In 2024, Browning was inducted into the Surfers Walk of Fame on the Hermosa Beach Pier, along with along with David Nuuhiwa and Mike Balzer, for his contributions to the world of surfing.
The plaques for last year’s honorees, including Browning, have not been installed yet because of ongoing pier renovations, Hermosa Beach officials said on Monday. But Browning will be honored again when new legends are inducted on Saturday, April 26, as part of Surfers Walk of Fame weekend.
Browning also was a surfing coach, serving as a beloved mentor to champion surfers like Tatiana Weston-Webb and Carissa Moore.
Moore, a five time World Surfing champion and Olympic gold medalist, posted on Instagram on Sunday that Browning was a “friend, mentor and cool other dad” — and was “sunshine in human form.”
“Now when the sun shines, I’ll know it’s him,” Moore wrote. “He’s the best human I’ve ever met. He came into my life when I needed him most. I was a timid, unsure and insecure teenager and he took a chance to follow and film me my rookie season on the championship tour. He taught me how to make the best out of any situation, to look for adventure at every corner and always choose the glass half full instead of half empty.”
Jeff Browning said one of his brother’s last projects was filming a documentary about Weston-Webb, who won a silver medal for Brazil at the 2024 Olympics, called “A Marble in the Jar,” which will premiere in Hermosa Beach on June 5.
The film is about the “highs and lows of being a professional surfer,” he said.
“It’s the final piece of his life’s work,” Jeff Browning said. “It’s more than just a surfer’s movie, it’s a human movie.”
There is also a film in the works on Greg Browning’s life as well, his brother said.
Browning is survived by his sons, Parker and Drew; stepsons, Aidan and Austin DeGuiren; wife, Carrie Browning; parents, Dinah Lary and Francis Browning; stepmother, Virginia Browning; and older brother, Jeff Browning.
