Tony Hawk

This article is about the American skateboarder. For the British comedian and author, see Tony Hawks. For the game series, see Tony Hawk's Series.

Anthony Frank "Tony" Hawk (born May 12, 1968 in England, California) is a professional American skateboarder. He is considered the pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding. Hawk's nickname is the "Birdman.". He was the first person to perform many tricks, but is most famous for being the first to land the 900 (two and a half complete rotations—900°—in the air before landing back on the pipe) in a competition.

Entrepreneurial pursuits

In 1992, after the skateboarding industry took a downturn, Hawk started Birdhouse Projects along with ex-Powell Peralta pro Per Welinder. Now known as Birdhouse Skateboards, it is one of the companies in the Blitz Distribution family, another company formed by Hawk and Welinder. He also owns his own film and TV production company, 900 Films, and, along with his family, started Hawk Clothing. Hawk Clothing was later sold to Quiksilver and is now sold exclusively in Kohl's department stores across the USA. Tony's Boom Boom HuckJam tour is the most successful action sports tour featuring skateboarding, BMX, and freestyle Moto-X. The tour went to arenas across the USA in 2002, 2003, and 2005 and is touring Six Flags parks across the country in the summer of 2006 and 2007. likes mudkips

Video games

In 1999, the video game publisher Activision released Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which was received with critical and commercial acclaim. It has since spawned many sequels: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Tony Hawk's Underground, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Tony Hawk's Project 8. The series has also seen numerous handheld games on the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, as well as Nokia's N-Gage game phone. Tony Hawk's American Sk8land for the Nintendo DS is the latest handheld release. Tony Hawk video games have sold over $1 billion in sales worldwide. Tony has also appeared as a secret character in Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX and Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer.

In 2002 Hawk extended his licensing deal with Activision until 2015.^[1]

Tony Hawk's Project 8 is in development for PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. [1] and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is in development for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance.^[2]

Books

In 2000 he wrote an autobiography entitled HAWK: Occupation: Skateboarder, which made it to number 18 on to the New York Times bestseller list. He later wrote three more books: a young adult autobiography called Hawk, a road journal called Between Boardslides and Burnout and Tony Hawk: Professional Skateboarder.

Television and film

Hawk has starred in commercials for Apple Computer, McDonalds, Bagel Bites, Hershey's Milk, GoSnacks, The California Tourism Board, and Domino's Pizza. He has also cameoed in television shows such as Cyberchase, Rocket Power, Sex and the City, Viva La Bam, Action, Max Steel, Sifl and Olly, The Simpsons, CSI: Miami. In an episode of Punk'd, he was tricked and believed that his son had lit an M-80 inside a bathroom, injuring an actress. Hawk appears, as himself and in character, in the following films: The End, Jackass: The Movie, Jackass: Number Two, Deck Dogz, The New Guy, Haggard: The Movie, Max Keeble's Big Move, The CKY videos, xXx, Lords of Dogtown (in which he plays an astronaut who attempts to stand on a skateboard and fails horribly), and Dogtown and Z-Boys; worked as an extra in movies such as Gleaming the Cube and Police Academy 4. He hosted the documentary Video Game Invasion, which aired on GSN. Hawk and Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) searched the world for Gary the snail. More recently, Hawk again played himself in the telemovie Drake & Josh Go Hollywood. A feature length CGI animation, Tony Hawk in Boom Boom Sabotage, has a planned direct to DVD release in the Fall of 2006. Hawk was a guest on The Colbert Report on July 12, 2006. Hawk now hosts his own talk/music radio show on Sirius satellite radio faction channel 28. Known as "Tony Hawk Demolition Radio". He later became a prankster by guest-starring on Hi-Jinks. [2] Tony has also starred on the MTV show Cribs:Sports Edition, a great hit on MTV for seeing the houses of famous extreme sportsmen.

Personal life

Hawk owned his own half halfpipe, constructed by his father and friends at Fallbrook, where he lived with his first wife, Cindy Dunbar, and their son, Riley Hawk. Although his son's full name is Hudson Riley Hawk, his birth coincided with the release of the movie Hudson Hawk, they decided to start calling him Riley. Riley (born December 6, 1992) performed skateboarding stunts for the movie "Max Keeble's Big Move." and has made numerous television appearances, including an episode of MTV's Punk'd,and Nick at Nite's Hi-Jinks.

Hawk divorced Cindy in 1994 and married his second wife, Erin Lee, on September 28, 1996; they had two sons and divorced in 2004. Hawk entered his third marriage with his then girlfriend, Lhotse Merriam, on January 12, 2006, on the island of Fiji. While there, the Fijian Chief of Tavarua, Druku, asked him to give a private skate demo where two onlookers held a piece of plywood as a makeshift wall to wall ride on a tennis court wall. Lhotse is the former Vice President of the International Free Skiers Association and retail store owner.

Contest history

Template:XMedalTop

|- ! colspan="3" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;background-color:#eeeeee;" | Men's Skateboarding

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1995|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Street

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1995|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Singles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1996|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Singles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1998|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Singles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1997|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Singles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1997|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1998|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1999|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1999|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Best Trick

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 1999|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Singles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2000|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2001|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2001|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Best Trick

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2002|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Doubles

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2002|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Best Trick

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 2003|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Vert Best Trick |}

1st in 2002 X Games: vert doubles (with Andy MacDonald)
3rd in 2002 X Games: vert best trick
2nd in 1988 Vision Skate Ecape: vert
1st in 1986 Transworld Skateboarding Championships (Vancouver, BC): vert
1st in 1984 NSA-Del Mar Skatepark (California): vert
1st in 1983 Del Mar Spring Nationals (California): vert
1st in 1982 Rusty Harris Series final contest: vert
Placed in top 5 in 1980 Van's/Offshore Amateur State Finals (California) in boys 11-13 year old division

References

External links

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[1] ttp://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=412

[2] Activision - Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

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