Its a sad, sad Father Geek that greets you here today... I just received this note from one of our readers a little while ago...
I don't know if yo know this but one of the true GODS of coolness had pased away. Ed "big Daddy" roth. Anyway, I know big daddy was associated with car culture but his influence was so huge it crossed over into just about every avenue of entertainment. I can;t think of one friend of mine who didn't have a rat fink poster, sticker or model car.
Chris
I (Father GeeK) immediately started checking around the web to see if it was true. You see as a 13 year old San Antonio boy in the late 1950's custom cars were the coooooolest dream of mine and all my buddies, we even formed a car club called "The Flying Eights" although we were all years from owning a car, but we dreamed, and we dreamed Big Daddy Roth Car designs. In my home right now is an old Roth model car, Harry's got an 18" Plush Rat Fink doll hanging from his ceiling fan, His sister has bought my little Grandson those uber cool Rat Fink action figures and he's only 6 months old. Buuuuuut, the proof in the pudding of Roth's influence on the Knowles household lies in Harry's and my front yard here in Austin. Its our classic custom painted Red 1953 Chevy BelAir. Its certainly no Big Daddy Roth car, but its as close as most people will ever be able to get.
Big Daddy designed alot of cars and motorcycles for individuals, and TV and film over the years. The only "for sure" film work of his I can think of right now off the top of ol' Father Geek's head was in 1967's biker flick THE GLORY STOMPERS, however I'm sure there's much more. He's been the artistic inspiration of such artist's as Robert Williams, Rick Griffith, and Frank Kozik. Ed's up there in that great chop shop in the sky along with James Dean, Wolfman Jack, and all the other dragstrip hipsters of that era, churning out crazed custom wheels for those heavenly chariots. Keep'm freaky, Big Daddy, keep'm freaky!
Here's what Yahoo had to say...
Ed ``Big Daddy'' Roth, whose fantastic car creations and anti-hero Rat Fink character helped define the California hotrod culture of the 1950s and '60s, has died. He was 69.
Roth died Wednesday at his studio in Manti, Utah, said Joe Bennett, a dispatcher with the Sanpete County Sheriff's Department. The cause of death wasn't immediately given.
A generation of teen-age rebels across the country found a hero in Roth, whose chrome and fiberglass creations stirred awe at car shows. Many adopted his airbrushed anti-hero, the bug-eyed, menacing Rat Fink, who became a cultural counterpoint to Mickey Mouse.
While Roth worked on custom cars in his garage-studio near Los Angeles, youngsters across the country broke out the airplane glue to work on intricate scale plastic models of his ``Outlaw'' roadster, bubble-topped ``Beatnik Bandit,'' or futuristic ``Mysterion.''
As a designer, Roth was considered a genius and visionary, not only for his radical designs, but also for his pioneering use of fiberglass in car bodies.
He was described by author Tom Wolfe in his 1964 essay ``The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby'' as the ``most colorful, the most intellectual and the most capricious'' of the car customizers.
``He's the Salvador Dali of the movement - a surrealist in his designs, a showman by temperament, a prankster,'' Wolfe wrote.
Roth created Rat Fink and a host of wild characters to help finance his car design work.
In 1974, he converted to the Mormon church and abandoned his rebel lifestyle, however he continued to work on car designs.
``My fanaticism with cars has just destroyed my personal life,'' he told The Associated Press in a 1997 interview. ``It's an obsession, an addiction. Every day I pray to God, `Release me from my calling!'''
David Chodosh, a friend and business associate, said Roth was still working at the time of his death and was hoping to tour a new car in 2002.
``The guy over the years has epitomized cool,'' Chodosh said. ``Even now, in so many ways, he is still the Boss Fink.''
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Father Geek back again... Here's "Big Daddy's" Bio as it appears on His Homepage...
Big Daddy Roth was born in Beverly Hills on March 4th, 1932. He grew up in a German speaking household. His year younger brother, Gordon, would always take the blame for BD's antics. In school he soon learned to speak English & started drawing in his notebooks while the teacher was talking. He was able to do the homework and keep up with the rest of the class while he drew pictures of his airplanes & hot rods & monsters. The teachers were not pleased with this so he was put at the back of the classroom most of the time. He was very quiet until he joined the Air Force in 1951. His father was a strict disciplinarian and made the Roth brothers behave but he also supplied them with any tools they needed and a workshop to give life to their fantasies.
It was in these workshops the BD learned how to cut his hands and scrape his knuckles and how to build crazy stuff out of wood. His dad Henry was a trained German cabinet maker so BD learned early on about saws and pliers and wrenches. Graduating in "49, BD went on to college for engineering in hopes that he could foster his love for cars which began with his 1933 Ford Coupe in 1946 shortly after WWII ended. He used this deuce coupe to cruise and pick up girls on the way to school. Then came a "32 Ford Coupe and of course some drag racing and heavy customizing, body channeling, and motor hopping. In the meantime, he did well at college 'til one day in Physics class a professor was explaining about bridge trusses and since this did not tell BD how to make his car go faster, he joined the Air Force in '51 and went to bombsight school in Denver where he learned how to make maps. Then to Africa & South Carolina for 4 years and home again. In the Air Force he became an expert barber on the side and owned several vehicles to carry his family of 5 boys and wife. He was honorably discharged in 1955 and bought himself a a 46 Ford Sedan and started pinstriping cars after he got off work at Sears where he worked in the Display Dept.
The family was growing and so were the bills. In 1958 he went to work full time with "The Baron" and his grandson Kelly. He started work on his first show car "Little Jewel" and the "Outlaw", his fiberglass car. He went to car shows and hand painted t-shirts for other car owners and invented RatFink TM which is still his trademark. The through the years he has built many cars and motorcycles and mini carts some of which reside in the National Automobile Museum, The Bill Harrah Collection in Reno, Nevada. He has been married twice and lives with his third wife "Ilene" in a small Mormon town in Utah where he still builds cars and draws custom t-shirt designs.
Every now and then you may see him at a car show or at his famous RatFinkTM parties. He gives credit for his many lights of fantasy to ideas he receives from his"Father in Heaven" who sends them down in bits and pieces throughout the early morning hours.
If you are interested in a more detailed report of the custom fiberglass cars BD has built, please check out this website for the "Roth Cars" poster ($5) or check your local library for BD's books, "Confessions of a Rat Fink" and "Big Daddy Roth's Hot Rods".
