Biography
Most recently known for co-producing and appearing in the Emmy-winning HBO Documentary Series 100 Foot Wave, Sharp has been creating entertainment for almost 50 years.
From Newport Beach, California, Sharp is known as a tireless bottle-blond jack-of-all-trades ; Surfing magazine editor from 1983-1991; founder of Surf News magazine, and creator of the K2 Big-Wave Challenge (later the XXL Big Wave Awards), as well as the Billabong Odyssey. "Bill Sharp," in the words of fellow surf scribe Sam George, "is the man who gets surfing noticed."
Sharp was raised in Newport Beach and began surfing in 1974. As National Scholastic Surfing Association's top-rated kneeboarder in 1982 and a finalist in the World Amateur Championships. Sharp began an internship at Surfing in 1983, just after earning a B.A. in business administration from San Diego State University; he was soon promoted to editor. Surfing, which grew to produce 200-plus-page issues during the late '80s, was animated and flashy under Sharp's watch, full of exclamation points, bikini-clad girls, and neon boldface cover blurbs. Sharp himself provided some of the magazine's most incisive and well-crafted articles.
In early 2001, Sharp helped Surfing photographer Larry Moore organize a group of tow-in surfers for a one-day visit to Cortes Bank, an eerie open-ocean reef located 100 miles west of San Diego, where Mike Parsons caught and rode a 60-foot-plus wave. Later that year Sharp developed the Odyssey, a three-year international hunt sponsored by surfwear giant Billabong in search of a ride-able 100-foot wave.
Sharp parlayed the Odyssey project into the XXL Big Wave Awards, offering cash prizes and massive global publicity for those surfers who caught the biggest waves of each year. The Big Wave Awards (BWAs) would continue for over 20 years, with sponsors and associations including Surfline, Billabong and the World Surf League. Sharp became the conduit between surfing and the Guinness World Records organization, installing a series of surfers as World Record holders, including Mike Parsons, Garrett McNamara and Maya Gabeira.
Sharp began working with the team developing 100 Foot Wave for HBO in 2020 and appeared repeatedly in the first season, often explaining the complexities of the big wave surf scene in a manner viewers could easily understand. By Season 3, Sharp had engineered an episode where the cast revisits the legendary Cortes Bank break off the coast of California, this time with state-of-the art cameras including multiple drones. The episode won the Emmy for Best Cinematography, and anchored the season's win as Outstanding Documentary of Nonfiction Series.
