George Christie

George Gus Christie Jr. (born April 26, 1947) is an American former outlaw biker and gangster who served as president of the Ventura, California chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club between 1978 and 2011. He is the longest-serving chapter president in the club's history. Christie was also a national spokesman for the Hells Angels. The journalist Alice Carbone Tench described him as "the most notorious Hells Angel in America [after Sonny Barger]". Early life George Gus Christie Jr. was born in Ventura, California in 1947, the only child of Greek immigrant parents, and raised in an insular Greek American community in the city. Christie also lived in Camarillo and Anaheim as a child. His maternal grandparents anglicized their surname from Vlassopoulos to Blacy, and his paternal grandparents from Chrispikos to Christie. He described himself as "very timid" and "really sensitive" as a child, and his parents as "very protective, very loving, gentle" people. Christie first became interested in the outlaw biker subculture as a child when he first saw a member of an outlaw motorcycle club on the street when he was in Los Angeles with his father. He noticed that everyone around him was very concerned about the biker but the biker seemed to not care. Christie recalled: "I don’t know how old I was. Seven to 10 years old at the most — this guy made such an impression on me". Another pivotal moment in Christie's early life which caused him to develop even more of an outsider mentality was when he was accused of cheating on an intelligence quotient test in high school. He struggled in school due to dyslexia, but scored highly on the IQ test, leading him to be accused of cheating by the school principal, who refused to believe that Christie had legitimately fared so well. Christie said of the incident: "I thought to myself, ‘if this is polite society, no thank you'." Christie became an avid surfer as a teenager. He joined the reserves of the Marine Corps at the age of seventeen after graduating from high school. He did not see service in the Vietnam war. Christie served in the Marine Corps reserves for the rest of the 1960s. In 1966, he bought his first motorcycle for $200, a 1957 Harley-Davidson Panhead. In the late 1960s, Christie was a member in succession of two outlaw biker gangs, the Question Marks in Ventura and Satan's Slaves of Los Angeles. He also began associating with prominent motorcycle customizers including Kenny "Von Dutch" Howard.