Steve Berra

Steve Berra (born May 10, 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri), lives in Los Feliz, California, has been a pro skateboarder since the age of 18. In January of '92, Tony Hawk moved him from Omaha, Nebraska and into his house in Fallbrook, California where they formed, along with Jeremy Klein and Willy Santos, Birdhouse Skateboards. A year later Steve left Birdhouse to ride for Television Skateboards, a company owned by Ed Templeton, Mike Vallely and business partner Dean Crystal. Seven months later Television went bankrupt as a result of Crystal's mismanagement and Steve was left without a sponsor for a short period before finding his way onto Tod Swank's fledgling brand Foundation Super Company with Josh Beagle, Frank Hirata, Steve Olson, Ronnie Creager and Heath Kirchart. This is where his friendship with Heath Kirchart began and to this day still remains. Four years into his time at Foundation Super Co., both Steve and Heath left concurrently to ride for Birdhouse yet again. (Kirchart also rode for Birdhouse, but during Berra's time on Television). During their time on Birdhouse they made what is arguably one of the best and biggest selling skateboard videos of all time, The End. But in the fall of 2001, both Berra and Kirchart were unhappy with Tony Hawk's business partner, ex-pro skateboarder Per Welinder. They felt the brand had lost it's core appeal as a result of the Tony Hawk mainstream explosion and thought about starting their own brand through DNA Distribution, the manufacturers of Alien Workshop and Habitat skateboards, but ultimately decided to ride for Alien Workshop. This is who Berra is still currently sponsored by.

Berra acted briefly between the years 1997 and 1998. He was a series regular on the short-lived Fox drama 413 Hope Street where he received outstanding reviews for his portrayal as Quentin Jefferson, a young man infected with the HIV virus.

Although working, Berra found it hard to get excited about the quality of work available to young actors at the time. Concerned with tarnishing what he had built as a professional skateboarder, and with skateboarding on the verge of a pop-culture explosion, he chose to put acting on hold in order to focus more on being a professional athlete. During his time spent touring the world, he would opt to stay alone in his hotel room most nights so that he could teach himself how to properly write for film and become much more involved in the filmmaking process when he chose to pick that end of his life back up again.

In the Winter of 2006 he started shooting The Good Life starring, Mark Webber, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Paxton, Harry Dean Stanton, Chris Klein, Patrick Fugit, Drea de Matteo and Donal Logue. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival to much critical acclaim. [The Hollywood Reporter, [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i7c848046e63a8a75007db3411d1a60df Sundance announces competition lineup] , 30. November 2006] .

Berra is the only professional athlete ever to have written and directed a film that was accepted into competition at the Sundance Film Festival. But after Sundance, Berra opted to jump back into skateboarding rather than write and direct another film.

He married actress and musician Juliette Lewis in 1999; they divorced in 2005 but are still very close. Is a vegetarian. [ [http://www.peta2.com/outthere/o-sexyveg08_winners.asp The 2008 World's Sexiest Vegetarians Are… // Out There // peta2 ] ]

Steve Berra is one of the owners of a private skatepark known as The Berrics. Berra + Eric = The Berrics. The Eric in reference is professional skateboarder, and one of Berra's closest friends, Eric Koston. The two have also built a website, theberrics.com, based around this super-exclusive private training facility. The Berrics is the fastest growing skateboarding website in the industry and features weekly articles such as, Buttery Ass Mondays and Wednesdays with Reda.

Berra has also been one of Rob Dyrdek's best friends since they were teenagers and has appeared on the Rob & Big show several times as a result. In the Rob & Big episode "Tampa", Berra is Rob Dyrdek's rival in the 2007 Tampa Pro. Berra and Rob make a $5000 bet about who will be place higher in the competition. Dyrdek places 7th, and Berra places 35th. Rob "makes it rain" with the $5000, which is all in one dollar bills.

Steve Berra's sponsors include:
*Alien Workshop
*DVS Shoe Company
*WESC Clothing
*Active Ride Shop

References

External links

* [http://www.indiewire.com/people/2007/01/park_city_07_in_7.html]
* [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117341212.html?categoryid=32&cs=1]
*imdb name|id=0077284|name=Stephen Berra