George Gus Christie Jr. (born April 26, 1947) is an American author and former outlaw biker who served as president of the Ventura, California, charter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club between 1978 and 2011. He is the longest-serving chapter president in the club's history.Street Smarts: Former Ventura Hells Angels leader tells his story at library Pacific Coast Business Times (May 6, 2022) Christie was also a national spokesman for the Hells Angels.The Fall of a Hells Angel Leader Jeff Adler, The Washington Post (March 3, 2001) The journalist Alice Carbone Tench described him as "the most notorious Hells Angel in America" (after Sonny Barger).Exclusive Interview With Ex-Hells Angels George Christie: The Man Beyond The Myth Part 1 AliceCarbone.com (August 31, 2013)
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.George Christie Jr History 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.Outlaw: George Christie's Life In The Hells Angels (And Beyond) Fred Wasser, KNPR (June 20, 2018) 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".George Christie’s ‘Outlaw’ Maggie Yates, Santa Barbara Independent (May 1, 2018)
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.
Christie was one of the few American outlaw bikers with a college degree. He worked as an electrician for the Defense Department while he married his high school girlfriend Cheryl, who immigrated to Ventura County from Newmarket, Ontario, in 1961.Cheryl Lynn Christie obituary Ventura County Star (February 7, 2006) They had two children together, George Christie III and Moriya Christie.
Hells Angels In 1975, Christie joined the Hells Angels as a "prospect", or probationary member, and in 1976 was initiated as a "full patch" member of the club's Los Angeles County (LACO) chapter. Christie told the Canadian journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden in a 2006 interview: "I really wanted to make a statement of some sort. It really wasn't the thought of criminality; it was more an interest to rebel. It was a commitment". He identified with the Hells Angels' "live and let live" philosophy and claims that, while the Angels took part in brawls with sailors from the Naval Air Base San Pedro and members of rival biker clubs, the level of violence was contained during that period. Christie remarked in an interview with Maggie Yates of the Santa Barbara Independent in 2018: "No one ever went home after a fight and got a gun. The losers would buy breakfast".
Unlike some other members of the Hells Angels, Christie was married with children and would typically carry out club duties at night and on weekends. Reflecting on this in an interview with KNPR in 2018, Christie said: "I was accepted for who I was, what I was. There was a lot of brotherhood back then. It was all based on brotherhood and motorcycles back then." Six months after becoming a full-fledged member of the LACO charter, which was initially based in Glendale before relocating to North Hollywood, he was elected the chapter's president, succeeding "Old Man" John Nobel. The culture within the Hells Angels began to change shortly after Christie joined the club, however, when the Angels in Southern California came into conflict with the Mongols. On 11 March 1977, Christie was one of nine Hells Angels members who were involved in a mass brawl with a large group of Mongols at a motorcycle swap meet in Anaheim, the first skirmish in the feud. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Hells Angels were able to leave a number of Mongols seriously injured before escaping converging police.I Was a Hells Angel for 40 Years. This is the One Time I Doubted the Outlaw Lifestyle. George Christie, narratively.com (September 30, 2016) Shortly afterwards, the Mongols began wearing a patch on their biker "colors" reading "California", denoting the state as their territory. As the preeminent motorcycle gang in California, the Hells Angels claimed exclusive rights to the patch and took offense to the Mongols' wearing of it.The Mongol Motorcycle Gang and the Mexican Mafia Richard Valdemar, PoliceMag.com (January 21, 2008) When the Mongols defied the Hells Angels' warnings to cease wearing the "California" patch, the Angels voted unanimously at a club meeting on 7 July 1977, in favor of declaring war on their rivals. The biker war led to an escalation in violence and resulted in the deaths of four Mongols members and an innocent fifteen-year-old boy, in a series of shootings and bombings in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas between July and September 1977.
A second Hells Angels chapter was established in Los Angeles County on 1 January 1978, when members of Satan's Slaves "patched over" to form the Angels' Chatsworth-based San Fernando Valley charter, following a vote of approval from Hells Angels leaders in Oakland."Hells Angels M/C SFV" yellow.place The origins of Paranormal Witness' haunted outlaw biker Bryan Enk, Syfy (September 21, 2016) Christie subsequently founded the Hells Angels chapter in Ventura County with himself as the chapter president. The Ventura chapter was founded on 6 May 1978.Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs Deputy John Williams, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (2008) Claire Spiegel of the Los Angeles Times described the clubhouse of the Ventura chapter as "a nondescript little building with a red steel door warning 'No Bozos. No Wimps'."The Angel and the Heiress: Biker in Dispute With Eunice Shriver Over $3,000 Olympic Fee Claire Spiegel, Los Angeles Times (April 29, 1985) The same year, Christie was fired from the Defense Department on the account of his Hells Angels membership.
In Ventura County, Christie was a local celebrity who dominated the political and economic life of the county and he was considered to be the most powerful man in Ventura. Mark Coronado of the Ventura County Police Department stated: "People love him. They think he's a god down here". Sher and Marsden wrote in 2006 that Christie was almost universally admired in Ventura, with his image being that of a kind-hearted businessman who was generous in helping others. In 1983, Christie was featured in a cover story in the Los Angeles Times about the "mellowing" of the Hells Angels. The same year, he denied accusations from the California Organized Crime Control Commission, which described the Hells Angels as "the epitome of all outlaw motorcycle gangs", insisting that the Hells Angels are merely a motorcycle club, and saying: "It's a family is what it is".Angels just a motorcycle club — or a gang deep into crime? Walter Wright, The Honolulu Advertiser (April 24, 1983)
In 1984, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) circulated a rumor in Ventura that the Hells Angels might disrupt the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles by supplying weapons to terrorists for an attack at Lake Casitas, which hosted water sports at the games. Christie told the Los Angeles Times in April 1984: "There were rumors around Los Angeles that we would try to disrupt the Olympic Games this summer. That's ridiculous. We're not against the Olympics".Surprise Guest To Carry Torch Thomas Rogers, The New York Times (April 26, 1984) In a 2013 interview with the Italian writer Alice Carbone Tench, Christie recalled: "The interesting thing is that they misjudged how integrated in the community we were. We had come here in 1978 and really became part of Ventura; when the ATF came into town, they started doing a character assassination to try to discredit us. I had started getting calls from many businessmen visited by the ATF, showing pictures of myself and my club members. In order to fight those ludicrous statements, we decided to embrace the Olympics and we got involved. The irony is that their program of misinformation to the community drew us in, and made us the 'All American Boys'. We backfired".
The Ventura chapter conducted a national fund drive and raised the $3,000 entry fee necessary for Christie to carry the Olympic torch for one kilometer as part of the 1984 Summer Olympics torch relay. Olympic officials were initially unaware that the cheque, signed H.A.M.C.U.S., was from the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, United States.Tatooed Hells Angel files suit in Los Angeles Catherine Gewertz, United Press International (May 16, 1986) On 20 July 1984, Christie carried the torch through Oxnard during the opening rituals for the Los Angeles Olympics.Olympic torch expected to blaze into Malibu Beach United Press International (July 20, 1984) He was cheered on by "hordes" of members of the Hells Angels, Crucifiers and Heathens motorcycle clubs as he arrived with the torch in a remote pea field, outside Point Mugu, in Ventura County, in the culmination of the cross-country relay.
Christie donated the $3,000 raised by the Hells Angels to the Special Olympics and designated the funds for a Special Olympics chapter in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. When the donation failed to reach Pottstown, Christie made dozens of phone calls from a pay phone in the Ventura Hells Angels clubhouse to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the chairwoman of the board of the Special Olympics, to enquire about the location of the funds. Kennedy Shriver corresponded by letter with Christie, informing him of a longstanding policy under which funds are distributed on a 50/50 basis between the Special Olympics headquarters in Washington, D.C. and state chapters, rather than directly to local programs.Hells Angel Appeals Fail to Resolve Olympic Dispute Claire Spiegel, Los Angeles Times (May 14, 1985) On 11 June 1985, Christie filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) and Special Olympics Inc., in an effort to have the Hells Angels' donation given directly to Pottstown. Each page of the suit was stamped with a seal bearing the Hells Angels death's head logo.Hells Angel files suit United Press International (June 12, 1985) The complaint was dismissed. On 15 May 1986, Christie filed a second Superior Court lawsuit against the LAOOC and the Special Olympics.