This lanky Huntington Beach resident was the first skater ever to have a sequence grinding a handrail in a magazine. That's like Neil Armstrong taking those steps on the moon.

Templeton was one of the major innovators of street skating during the '90s, and continues to be, most recently winning Best Trick at the 2000 Slam City Jam contest in Vancouver with a 50-50 down the funbox ledge to a boardslide on a small rail. Templeton started the now defunct Television with Mike Vallely, and has since started the wildly successful Toy Machine, which features such stars as Elissa Steamer and Brad Staba, as well as himself.

As a prolific artist of many mediums, Templeton's work -- mostly paintings or photographs of men and/or women in various stages of undress -- has been exhibited in art galleries around the world, and the Toy Machine ads he designs are seen monthly in skate mags everywhere. His choice of subject matter -- whether for the camera's eye or painting -- has drawn scrutiny from the jokers at Big Brother magazine, who frequently question Templeton's sexual orientation and his apparent fascination with the male nude. The fact that he is happily married doesn't seem to matter. This practice has become passe, and Templeton, undaunted, continues to develop his means of self-expression, whether through photography, oil on canvas or with his four-wheeled plank of maple.

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