Drive north on PCH past Trancas, past the last real stoplight in town, and just before the Ventura County line you roll past a green sign for Leo Carrillo State Beach. Most people read it as a place name and keep going. Almost nobody realizes Leo Carrillo was a Hollywood star with two stars on the Walk of Fame, and one of the biggest reasons California still has wild, open coastline to drive past at all.
A Californio Family Older Than California Itself
Leopoldo Antonio Carrillo was born in Los Angeles in 1880, into one of the oldest families in the state. The Carrillos were Californios, the Spanish-speaking families who settled Alta California generations before it became part of the United States. Leo could trace his line back centuries, through California, Mexico, and Spain.
The names in his family tree read like a California history exam. His great-great-grandfather, José Raimundo Carrillo, marched in with the Portolá expedition and reached San Diego in 1769, before there was a mission anywhere near Los Angeles. His great-grandfather, Carlos Antonio Carrillo, served as governor of Alta California. His great-uncle was three times the mayor of Los Angeles. His own father, Juan José Carrillo, became the very first mayor of Santa Monica.
So when Leo Carrillo talked about California, he was talking about family. Late in life he put it all in a book, The California I Love, published in 1961. That same Spanish and Mexican era, when huge coastal ranchos were granted and traded, is the history that eventually shaped how Malibu itself was mapped and sold.
From Newspaper Cartoonist to Pancho on The Cisco Kid
Before Hollywood, Carrillo drew for a living. He worked as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner, then found his way to vaudeville and Broadway, and finally to the movies, where he appeared in more than 90 films.
One role made him a household name. As Pancho, the warm, wisecracking sidekick to the Cisco Kid, he rode alongside Duncan Renaldo across a series that ran from 1950 to 1956. The Cisco Kid holds a real footnote in television history as the first series ever filmed in color. Carrillo's sign-off line, "Let's went!", turned into a catchphrase people repeated coast to coast.
By the end he had earned two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for film and one for television. A kid from an old California family had become one of the most familiar faces in the country.
The Conservationist Who Helped Save California's Coast
Away from the screen, Carrillo spent 18 years on the California Beach and Parks Commission, and that, not the acting, is what earned him a beach. He used his fame in a way almost no celebrity did back then. He fought to protect land.
He played a key role in the state acquiring Hearst Castle at San Simeon, the Los Angeles County Arboretum, and Anza-Borrego, which is still the largest state park in California. A California governor eventually named him a goodwill ambassador for the whole state.
It's worth picturing what this coastline could have become without people like him drawing lines around it. So much of what makes Malibu feel like Malibu, the open beaches, the undeveloped canyons, the sense that the shoreline belongs to everyone, exists because his generation chose to keep it public. Those choices are a big part of why the coast still has its small-town, wide-open character today.
Leo Carrillo State Beach: Malibu's Wild Western Edge
In 1953, California named a beach for Carrillo while he was still alive and still serving on the commission. Leo Carrillo State Beach sits at the far western end of Malibu, where PCH bends toward the county line, just past Broad Beach and Trancas.
It runs about 1.5 miles, split down the middle by Sequit Point, a rocky headland full of sea caves, tide pools, and reefs. At low tide, kids climb through the caves and hunt the tide pools for anemones and hermit crabs. Across the highway, a shaded campground stretches up Arroyo Sequit canyon under old sycamores, one of the only spots in Malibu where you can pitch a tent a short walk from the sand.
Hollywood never really left. The opening of Grease, where Sandy and Danny say goodbye on the beach, was filmed at the northern rocks here. So were the seaside scenes in The Karate Kid, along with parts of Cast Away and 50 First Dates. A film crew setting up at Leo Carrillo is still a normal week.
The beach lands on just about every honest list of the best beaches in Malibu, and it holds a quiet place in Malibu's surf history too. The neighborhoods around it, Broad Beach, Malibu West, and the rest of western Malibu, are some of the most private, quite stretches of sand in the entire city.
The Name on the Sign
Next time you pass that green sign near the county line, you'll know the man behind it was an actor who loved this state enough to spend two decades protecting it, and that the beach is something close to a thank-you note California left in his name.
That western end of Malibu, from Broad Beach out to Trancas, is one of our favorite parts of town to show buyers who want space, privacy, and a beach like Leo Carrillo a few minutes down the road. If Malibu real estate out this way is on your mind, reach out anytime. We have spent our lives on this coast.
Shen Schulz
Sotheby's International Realty
23732 Malibu Road, Malibu, CA 90265
shenrealty.com | 310-980-8809
Sources:
- Leo Carrillo biography, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Carrillo
- Leo Carrillo State Park, California State Parks: https://www.parks.ca.gov/leocarrillo