Stunt performer

A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed to a daredevil, who performs for a live audience. When they take the place of another actor, they are known as stunt doubles.

Overview

A stunt performer is an actor skilled in both choreographing and safely presenting actions on-screen that appear to be dangerous, risky, or even deadly. Stunts frequently performed include car crashes, falls from great height, drags (for example, behind a horse), and the consequences of explosions.

Later, in German and Dutch circus usage, the word Kaskadeur referred to performing a sequential series of daring leaps and jumps without injury to the performer. This acrobatic discipline required long training in the ring and perfect body control to present a sensational performance to the public.

Early cinema

thumb|260px|[[Buster Keaton, who did his own stunt work, in a potentially life-threatening scene from his 1928 film Steamboat Bill, Jr.]]

By the early 1900s, the motion picture industry was starting to fire-up on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but had no need for professional stunt performers.

Professional daredevil, Rodman Law, was a trick parachutist known to thousands for climbing the side of buildings and parachuting out aeroplanes and off tall base objects like the Statue of Liberty. Some of his stunts were filmed by newsreel cameras and media still photographers. Law was brought into movies in 1912 to perform some of his stunts as the hero.

As the industry developed in the West Coast around Hollywood, California, the first accepted professional stuntmen were clowns and comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops. These mostly western-themed scripts required a lot of extras, such as for a galloping cavalry, a band of Indians or a fast-riding sheriff's posse; all of whom needed to proficiently ride, shoot and look right on camera.

Producers also kept pushing the directors calling for riskier stunts using a recurring cast, necessitating the use of dedicated stunt doubles for most movie stars. Thomas H. Ince, who was producing for the New York Motion Picture Company, hired the entire show's cast for the winter at $2,500 a week. The performers were paid $8 a week and boarded in Venice, where the horses were stabled. They then rode the each day to work in Topanga Canyon, where the films were being shot. In 1912, Helen made $15 a week for her first billed role as Ruth Roland's sister in Ranch Girls on a Rampage. After marrying Edmund Richard "Hoot" Gibson in June 1913, the couple continued working rodeos in the summer and as stunt doubles in the winter in California, most often for Kalem Studios in Glendale, California. In April 1915 while on the Kalem payroll doubling for Helen Holmes in The Hazards of Helen adventure film series, Helen performed what is thought to be her most dangerous stunt: a leap from the roof of a station onto the top of a moving train in the A Girl’s Grit episode. The distance between station roof and train top was accurately measured, and she practiced the jump with the train standing still. In the actual shoot, with the train's accelerating velocity timed to the second, she leapt without hesitation and landed correctly, but with forward motion she rolled forward, saving herself from injury and improving the shot by catching hold of an air vent and dangling over the edge. She suffered only a few bruises.

Eventually, the out of work cowboys and out of season rodeo riders, and the directors/producers, figured out a system for the supply of extras. A speakeasy called The Watering Hole was located close to a Los Angeles located corral called the Sunset Corral. Stuntmen were now an integral part of a film's drawing power, helping to fill cinemas with thrill seeking patrons anxious to see the new Saturday matinee.

Swashbuckler films

Swashbuckler films were a unique genre of action movies, utilising the earlier developed art of cinematic fencing, a combination of stage combat and fencing. The most famous of these were the films of Douglas Fairbanks, which defined the genre. The stories came from romantic costume novels, particularly those of Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini, and included triumphant, thrilling music. There were three great cycles of swashbuckler films: the Douglas Fairbanks period from 1920 to 1929; the Errol Flynn period from 1935 to 1941; and a period in the 1950s heralded by films, including Ivanhoe (1952) and The Master of Ballantrae (1953), and the popularity of the British television series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1959).

Action movies

The preference to employ ready existing professionals from outside the film industry, either as performers or doubles, continued in the period both up to and beyond World War II, when again the industry was awash with young, fit men looking for work. with stunt coordinator Carey Loftin and a stunt team including Ray Austin, Neil Castes Sr., Robert Hoy, and Dale Van Sickel, introduced the era of the car chase movie. With the later development of modern action movie, the accident rate of both stunt performers and movie stars started to quickly increase.

In the 1960s, modern stunt technology was developed, including air rams, air bags, and bullet squibs. Dar Robinson invented the decelerator during this period, which used dragline cables rather than airbags for stunts that called for a jump from high places. The co-development of this technology and professional performance training continues to evolve to the present, brought about through the need to not only create more visual impact on screen in the modern action movie era. which featured a pyramid fight scene that holds the record for the most takes required for a single scene, with 2900 takes, and the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a back flip off a loft and falls to the lower ground. In 1983, Project A saw the official formation of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and added elaborate, dangerous stunts to the fights and typical slapstick humor (at one point, Chan falls from the top of a clock tower through a series of fabric canopies).

Police Story (1985) contained many large-scale action scenes, including an opening sequence featuring a car chase through a shanty town, Chan stopping a double-decker bus with his service revolver and a climactic fight scene in a shopping center. This final scene earned the film the nickname "Glass Story" by the crew, due to the huge number of panes of sugar glass that were broken. During a stunt in this last scene, in which Chan slides down a pole from several stories up, the lights covering the pole had heated it considerably, resulting in Chan suffering second-degree burns, particularly to his hands, as well as a back injury and dislocation of his pelvis upon landing. Chan performed similarly elaborate stunts in numerous other films, such as several Police Story sequels, Project A Part II, the Armor of God series, Dragons Forever, Drunken Master II and Rumble in the Bronx among others.

Other Hong Kong action movie stars who became known for performing elaborate stunts include Chan's Peking Opera School friends Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, as well as "girls with guns" stars such as Michelle Yeoh and Moon Lee. Other Asian cinema stars also known for performing elaborate stunts include Thai actor Tony Jaa; Indonesian actors Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian; and Indian actors Jayan, Ajith Kumar, Akshay Kumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Vidyut Jammwal and Tiger Shroff.

Awards

There is no Oscar category for stunt performance, but in 1967, Yakima Canutt was awarded an Academy Honorary Award for his stunt career. Hal Needham joined him in 2012, while Jackie Chan was awarded one in 2016 with his "inventive stunt work" being cited.

A University of Illinois study from the 1980s lists accidents and fatalities from films during that era, concluding that it seemed probable that the tendency of film audiences to be interested in ever more dangerous film stunts would likely see increasing fatality rates.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:0.5em auto"

|+List of deaths of stunt performers killed while performing

! Year

! Production

! Stunt performer

! class="unsortable" | Notes

! align="center" | 1959

| align="center" | The Horse Soldiers

| align="center" | Fred Kennedy

|Late in the film, while John Wayne's raiding Union Army troop are fleeing the Confederate Army, a stuntman falls from his horse during the scene where a bridge is blown up. The cause of death was the fall rather than the explosion. Kennedy was a good friend of director John Ford, who was devastated by the death.

! align="center" rowspan=2 | 1965

| align="center" | The Flight of the Phoenix

| align="center" | Paul Mantz

|Reputedly the best stunt pilot in the history of Hollywood.

! align="center" | 1966

| align="center" | Le Saint prend l'affût

| align="center" | Gil Delamare

|While filming on a portion of highway which was under construction, Delamare, who was doubling for Jean Marais, had a spin in a Renault Caravelle convertible, which overturned and killed him.

! align="center" | 1967

| align="center" | Les Grandes Vacances

| align="center" | Jean Falloux

|Killed while filming an aerial stunt. The film is dedicated to him

! align="center" | 1969

| align="center" | Shark!

| align="center" | José Marco

|During production, while doubling for Burt Reynolds and approaching what was supposed to be a sedated shark, Marco was attacked and subsequently died of his injuries. When the production company used the death to promote the film (even re-titling the film to Shark!),

! align="center" | 1978

| align="center" | Steel

| align="center" | A. J. Bakunas

|Died performing a stunt fall from Kincaid Towers. Although Bakunas completed the stunt perfectly, he was mortally wounded when the airbag he made his landing on split. He died the following day in hospital.

! align="center" | 1980

| align="center" | Kolilakkam

| align="center" | Jayan

|Died filming the climactic scene in Sholavaram, near Chennai. After successfully filming the required three shots to show him boarding an airborne helicopter from a moving motorbike, Jayan insisted on yet another re-take, during which the helicopter lost its balance and crashed. Later succumbed to his injuries.

! align="center" | 1982

| align="center" | Twilight Zone: The Movie

| align="center" | Vic Morrow Myca Dinh Le Renee Shin-Yi Chen

On the morning of 23 July 1982, actor Morrow and two children, Myca Dinh Le (age seven), and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age six), were filming on location in Ventura County, California, between Santa Clarita and Piru, under director John Landis. An in-scene helicopter pursuing them was damaged by pyrotechnic explosions, causing it to crash and kill all three instantly.

! align="center" | 1985

| align="center" | Airwolf (TV series)

| align="center" | Reid Rondell

|Died during a helicopter explosion on Jan. 18, 1985 while working on the show.

! align="center" | 1985

| align="center" | Top Gun

| align="center" | Art Scholl

|The renowned aerobatic pilot was hired to do in-flight camera work. The original script called for a flat spin, which Scholl was to perform and capture on a camera on the aircraft. The aircraft was observed to spin through its recovery altitude, at which time Scholl radioed "I have a problem... I have a real problem". He was unable to recover from the spin and crashed his Pitts S-2 into the Pacific Ocean near Carlsbad on September 16, 1985. Neither Scholl's body nor his aircraft were recovered, leaving the official cause of the accident unknown. Top Gun was dedicated to the memory of Art Scholl.

! align="center" | 1986

| align="center" | Million Dollar Mystery

| align="center" | Dar Robinson

|After completing the main stunt, Robinson dismissed emergency medical staff from the set. Then, while filming a routine high speed run, he rode his stunt motorcycle past the braking point of a turn and straight off a cliff.

! align="center" | 1987

| align="center" | Skip Tracer

| align="center" | Vic Magnotta

|After driving a car into the Hudson River, Magnotta was killed after the windshield collapsed leaving him trapped inside.

! align="center" | 1993

| align="center" | The Crow

| align="center" | Brandon Lee

|Lee was killed by a squib load from an incorrectly loaded .44 Magnum gun, fired by actor Michael Massee's character. The footage of his death was used as evidence in the following police investigation, then later destroyed as part of the lawsuit settlement.

! align="center" | 1993

| align="center" | 999 (TV series)

| align="center" | Tip Tipping

|While recreating a luck-escape accident of a fellow parachutist for the BBC series, Tipping died in an accident at Brunton, Northumberland.

! align="center" | 1994

| align="center" | Vampire in Brooklyn

| align="center" | Sonja Davis

|Killed while falling backwards off a wall inside a studio. The over-inflated airbag acted like a balloon, so that she bounced off it via the wall onto the studio floor. Spent 13 days in hospital in a coma before succumbing to her injuries.

! align="center" | 1997

| align="center" | Gone Fishin

| align="center" | Janet Wilder

|Janet Wilder was killed when a boat that was made to jump a ramp in one of the scenes landed on top of her. Wilder's husband and father-in-law were also injured.

! align="center" | 1998

| align="center" | The Crow: Stairway to Heaven

| align="center" | Marc Akerstream

|While filming at Minaty Bay, Vancouver, British Columbia, he was hit by flying debris while observing an explosion of a rowboat. Subsequently, died of sustained head injuries.

! align="center" | 2000

| align="center" | I Dare You: The Ultimate Challenge

| align="center" | Brady Michaels

|Fell off a ladder about from the ground while rigging a platform for a stunt he was going to perform.

! align="center" | 2000

| align="center" | Exit Wounds

| align="center" | Chris Lamon

|Suffered a head injury when jumping out of an upside-down van which was being towed along a street as part of a chase scene; he lost his footing and struck his head on the pavement. Another stuntman suffered a concussion in the same incident. Lamon died in a Toronto hospital six days later.

! align="center" | 2002

| align="center" | XXX

| align="center" | Harry O'Connor

|While playing Vin Diesel's double, was killed when he hit a pillar of the Palacky Bridge in Prague, parasailing during one of the action scenes. The accident occurred while filming the second take of the stunt; O'Connor's first attempt was completed without incident and can be seen in the completed film.

! align="center" | 2009

| align="center" | Red Cliff: Part II

| align="center" | Lu Yan Qing

|While filming a scene in which a burning small boat intending to ram a larger boat, the fire quickly spread out of control, killing stuntman Lu Yanqing and injuring six others.

! align="center" | 2009

| align="center" | Invisible Eyes

| align="center" | Peyman Abadi

|He died in 2009 in an accident during filming of the movie Invisible Eyes.

! align="center" | 2012

| align="center" | The Expendables 2

| align="center" | Kun Liu

|Was killed, and another stuntman (Nuo Sun) was critically injured, in a staged explosion on a rubber boat.

! align="center" | 2017

| align="center" | Deadpool 2

| align="center" | Joi Harris

|She was killed while filming a motorcycle stunt, doubling as "Domino", when the bike she was driving crashed near the Shaw Tower.

! align="center" | 2017

| align="center" | The Walking Dead

| align="center" | John Bernecker

|He fell from high while performing a stunt. He missed the safety net by a few inches.

! align="center" | 2025

| align="center" | Vettuvam

| align="center" | SM Raju

| He was driving a car at high speed during a chase scene when it overturned, and he was declared dead at the scene.

References

External links

Stuntmen's Association
Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall Of Fame