Hollywood Stunt Performers 1910s 1970s

This biographical dictionary shines the spotlight on several hundred unheralded stunt performers who created some of the cinema's greatest action scenes without credit or recognition. The time period covered encompasses the silent comedy days of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, the early westerns of Tom Mix and John Wayne, the swashbucklers of Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, and Burt Lancaster, the costume epics of Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas, and the action films of Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Charles Bronson. Without stuntmen and women working behind the scenes the films of these action superstars would not have been as successful. Now fantastic athletes and leading stunt creators such as Yakima Canutt, Richard Talmadge, Harvey Parry, Allen Pomeroy, Dave Sharpe, Jock Mahoney, Chuck Roberson, Polly Burson, Bob Morgan, Loren Janes, Dean Smith, Hal Needham, Martha Crawford, Ronnie Rondell, Terry Leonard, and Bob Minor are given their proper due. Each entry covers the performer's athletic background, military service, actors doubled, noteworthy stunts, and a rundown of his or her best known screen credits.

This biographical dictionary shines the spotlight on several hundred unheralded stunt performers who created some of the cinema's greatest action scenes without credit or recognition. The time period covered encompasses the silent comedy days of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, the early westerns of Tom Mix and John Wayne, the swashbucklers of Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, and Burt Lancaster, the costume epics of Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas, and the action films of Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Charles Bronson. Without stuntmen and women working behind the scenes the films of these action superstars would not have been as successful. Now fantastic athletes and leading stunt creators such as Yakima Canutt, Richard Talmadge, Harvey Parry, Allen Pomeroy, Dave Sharpe, Jock Mahoney, Chuck Roberson, Polly Burson, Bob Morgan, Loren Janes, Dean Smith, Hal Needham, Martha Crawford, Ronnie Rondell, Terry Leonard, and Bob Minor are given their proper due. Each entry covers the performer's athletic background, military service, actors doubled, noteworthy stunts, and a rundown of his or her best known screen credits.

In the past twenty years, we have seen the rise of digital effects cinema in which the human performer is entangled with animation, collaged with other performers, or inserted into perilous or fantastic situations and scenery. Making Believe sheds new light on these developments by historicizing screen performance within the context of visual and special effects cinema and technological change in Hollywood filmmaking, through the silent, early sound, and current digital eras. Making Believe incorporates North American film reviews and editorials, actor and crew interviews, trade and fan magazine commentary, actor training manuals, and film production publicity materials to discuss the shifts in screen acting practice and philosophy around transfiguring makeup, doubles, motion capture, and acting to absent places or characters. Along the way it considers how performers and visual and special effects crew work together, and struggle with the industry, critics, and each other to define the aesthetic value of their work, in an industrial system of technological reproduction. Bode opens our eyes to the performing illusions we love and the tensions we experience in wanting to believe in spite of our knowledge that it is all make believe in the end.

Turner Classic Movies presents a heart-racing look into the world of stunt work featuring films that capture the exhilaration of a car chase, the comedy of a well timed prat fall, or the adrenaline rush from a fight scene complete with reviews, behind-the-scenes stories, and hundreds of photographs. Buckle in and join TCM on a action-packed journey through the history of cinema stunt work in Danger on the Silver Screen. This action-packed guide profiles 50 foundational films with insightful commentary on the history, importance, and evolution of an often overlooked element of film: stunt work. With insightful commentary and additional recommendations to expand your repertoire based on your favorites, Danger on the Silver Screen is a one-of-a-kind guide, perfect for film lovers to learn more about or just brush up on their knowledge of stunt work and includes films such as Ben-Hur (1925 & 1959), The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), The Thing from Another World (1951), Bullitt (1968), Live and Let Die (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980), Romancing the Stone (1984), The Matrix (1999), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), John Wick (2014), Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015), Atomic Blonde (2017), and many more.

Hollywood's stuntmen and stuntwomen willingly risk life and limb to bring excitement to the screen. They crash cars. They swing from helicopters. They dive off rocky cliffs into water far, far below.Yet as recently as the early 1980s, stunt performers rarely even received screen credit for their incredible feats.Here at last is a personal introduction to these professional daredevils. Biographical information, extensive film and television credits, and action photographs shine the spotlight on these highly skilled athletes who will stop at nothing to stop your heart.

Crashing cars, roping wild animals in Africa, jumping off cliffs and getting shot off of horses as bombs explode is all in a day’s work for a stuntman in Hollywood, and taking the Lord along has made it all possible for Mickey Gilbert. He’s been in the movie business since the 1960s, working as a stuntman, stunt coordinator and a second-unit director on some of the most memorable films Hollywood has ever produced. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, The Last of the Mohicans, The Electric Horseman, City Slickers and The Blues Brothers are just a few of the titles in his impressive filmography. With over a hundred movies under his belt, Gilbert has doubled such iconic actors as Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, and he has designed and coordinated some of the most exciting stunts the silver screen has ever delivered. Filled with humor, warmth, adventure and all the action you can handle, Me and My Saddle-Pal chronicles Gilbert’s journey into Hollywood and takes readers along for ride after wild ride as he recollects his part in the making of some of the industry’s greatest films.

Iowa-born Jock Mahoney was an elite athlete and U.S. Marines fighter pilot prior to falling into a film career. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest stuntmen in movie history, having taken leaps and bounds for Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Gregory Peck. One of the first stuntmen to successfully move into acting, he was the popular star of the 1950s television westerns Range Rider and Yancy Derringer and twice played Tarzan on the big screen, presenting a memorable portrayal of an educated, articulate and mature jungle lord true to author Edgar Rice Burroughs' original vision. Filming in real jungles around the world took a physical toll on Mahoney that transformed him from leading man to burly character actor. He had to overcome the effects of a stroke but true to his tough guy nature rose above it to resume his life's many adventures. Mahoney was beloved by fans at conventions and appearances until his untimely demise in 1989 from a stroke-caused motor vehicle accident.