Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[Gong banging]
[Ray Winstone] Have you ever heard of a man
called bombardier Billy Wells?
Probably not.
But you'd've have seen him on the big screen.
In fact, you just did.
That's right. There's Billy.
In his prime, he was a prize fighter,
but in his later years,
he found himself working in the film industry.
-When I met bombardier Billy Wells,
he was walking on a cane as an extra,
sometimes wearing a tuxedo, sometimes wearing overalls,
whatever the extra's job was.
And he had nothing. Nothing at all.
Once they finished doing stunts, that was it.
You were going on until you were 60 or whatever it is
in this country and got your old-age pension.
There was no union, there was no medicare.
Nothing to look after you at all, so you were out.
And if you got hurt badly, you were out and gone.
He had nothing.
I did not want to wind up with nothing.
["Someone's gonna get their head kicked in tonite" performed by motorhead]
-♪ Well the band is smokin' ♪
♪ and everyone's feelin' all right ♪
♪ all right ♪
♪ it's a Wednesday night ♪
♪ there's sure gonna be a fight ♪
♪ a fight ♪
♪ I know somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight! ♪
♪ Well the joint is jumping ♪
♪ everybody's shoutin' for more ♪
♪ for more ♪
♪ well there's gonna be a pool of blood ♪
♪ on the dance hall floor ♪
♪ the floor ♪
♪ I know somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight! ♪
♪ We're gonna pull out the chairs ♪
♪ and tear down the walls ♪
♪ smash up the band just havin' a ball ♪
♪ me and my buddies in a physical race ♪
♪ leave the whole dance floor in a doggone mess ♪
♪ well the cats are smokin' ♪
♪ everyone's feelin' all right ♪
♪ all right ♪
♪ it's a Wednesday night ♪
♪ there's sure gonna be a fight ♪
♪ a fight ♪
♪ I know somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight! ♪
♪ Oh yeah ♪
♪ we're gonna pull out the chairs ♪
♪ and tear down the walls ♪
♪ smash up the band just havin' a ball ♪
♪ me and my buddies in a physical race ♪
♪ leave the whole dance floor in a doggone mess ♪
♪ well the joint is jumping ♪
♪ everybody's shoutin' for more ♪
♪ for more ♪
♪ oh it's gonna be a pool of blood ♪
♪ on the dance hall floor ♪
♪ the floor ♪
♪ I know somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight! ♪
[Ray Winstone] The stunt performer,
the unsung hero of the silver screen.
For years, these men and women were a secret.
Paid good money to make the stars look heroic.
But as cinema got more sophisticated,
it became harder to pretend that a mere actor
could pull off such feats.
Nobody knows for sure
who cinema's first stunt performer was.
But in 1908, an acrobat was paid to jump off a cliff
for the silent film, the count of monte cristo.
And so, an occupation was born.
But, what qualities does a person need
to get in as a stuntman?
- "Unemployable" is a word that Springs to mind.
Um, all the stunt people that I've been working with
over the last nearly 50 years now
in many cases, have such a diverse series of skills.
But when you try and harness those into something,
most people go, "that's not what we're looking for."
It's like when I came out of the army, and they said,
well, I went for job interviews
and they said, "what are you good at?"
And I go, "well, I can drop a grenade in a bucket
at about 30 feet, eight times out of ten.
And I'm very good with a light machine gun."
"That's not really what we're looking for."
-I think you've got to be a certain person.
You've either got to be stupid in some respects,
or you've got to be really,
uh, know your own mentality and your own physical things,
what your abilities are.
-It's something I could do
which put me out there above others, you know.
I mean, if I got in trouble, I could fight my way out of it.
I could put my back against a friend
and punch my way out of a room.
-I was doing stuff that they couldn't do.
He couldn't do judo, so I did judo.
He couldn't throw a punch, so I threw a punch.
He couldn't drive a car properly, I could.
Not knowing it was a stuntman. I didn't know the word stuntman.
-You have to do exactly the opposite
of what you've been taught all your life to do.
To fall off a horse
is like a pilot jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane.
Why would you do it?
Same thing with a racing car driver.
The last thing they want to do is get cross-threaded
and smash into a bank and roll the thing over.
Every natural instinct and fiber in their body
stops them from doing it naturally.
-Now it's become a far more professional thing.
And people say, when they leave school,
I want to be a stuntman.
And there is a delineated route to become a stuntman.
But in those days, it was a question of
picking people out who could, uh, apply certain skills,
and then they're making money at it,
and being so prized at it.
-It was the last thing in the world
I thought would come my way from my background and so forth.
[♪♪♪]
They did a film called casino royale
and they wanted someone to drive this e-type quite quickly.
One of the stuntmen said, "he's got an e-type,
and he's quite quick."
So, they got me down there and I put gravel on the road
and skidded the arse around with it.
[Clears throat] And the director went,
"that's great. That's exactly what I want."
[♪♪♪]
[Car tires screeching]
-I think I was talked into it originally.
Um, I was a helicopter engineer by trade.
[♪♪♪]
I lived in elstree at the time,
and my parents got a pub in elstree
and one particular person used to come in there.
It was Patrick mcgoohan.
[Upbeat music]
And I got on quite well with him, and he said,
"you're the type of guy who should do stunts."
-I left school with my one o-level,
and realized that many of the things I wanted to do
were not... Actually, the doors were shut.
And so, um, I joined the circus, and was an eternal
disappointment to my mother ever since then.
Other various bits and pieces.
And then my half-sister
had to go to this company called bapty's.
They were the movie armorers at the time.
And I've always been...
Had a real interest in firearms, always.
And she went to the-the guy that owned it and said,
"my brother would love to come and work here."
[Sniffles] Bless him. He said, "okay."
My first film was the dirty dozen,
as the assistant armorer,
and I didn't know shit from toothpaste,
you know, but I-I-I went on the set and i'd
suddenly, I'm in mgm studios,
and I'm meeting all these stunt guys and thinking,
"yeah, I've got I'd fancy a little bit of that."
-My father was a racehorse trainer
and in the early days, he used to train for a very,
the most famous actor in the world in his day.
It was Richard Todd.
[♪♪♪]
[Clippety-clop of hooves]
And I talked to him as a little shy kid
and he'd tell me about the movies he'd done,
from the dam busters, to Rob Roy, Robin hood.
And really, that's where I first got the ideas
of being a stuntman, not knowing it was a stuntman,
but I'd head up my pony and gallop up the gallops
and throw myself off it.
Then in '65, we had race horses,
and a very famous horse stuntman called Jimmy lodge
would come and exercise the horses with us.
Then he wanted to borrow a horse
for a movie called arabesque in '65.
I let him have the horse, and anyway,
he called me the next day because it was a really good horse,
but a very strong horse, and he said,
"look, the horse is great, but, you know, I need somebody to ride it
that can ride properly." So, I said, "yeah, I'll come and ride it."
[♪♪♪]
[Clippety-clop of hooves]
[Rapid gunshots]
[♪♪♪]
And that got me hooked into the film business.
-I was about 20 years old.
And I thought... I was working in a factory in north London,
and I thought, "I can't do this for the rest of my life.
This is not... there must be something else to... in life."
So, I knew in those days that the evening standard,
they had two pages of situation vacants,
all over the world.
So, I went home, opened up the pages,
closed my eyes, pointed down.
And when I looked, there was a little square and it said,
"the London school of charm requires models."
[♪♪♪]
So then, I got an agent
who did walk-ons on television, and I did, um, z-cars,
all the TV, BBC TV stuff and the itv stuff.
But then I got another agent who was doing, uh, uh, films,
extra work on films, so I did that.
I joined the faa and started working on films.
[Ray Winstone] In america, the role of the stunt performer
was well established.
Since the 1920s, performers including yakima canutt,
Harvey parry, and Paul malvern,
had been pioneering and achieving feats on camera,
which were incredible to watch, but also grounded in
principles of safety and professionalism.
Even by the 1960s, britain wasn't quite so advanced.
-If you had your... Your modern health and safety,
uh, professional come onto the set as we were in the 1960s,
he would have been ambulanced off the set
with-with a heart attack.
-It wasn't a stunt business, then, you know:
It wasn't like it is now.
You know? I mean, they used to get any Tom, dick and Harry,
used to do stuff like that.
-You could be sitting in the dressing room as an extra
and an assistant director come up,
or the stunt coordinator, and say,
"uh, who wants to fall down the stairs?
And you'd say, "I do. How much?"
-People would think, "oh, there's an extra 50 quid
or an extra 20 quid here.
I'll have a go at swinging off that building on a bell rope
and hope that I get away with it."
-My mother, bless her, is 92, 93 now coming up. Uh
she did a film called room to let
where my father, he had to put her in a wheelchair
and push it down the stairs.
She got 100 pounds for each time she went down.
She got 300 pounds in 1950.
-A lot of them did dangerous things
that they didn't know how dangerous it was
till they actually got involved in it.
And then, whoa!
-I just used to do it. I was no
there was no knee pads, shin pads, wherever pads.
I'd just, you know, get a newspaper,
put on your elbows in, and that was it.
-My first back-pad was a piece of foam-backed carpet
which I cut out to the shape of my back,
put a bit of string through it, tied it up.
Luxury. Going down concrete stairs.
-A lot of the guys, um, that was either doormen,
or part-time villains, done a bit of crowd work.
You know what I mean?
So they didn't mind getting bashed up or runnin' around
'cos that's what they was doing anyway, in real life,
so they become stuntmen legally.
-When I did you only live twice, which was '66,
there was about 120 of us "stuntmen" on that,
but they were taxi drivers, bouncers, barmen.
A lot of these guys are absolute characters, you know.
And you could buy and sell anything you wanted on the set.
You could buy all your smoked salmon, your Sherry
and everything for Christmas 'cos it was coming up to Christmas.
They were Wheeler-dealers, all the east end London boys.
-You know, everyone got to know everyone else.
Food, whatever the boys used to make...
Work in the meat market.
They used to go straight from work in the meat market
straight down to shepperton or one of elstree, you know,
mgm, and it suddenly built up like that.
-They enjoyed the social life.
They'd spend their per diems and all their money
and come home skint.
I mean, that's how stuntmen... How they were in those days.
Uh, but they had plenty of nerve. They did.
A lot of them would do
the dangerous bits and pieces, you know.
-There was also a great element of professionalism
because there were those guys
who had been doing it for a number of years.
Quite a lot of them had been in world war ii
and come out of the army and everything else,
and had done some very, very hairy stuff,
and knew what it was
to look after themselves and behave properly.
-So, you had this basically group of ex-servicemen
that were working in London, and they'd get odd days
to go and work as crowd and extras on films;
and then they wanted somebody to get through,
knocked through a window, or fall off a horse
or-or get knocked over by a car.
They'd step forward because they were hard guys and,
"yeah, that can't be too bad, you know.
Done worse than that in the war."
But they obviously had an aptitude for it as well
and they became fantastic stunt people.
Some of the best in the world, admired by everybody.
[Paul Weston] They could fall down, you know,
and jump around and play soldiers
because they, that's what they did.
Uh, others were, um, characters, boxers, they were wrestlers,
so they were good character, good heavy faces.
And you knew that, you know, if they had to have a fight,
it didn't matter whether you hit them or not, you know.
They-they were big tough guys.
-You can always tell an old film
because you see old faces in the background,
and you know there's going to be a fight, you know.
I'll see old films now, then suddenly you see the old faces.
I haven't seen them all, but you see,
you know that there's going to be a fight in there
because of the people who are in there.
You know what I mean?
So, if they was in that bar or in that club,
you know it was going to be off there.
[Upbeat music]
[Ray Winstone] Perhaps the first real
legends of British stunt work
were this pair of brothers from south London.
The powells.
-The powells.
Uh, my father, who's nosher, known as nosher Powell.
[Indistinct chatter]
-Very, very well-known stuntman.
I should say about 6'4",
ex-professional heavyweight boxer,
used to spar with Ali.
When Muhammad Ali came over here,
he used to like to spar with nosher.
[Upbeat music]
-He used to clown about, you know,
so they used to put him on last to keep all the people there.
Uh, and he was an entertainer, a very funny guy.
And then he got into the film business.
His brother, dinny
[♪♪♪]
He was in the stunt business
[man groans]
[Plates shattering]
-Well, nosher and dinny
were big in the business when I started.
They were part of the stunt team in those days, you know.
-Being around the film business
or being around all the boys
that was always enjoying theirself,
I really, I wanted to do the same.
I went out on a, I think it was on a school break;
dad was filming in Turkey on a film called
you can't win them all
with Tony Curtis and um, Charles Bronson.
And while I was out there, I got a little job
off of Jackie Cooper who was the horsemaster,
doin' a bit of riding around in the background, you know.
So, it really started there.
-Looks like some other vultures got here first.
-Yeah.
[Clippety-clop of hooves]
-They're part of the little mafias of families
that are in not only the English stunt business,
in the Spanish stunt business, the American stunt business,
and Chinese stunt business.
Every, it's a very incestuous business
and families just seem to grow into it, you know.
Now of course Gary Powell, Greg's younger brother,
is one of the top coordinators in the world now.
-So, there was a half and half,
they were-they were some cowboy stuntmen around
who would hurt themselves occasionally, badly,
and then you wouldn't see them again.
And then there was some of the guys
who were known as stuntmen.
-It was people like Bob Simmons
[suspenseful music]
[Rapid gunshots]
[Man grunts]
-Joe Powell, who's no relation.
-Go forward.
[Rapid gunshots]
[Window glass shattering]
-Um, jock Easton.
[Rapid gunshots]
[Man shouting]
-Both jock Easton and Joe Powell
had both won the Croix De guerre in the war,
and they were absolute war heroes.
They were the beginning of the sas.
-One of my great heroes, Joe Powell.
I have so much admiration for him.
-Joe Powell did one of the greatest stunts ever on-on
the man who would be king for John Houston,
doubling for Sean Connery.
[Footsteps]
[Bridge rattling]
[Man speaking foreign language]
[Ropes cutting]
-[Inhales] And they had a whole team of stunt people
from america that were going to do
this high fall off this bridge
and everything else, each one, in turn,
got magical diarrhoea or had a sickness at home
or a toothache or a neck ache or leg ache, could not do it,
and they all basically chickened out.
So, in desperation, they said, "Joe, would you do it?"
I said, "yeah, of course I will."
-♪ A glorious band, the chosen few ♪
♪ on whom the spirit came. ♪
[Vic Armstrong] And he went up there still on the bridge,
wore the real metal helmet.
[Sean Connery] ♪ twelve Valiant saints ♪
♪ their hope they knew ♪
♪ and mocked the cross and flame ♪
[Sean and Michael] ♪ he met the tyrant's brandished steel ♪
♪ the lion's gory mane ♪
♪ he bowed his head his death to feel ♪
[Bridge clattering]
-They flipped the bridge and he fell nearly 110 feet
down into the boxes.
The thing about the boxes were they were just built on a ledge,
and if he misses those, it's another, you know,
a 1,000 feet to the... To the bottom of the cliff.
And he did it, and came back up again, "is that all right?
Do you want to go again?" You know.
George leech was one of the very early stuntmen.
[Gunshot]
[Man screaming]
[Water splashes]
[Man] [Screaming] Help!
-He started in the early '50s,
doubling for George... Uh, James Mason.
-He was, um, very intelligent and-and he was a good performer.
He was a good boxer.
He was, um, he could set up a good fight
and he knew who could hold up his hands
and-and-and can do a good fight.
He was a good coordinator and a nice gentle man.
-Who's the man behind all this?
-I don't know. [Gunshot]
-I'm not joking, rico.
[Ray Winstone] One of the most important stuntmen
to emerge in this era is one of the last from that time
to still be alive today,
ray Austin.
-Drop it.
[Gunshot]
- [Punch thrown] - [Man groans]
[Suspenseful music]
[Vase shattering]
[Man groans]
[Punches thrown]
[Both men grunting]
-I came out of the army
with what I thought was a fantastic career
because I was a physical training instructor.
I went to the London county council at westminster
to get a, what they call a pe teacher in those days,
it was called, in a school in england.
And they said to me, "great, great, great.
What other subjects do you teach?"
So, I said, "well, wait a minute.
I don't s... I'm just a pt instructor."
"Oh, we do pt in music, pt in art,
pt in arithmetic, pt in English.
We don't employ anyone just for pt,"
so I didn't have a job.
I got a job as a chauffeur... Driver in London.
Cary Grant came over on a visit
and I got designated to drive him.
There was a little coffee bar,
and Cary and I went in there one night.
Sat down to have a coffee,
and there were about three or four yobs in there,
as we called them in those days, from the area,
and they spotted him,
and they started to give him a bad time;
one thing and another.
He got up and went to leave,
and I was going to follow him out.
And as he went to leave, the guy sitting on the stool
grabbed Cary's arm
to pull him 'round, and Cary stepped back at it,
so I stepped between and I hit the guy.
So, we started to be more than just a driver,
and-and Cary and I became his sort of man Friday.
We're in Los Angeles, Malibu,
and I had-i had a little rented house on the beach in Malibu
in those days where we used to surf, and one thing and another.
And Cary Grant's stunt double at that time
was a stuntman called Paul stader.
Great stuntman.
A job with Johnny weissmuller and all those sort of people.
[Johnny weissmuller yells like Tarzan]
-And he was sort of in in the stunt business.
He was the stuntman to know.
I always noticed that stars, actors, and directors
always were friends or liked stuntmen.
You know, your Roger Moores and Sean connerys
always had time to talk to a stuntman.
They never had time to talk to extras always
or stand-ins, but always stuntmen.
A stuntman could always get to them. So I
thought about it and thought,
"well, if I'm gonna get in the industry,
that is the way to go, is to become a stuntman."
So, Paul came to me and he said,
"you want to do a stunt in a movie?"
So, I said, "yeah."
And it evolved fro-from that,
that I got into the stunt business
and started doing all the things, you know,
and then it escalated from there. I got very lucky.
[Soldiers screaming]
-Come on, cut it out.
[Loud tapping on table]
[Indistinct mutter]
-Burn this for the state.
- [Plates shattering] - [Loud groaning]
[Man] I doubt that.
[Thrilling music]
-I got very, um, lucky and clever
because I found out that I was a good arranger.
So suddenly, I'm arranging the stunts,
and I'm the one making the phone calls at night to the stuntmen,
saying, "I want you tomorrow morning,
so I'll have five of you tomorrow,"
working out the fight and doing it.
So, I really took over
and didn't have to do physical stunts myself
unless it was something that I particularly wanted to do.
[♪♪♪]
The thing I'm known for more than anything is kung fu.
I mean, I brought kung fu to the screen.
No one else did.
[Man] Back up.
[Fingers snapping]
-Give me the gun.
-Back up.
[Fingers snapping]
-Give me the gun.
[Gun thuds]
-I brought kung fu into the country.
I taught them kung fu, and we used to fight kung fu,
but I never thought of doing the high speed.
You can imagine Diana rigg in that outfit
doing kung fu at high speed.
Oh, boy. She'd have been incredible doing that.
Those long legs sticking out there,
going at high speed, everybody would have loved it.
[Man grunts]
- [Knee thrown] - [Man grunts]
-Mrs. Peel, you're remarkable.
-He was, um, sort of an icon for us
because he took it another stage further.
He started to, um, stay in-in the camera room
when all the camera guys had gone,
and he'd go through the lenses and he'd learn about a camera,
get one of the guys to help him.
He learnt camera.
He learnt, um, all the departments, what they did.
Um, and he-he learnt his trade.
And so, when he wanted to... To direct second unit,
um, they allowed him to do it
because they-they believed in him.
[Ray Winstone] Despite being one of the greatest stunt performers
of his generation, ray was keen to use stunt work
as a leg up within the industry.
He used his time on film sets
to learn from everyone around him
and would progress to a long career in america
as director of some of the biggest action TV shows.
-But I got out and got behind the camera
and became a director and a writer
and a novelist and so on.
You know, it's a great life for me, great life.
-He deserves everything
that he's ever achieved because he's worked at it.
He took it to another level for a stuntman to be able to become,
um, a film director.
[Ray Winstone] Ray employed, trained,
and inspired a whole new generation of performers
who would go on to completely reshape the trade.
-My father was an actor cum extra, cum stuntman.
Larry Taylor.
He was a good-looking man with a gap in his teeth, you know.
Actor.
The biggest thing he ever did was zulu.
He played a big part in zulu.
[Hughes] Colour-sergeant bourne.
What's that shooting?
[Colour-sergeant] A rifle, Hughes.
[Hughes] Hey?
-If you're sick in hospital,
I suggest you go and lie down.
-Yes, colour-sergeant.
[Rocky Taylor] He had the broken neck.
When the building's burning, he's in there,
trying to get everybody out.
They all collected all around him.
Said I want you to do judo.
I got to black belt very early
through Dougie Robinson and Joe Robinson.
[♪♪♪]
[Ray Winstone] Doug and Joe Robinson
were hugely respected in the film industry.
It was the Robinson boys who taught some of
britain's biggest stars how to fight.
-I got to black belt, brown belt, black belt.
And, um, came the avengers.
[♪♪♪]
-I'm terribly sorry, young fella.
[Coins clanking]
All in a good cause.
-Ray Austin, he gave me my first break
on the avengers.
When I went down,
I-I was-i was down playing the part of the thug.
[Slap thrown]
[♪♪♪]
[Body thudding]
[Man grunts]
-And there was this scene
where a guy had to come down the stairs,
flip over onto the table,
jump on the table, punches him with one foot,
punches him with another, boom, and he goes down.
And ray said, his name is Steve songs.
His name was Steve songs, extra cum stuntman.
He said, "ray, I can't do that."
He said, "what do you mean?"
"No, it's not quite me."
He went, "rocky."
I said, "yeah." "Can you do this?"
"What?" and ray showed me, because ray could do it.
Ray said, "can you do this? On the banister... boom.
On the table... boom, kick, boom, boom. Bang, bang."
I said, "well, I think so. Hang on."
At the bottom, he went, "that's exactly what I want.
Go and get changed."
I said, "what?" "Go and get changed.
You're now steed's double."
[Statue clanking]
[Swords swishing]
I'm now steed of the avengers double
from nowhere.
I now got five years' work on the avengers.
That was my big breakthrough.
Ray Austin, bless him.
-TV shows then, you had the avengers,
you had the Saint, champions.
It was-it was TV shows going every day.
They had stunts every day.
-Yeah, I had a great time on TV.
I had two wonderful years on the avengers
and doing the barons and the saints and all those.
-Television was still a little bit in its
[clears throat] Infancy.
And you could go and perform on television and do it.
But the money was not the same as it was in films.
And on films, you got long contracts.
So, you'd be two or three or four months on the film.
And that was the thing that it was to get,
was to break the back of that and be able to get into that.
-We occasionally got down, okay, uh...
Film stunt guys came down.
And you know, the-the-the Bob Simmons and Terry yorkes
and they've been away on movies, and, um you thought,
"wow, I wonder what it's like to be on a big movie."
-In the early days, stuntmen didn't want to help.
My generation came into the business,
they because they saw it as a threat, so
you had to fend for yourself.
-Gradually, we as young stunt guys coming in,
um, started to be able to watch what they were doing.
And sometimes you'd think,
"oh, I wouldn't do it that way."
You'd see a guy, you know, hurt himself coming off
of a balcony or something because he didn't fall right.
Yeah. And so we learnt, I learned by other people's...
Watching other people that did it well,
and-and some of their mistakes.
-Because I was an apprentice at rolls Royce
and was into helicopters and that,
and did my five years engineering-wise,
it was nothing... you could come out with ideas
that you used to get on a... On a set and look at,
uh, a layout to what they were doing and say,
"well, that ain't gonna work. We need to do this."
So, I came in at that era, and I got so much work
I couldn't but of course,
that didn't help the situation between the old guys and myself,
because they said, "how come this bastard
is getting all the work and he's...
He's only been in the industry five minutes?"
-And there was a lot of... I mean,
you hear terrible stories
as that, that when they were doing ivanhoe
in [indistinct]
[Man groans]
[Paul Weston] A guy went up there to
do a fall off a battlement.
And he put his boxes down and the mattresses and whatever.
And someone had put some rocks in on the top of the bed.
If you, they didn't like you, then you may,
you know, not, you may get injured.
Um, so yes, so I think it was tougher in those days
because they were, they were wrestlers,
and they were boxers and they were,
um, people from the east end, from the west end, you know.
Um, they were all trying to make a living.
They would drive, you know, down to Spain
if there's a movie in Spain
and just be there and they would, you know,
work on the film and sleep in the car.
I mean, there was no organization.
They just did it to, because, you know,
they'd earn enough money out of it
to-to bring some money home.
That was... [Clears throat]
The difficulty that was going on in terms of paddy Ryan
and-and jock Easton.
Um, Joe Powell and Eddie Powell, um, they were...
They were doing that because there was no other way.
That-that's, you know,
that's the way the business was at that time.
They had no respect other than, you know, if you get up there,
and you fall off, that's great.
Get a round of applause.
Away you go. They didn't want any other than that.
And we used to, um, have to sign blood chits,
which meant that you forego any, um
you-you take on all the responsibility of that fall.
If you fell on somebody and killed them,
you would be sued.
We got our first sort of, um, guild together,
and we said, "look, we got to not be extras anymore.
We need to be part of equity and start to-to get some respect
from the industry, uh, as stunt performers."
-I think people finally realized
that being a stuntman
did not necessarily the basic criteria was
being an ex-boxer
with a sort of broken nose and a cauliflower ear, and he says,
"I'll have a go at that, governor." There was a lot more to it,
and we were getting more mechanized,
and people would, you know, the car, I mean,
bullets had come out,
and the great car chase had suddenly become,
"mm. Let's have a little go at that."
[Cars speeding]
[Car tires screeching]
So, you can't do that kind of stuff with that.
[Ray Winstone] It was time for things to change.
-We'd done two or three bonds in england,
and there's people who are interested in coming over here
and doing more action pictures.
And, you know, they want to, to, uh, uh, nail down the skills,
which is why those stunt coordinators
got together with equity.
And the stunt register was thus formed.
If you had two stunt contracts,
you could come on the stunt register,
and you were accepted as a stuntman.
-A lot of the stunt guys that were established
thought it was, you know, just a gimmick,
and they didn't want to pay to go in it.
And they-they thought it was a silly idea
because they were already established
in their own little way.
But once we got into equity, the other guys had to come in.
Either they joined us in equity, or they weren't,
you know, they weren't insured.
And we started the first insurance through, um, lloyds.
-And we began getting proper contracts
which were stunt contracts.
They weren't just a glorified artist's contract;
they were stunt contracts.
And that was that again made a big difference
because we'd said we set our own minimum daily rates
and said, "we will not perform for less than that.
If you want to go outside the register
and get somebody who wants to do it for thruppence,
then that's your business.
But what you will get
when you come to somebody on the stunt register
is a professional performer or coordinator,
who's done it before and expects to be paid correctly
and expects to have a contract which is enforceable
if either of you step outside the realm of that contract."
And that's the way it should be done.
-We came in with no qualifications.
We were all hypocrites in the world, you know.
[Laughs] Let's face it.
We dec-decided for the better of the film business,
if you could form a group, an organization of some people
that do have qualifications, or if they haven't,
they work under people that do have qualifications
and the safety standards then are higher
because then we have probationary, intermediate,
and then full members, so they had to go through
a probationary period to an intermediate period.
And when they're intermediate,
they could coordinate their own stunts,
but they couldn't coordinate for other people.
And then, once they got enough qualification for that,
then they became stunt coordinators
which is a totally logical and sensible
and safe way of doing it.
-So, when they come in, they're vetted,
so you had a committee who vet whether they could ride a horse,
whether they could do a fight scene,
whether they could handle a sword,
whether they could do a fall, they could swim. They could dive,
whether they could drive a car,
whether they could drive a motorbike.
And then we formed a book called the stunt register.
-Known as the book of lies.
[Upbeat music]
'Cause if one put a dot by everything,
you know, they could do everything
and say, "there's a black dot."
So that was commonly known as the book of lies.
-My ex-partner, Alan Stewart,
did a car jump in Hong Kong, right?
We had a car transported there with a bus parked here,
and he goes over, jumps the bus.
And he put [laughs]
One year, he put that picture
of this happening in the stunt book, right,
and Eddie eddon, god rest his soul as well,
he put the same picture in in his column of the same jump.
I'll never forget it.
I've still got the... That one particular one.
-And it progressed from there, really,
and it became something of...
Then became something of a closed shop,
so that we, the stuntmen, had a kind of monopoly
on doing stunts, and the producers
only wanted to use people off the stunt register
unless there was a particular skill of something, like a...
You know, a trapeze artist or something you could do,
then fine, but otherwise,
they were encouraged very much to go on to the stunt register.
So, when you have a, um, cartel, almost which is, you know,
pretty much what it was, with the endorsement of the industry,
it's not like we were setting out being the mafia and all,
or we were going out threatening people,
but they principally want
would come to the stunt register.
"Health and safety" started to creep in,
where the insurance companies and the producers
wanted to know that there was actually
a delineated form of progress for people,
and it made the whole organization
a great deal more professional.
And as those older members dropped away,
[clears throat]
Everybody was going to become a lot more professional.
-It was really getting technical then.
Special effects were coming up and-and I found that you
uh, you'd work more with special effects
than the older guys did,
because the older guys just didn't do it.
-We're now the groundbreakers, and moving forward,
on how to fly and how to shoot upside-down sets,
and wires, and all sorts of things.
-It was a busy time, a busy period.
The '70s and '80s and-and '90s, really.
That was when it all happened.
["Born to raise hell" performed by motorhead]
[Scatting]
-♪ Listen up here I'll make it quite clear ♪
♪ I'm gonna put some boogie in your ear ♪
♪ shake and bop don't you stop ♪
♪ dance like a maniac until you drop ♪
♪ I don't mind I don't mind ♪
♪ I can run a razor right up your spine ♪
♪ what are you waiting for? ♪
♪ What do you think you were created for? ♪
♪ Show us you care ♪
♪ show us you dare ♪
♪ you don't know what happened if you weren't there ♪
♪ born to raise hell ♪
♪ we know how to do it ♪
♪ and we do it real well ♪
♪ born to raise hell ♪
♪ voodoo medicine ♪
♪ cast my spell ♪
♪ born to raise hell ♪
♪ play that guitar just like ringin' a bell ♪
♪ Take it or leave it ♪
[Gunfire]
♪ Going for broke ♪
♪ rock 'til you choke ♪
♪ it don't matter if you drink or smoke ♪
♪ speak through the beat ♪
♪ get up on your feet ♪
♪ sweating like a hound dog ♪
♪ white as a sheet ♪
♪ don't you be scared don't you be scared ♪
♪ everybody terrified it don't seem fair ♪
♪ what are you waiting for? ♪
♪ What do you think you were created for ♪
♪ out of your seat blind in the heat ♪
♪ do the nasty boogie mama stomp your feet ♪
♪ born to raise hell born to raise hell ♪
♪ we know how to do it ♪
♪ and we do it real well ♪
♪ born to raise hell ♪
♪ go back to zero ♪
♪ take a pill and get well ♪
♪ born to raise hell ♪
♪ be a good soldier ♪ - [Bomb exploding]
- [Rapid gunshots] - ♪ and die where you fell ♪
[Chandelier shattering]
[Perky music]
♪ It's your momma ♪♪
[Lively guitar music]
[Rapid gunshots]
[Body thuds]
-It was just, it was what we wanted to do.
It was what we were doing.
So naturally, wake up in the morning, every day,
you'd be up at five in the morning,
six days a week, seven days a week.
You'd have a hangover
because you had a party on the Saturday night.
And then you'd get up and do design stuff on Sunday afternoon
if you weren't playing tennis or doing something.
It was just the way our life was.
-Yeah, it was a good living. Yeah, absolutely.
And, uh, if, providing you got
on to the-to the rollercoaster of coordinators.
Once you were on the team,
you just went from one film to another film.
-And I'd be away for like six, nine months at a time.
I worked with Stallone. Uh
I've doubled dolph lundgren.
I-I had got into a...
A lot of films like that
where I was doubling main actors.
[Ray Winstone] Of all the British stunt performers,
one seemed to stand out above the rest within the industry.
Vic assumed legendary status when he became associated with
and would go on to define
perhaps cinema's greatest action hero.
-My brother was working on two films.
One was called Hanover street.
And he said, "there's a guy in there looks just like you."
And then the other one was force 10 from navarone
in yugoslavia or somewhere funny.
And I was talking to him on the phone one day
because you couldn't, in those days,
you couldn't, didn't have emails
and didn't have skypes or anything like that.
And he'd phoned home to mum and dad once,
and I was talking to him. He said, "here, Vic,
"I'm wor... Got this actor on this film.
He's a dead ringer for you, you know.
You should keep an eye on him.
If he, you know, gets famous,
he'd be a good one for you to double."
"Oh, what's his name?" He said, "Harrison Ford."
Cut two years later, 1980 or something, '79,
and I kept getting these calls from David tomblin,
one of the greatest ads in the world, who we did
Superman, bridge too far, many, many films with,
fantastic ad. He's saying, "look, when are you coming back, though?
We've got this actor. You're-you're a good double for him."
And it was Harrison, which I didn't know at that time.
I arrived on the set,
and Peter diamond was the stunt coordinator.
They met me and everything else. All the stunt guys were there,
hanging 'round the set, and I was watching them filming
and obviously knew Spielberg and everything else by this time.
I knew of them.
So, I'm walking away,
and somebody's shouting, "Harrison" and I ignored him
and "Harrison, Harrison."
And then somebody grabbed me on the shoulder, spun me around,
and said, "but you're not Harrison."
And it was Steven Spielberg.
And I went, "no. No, I'm not."
And he went, "and who are you?" I said, "Vic Armstrong."
He says, "what are you doing here?" I said,
"I've just arrived last night. I'm a stuntman. Just got called in."
"You're a stuntman? Tomblin, David, David.
Look, this guy rates he's a stuntman.
He looks just like Harrison."
And, um, David said, "well, this is the guy
I've been telling you about, Steven.
He's not been available. He's just arrived now, you know?"
[Gasps] "Oh, okay. Okay, okay."
And that was my introduction to Steven Spielberg.
And a couple of days later, dav... Peter diamond said,
"look, you handle the fight round the flying wing
with big pat roach" who's an old mate of mine,
I fought pat for years and years and years in films.
"You handle pat around the
the fight around the flying wing.
I've got to go and start the truck chase."
First morning we were there, again, it was almost lunchtime,
Spielberg had sort of,
didn't really talk to me much during the day,
but I'm just watching all the shots.
In those days, you had to get your... look over
the lens of the camera when they're doing the punches,
and make sure the punch, you know, there wasn't a miss
or anything when they... When they hit.
And one of these punches,
it's just about lunchtime, and he,
Harrison, threw a punch at, um, pat roach, and Steven went,
"fantastic. That was great. That was great.
Okay, next shot's over here."
And I said, "excuse me, Mr. Spielberg"
and he went, "hm?"
And this was the first time he was even aware
I was on the set, coordinating.
Um, I said, "I think that was a miss."
"No, I think it was a hit."
And I said, "i'm-I'm pretty sure it was a miss."
You know, we have to stand up and be counted, you know,
so anyway. Okay, we do it again,
and he's a bit sarcastic, and we did it again.
So you cut to nearly five days later,
because in those days, they'd send the rushes back to england,
they'd process and have a look at them and they'd send them back,
and then they set up a projector in the lobby of the hotel.
And sure enough, the shot comes up,
and I'm about three rows back from Spielberg.
And he watches it and you see the first one,
and he went, "you're absolutely right, Vic."
By now we're friends, you know.
"You're absolutely right, Vic. Yeah, it was a miss."
And the next one comes, it's on the money.
Cool. I couldn't do anything wrong after that.
So that was... I-I'd earned my spurs.
So that was the start of-of-of Indiana Jones,
which was, to me was fabulous.
[♪♪♪]
-[Mutters] Indiana Jones and the temple of doom... yeah.
I'm on-on there because I'm doubling the arch villain.
-Frank is wonderful,
wonderful sense of humor.
And I had him doubling mola ram
on Indiana Jones and the temple of doom.
I've fought with him on that hanging stair at the bridge
where, when the bridge is broken and men are hanging on it.
-Up the top one is Vic and I, obviously.
But on the 30-foot ones is Harrison and I.
I've always got on well with Harrison.
I've worked on about four or five films with him.
I've been out to dinner with him.
A lovely man.
And Harrison said,
"I don't want to fight with him" - the actor.
He said he may not know where to miss and all that.
So I let frank up there.
Vic said to me, "you get a thousand pounds
for shaving your hair."
I said, "Vic, you can do it all day long." [Laughs]
Every week.
[♪♪♪] [Harrison grunts]
[Vic Armstrong] The bridge has broken,
men are hanging on it, and I'm fighting him,
and this guy's falling past us down into the crocodiles below.
And I'm hanging on the... On the ladder at the bottom,
nearly gone and-and frank had to fall off the top,
one of the rungs.
He's trying to escape one of the rungs breaking.
He falls, goes past me, and then grabs a rung below me
and we carry on fighting.
[Kate groaning]
[Mola grunting]
-Like an idiot, I put a-a small harness on here.
And I hooked on there instead of having it up here.
So, as I let go, the weight of the body, I turned over.
-And he came by me and bashed off me and flew past.
And I thought his cable had snapped because he went so fast
and a bit further than we'd measured.
-It was so quick.
And the next minute, Vic is... has grabbed me
because he thinks I'm going, and we're fighting.
-"For Christ's sake, frank, are you all right?"
Bang. "Christ, I thought we'd lost you there."
Bang! And he kicks me in the nuts.
And I bash him on the
[Vic and frank grunting]
[Kate capshaw] [Shouting] No.
-I think, to be honest, Vic was more relieved than me
that I'd stopped.
-And it was so funny, I was worried to death about him
and punching the shit out of him at the same time.
[Laughing]
-[Yelling] [Indistinct].
[Mola gasps]
[Mola screaming]
-They were just tremendous.
It was very, very satisfying films to work on.
They're dirty. They're hard work.
Dirty in as much as they're dusty
and always in funny situations.
And they're hard work, very exacting director,
but we gave him what he wanted.
And the sense of gratification was great from him
and from us, you know.
It was very, very satisfying films,
and that's what I like doing.
So those first three will be forever in my happy memory bank.
[Laughs]
[Ray Winstone] Now, Vic might have been creating heroes,
but the others were getting to work with theirs.
-Rickson, I said outside.
Now come on!
-That cuts it.
[Punches thrown]
- [John grunts] - [Glass clanks]
[Ray Winstone] When John Wayne came over to London
to shoot his action film brannigan,
he had the cream of the crop to choose from,
and frank henson couldn't believe his luck.
-I love John Wayne.
And the first time I did a stunt with him, he bollocked me.
[Car tires screeching]
Peter said to me, "your first job
is driving this e-type at him."
And Dougie hickox, the director, taught me terribly to me,
said, "frank, when you come in,
swing 'round like this, and then come in."
So eeeehhh.
[♪♪♪]
[Car engine speeding]
Wayne went, "that looked fucking terrible."
I said, "what do you want?"
Before I started, I loved him all my life.
He said to come straight through there.
I said "I'm doing 70 miles an hour."
"You come straight through there."
Go back in the car, "fucking nutter."
[Laughs]
[Car engine speeding]
[Rapid gunshots]
Got out, he went...
[punch thrown] Hit me, he went, "that wasn't bad, kid."
After that we got on brilliant together.
What he was worried about, like I understand now,
he wasn't sure which side I was going to come.
Where he's shooting at me,
and as I go past is more shooting.
So that was my first [laughs] tie-tie-up with Wayne.
[Ray Winstone] Having proven himself to Wayne,
and stunt coordinator Peter Bryant,
frank was charged with pulling off
the film's most memorable stunt,
but things didn't go entirely to plan.
-So, we go up there,
and they're explaining their point
where the camera's going to be.
And I said in front of all these police and everyone else,
"you look", I said, "we've already been on the bridge,
and I've stood on it,
and we can get about an angle like that."
I said, "when I come over your bridge,"
I said, 'hopefully I can get up to about 40, 50 miles an hour.
And that will take me way over.
And I could land about here and come down the other side."
I said, "and, um, there should be no damage
to your bridge whatsoever."
So they went outside, and they came back.
They said, "we don't particularly mind
if you kill yourself,
but you're not damaging the bridge.
So, the answer's no." [Laughs]
We closed all the bridge and what they did allow us,
made a ramp about six or eight feet.
And I jumped the car over the ramp
then lifted the bri... The car up here.
And I drove it down the other side.
[♪♪♪]
And I jumped it onto the skip,
and then Wayne gets out of the car
and bang, and so forth.
[♪♪♪]
When they put those three pieces together,
when you see the film,
it looks like you've jumped the bridge.
But, you know, you can't...
There's no point in telling lies,
"I jumped tower bridge," because I didn't.
But, um, it's how it was all, and also you couldn't,
because in Wayne's book,
he said, "frank, next time we'll jump it."
So, you-you couldn't lie if you wanted to lie.
And the last time I ever met him I found out it was the same.
I had bright green trousers on.
All things had changed.
No one wore evening dress and all that.
He went, "fucking hell, is this in Saint Patrick's night?"
[Laughs]
So that was my... but I had lots of conversations with him
in between, and, um, some, once again, you could tell,
and some you can't, you know. But...
And so I met my hero, as it were.
[Ray Winstone] While some of [indistinct] guys
were fulfilling their action dreams,
rocky found himself taking a romantic lead.
-Irene papas, [indistinct] And navarone.
Remember that?
-Spiro.
[Slap thrown]
-What did you do that for?
-To remind you to write letters occasionally.
[Men laugh] - I was sitting there.
I was sitting on, sitting in the desert with her,
and they were shooting this beautiful film
of her and this baby,
whose mother and father have been shot or something.
And she was there, comfort-comforting this baby.
Telling him how wonderful, and don't worry,
she'll look after him and all that.
And tears were running down her eyes
and tears were running down my eyes.
And I thought she was marvelous.
So when she got up and walked away,
I said, "Irene, I cried. You were fabulous."
She went, "what?" I said, "you made me cry with that scene."
"Oh, thank you. Your name, is it rocky?"
She went, "oh, rocky, thank you." "All right."
Cut.
A week later, we were on a square with our horses
and all the stuff on, and guns and all that,
and she's over there, sitting in a chair
and I'm on my horse and she's going like that,
and I've gone like that.
And ten minutes later, I get a tap on my shoulder.
Yes, it's her assistant with a little note,
"yes. Would you care to have dinner with me this evening?"
[Laughs] So I went and had dinner.
Cut.
-And because we were reasonably small,
there were only about 70 of us then
to distribute out amongst the good,
you were always working. You were always busy.
Nobody thought about it. They just gave you a contract.
And these huge checks would arrive through the thing
and they-they'd dent the doormat.
They were enormous checks, you know.
Great stuff, just buy another Harley.
[♪♪♪]
-When I was potless, I had no confidence.
Once I didn't do too badly, I gained confidence.
-You're friends but you're-you're...
Huge competitors, you know.
It's an individual business and, uh,
and it's a freelance business,
and you don't work, you don't eat,
your family doesn't eat, so it is... it's cutthroat.
-There's a lot of backstabbing.
There's a lot, a lot, to get the job.
-You're all fighting for the same jobs
no matter what size you are.
It's not because you're 6'6", and he's 5'6",
you're not going for the same jobs.
You are.
So therefore, it goes down to your ability
to talk somebody into employing you
or convincing them that they should employ you
over and above anybody else.
-I'm better than him.
He'll do it. I'll do it.
No, he, i-oh, no. Don't use him.
He's-he's not reliable.
-Yeah. You'd get up in the morning
and everybody else in the business
is your competitor if you're not working.
[Ray Winstone] No matter how you look at it,
in the whole history of British stunt work,
there's really only one name that sums up the guts,
ingenuity, outlandishness,
the sheer swagger of our homegrown term.
And that name is
-bond.
James Bond.
-Everyone wants to work on a 007 film.
I think all performers would love to work on a 007 film.
-007 is the epitome of a stunt film
for an act-for a stuntman.
I've gone all over the world.
I worked in 70 countries.
Knowing you got a 007, "oh, my god,"
they'd like genuflect in front of you.
You know, it is the holy grail of stunts.
-It's the one film in this country
that says stuntman,
you know, right back from the beginning.
You know, when I used to go down,
I was a kid, it was always stuntmen.
-In the old days, um, meant weeks of work
prepping, because there was no postproduction.
So everything was done in camera. And
we prepped and we prepped, and we prepped to move,
and we rehearsed up in the band room
at pinewood.
We used to have trampolines and various things up there.
And-and we'd work out what the gags were, whether it was...
Bob, I mean, Bob Simmons,
who was the coordinator on those early ones
that we used to work on. And
Bob would just say, "oh, yeah, that's right.
Love it. Yeah, that'll work. Yeah.
Go on. Carry on. Do your thing."
And alf joined to be teaching us
how to do things a little bit more seriously, and all that,
and Bob would be just coming up and supervising.
And-and, uh, if there was a bit of sword work,
Bob Anderson would be there teaching us,
you know, a little bit of that.
And we just spent weeks there. And they were great.
I mean, they were just fantastic.
They were, um, uh-uh, just endless weeks of rehearsal
to get it right.
But woe betide, if you got on there,
and then you didn't get it right because you...
They'd paid for a few weeks of rehearsal time,
and you better make damn sure you're actually ready
to put it on-on camera.
-[Indistinct] Done the fall.
[Bomb exploding]
[Water splashing]
All the submarines, I think I got killed about seven times
in different outfits in the same scene on that.
-I did a lot of stuff for Roger in India,
running through the jungle, swinging on the rope.
[Rapid gunshots]
[Man] Aw.
-Um, we jumped a three... Two-Wheeler,
three-Wheeler over a camel.
[Roger] Hang on, James.
[Car engine speeding]
-I was in the back of that
doubling for Roger, running through the streets for him;
there was lots of running around
because he couldn't run very well.
So I did most of that running around.
As it happened, the phone went.
Vic Armstrong, Barbados, Bahamas:
"Rocky, yeah, can you fly out tomorrow?"
"Where to?"
"To The Bahamas."
And I thought, "well, funny enough,
I've just been sacked."
"So, what kind?
What for?" He said, "you're doubling for Sean."
And there was a scene
where he comes crashing through the window
[wooded window clattering]
And he strangles me 'round the neck
-♪ [indistinct] ♪
♪ I know there's danger there ♪
-With a rope.
I think I got killed five times.
In the op... It's the opening title sequences
of never say never.
I think I got killed five times.
-♪ I know there's danger there ♪
[Rapid gunshots]
- [Punch thrown] - [Man grunts]
[Man thuds]
-Doubling for Roger, you know,
running along the route up, the train top on octopussy,
and ducking under Bridges and diving over pipes.
[Gunshot]
[Roger grunts] - They were such fun
because Roger Moore was just a giggle.
I never, I didn't... I worked on one of the Connery ones
as an armorer, but not as a stuntman,
but you know, with-with-with Roger Moore, he was a giggle.
I mean, he would just, he-he he was a practical joker.
And, uh, it was fun.
Weeks and weeks and weeks of work,
and then we'd be on the big set for the exp... you know,
the villain's lair exploding and all that kind of stuff,
and when we did the,
we did the, uh, the submarine set,
which is what the 007 stage was built for,
for the spy who loved me.
[Rapid gunshots]
And then, some of us are doing
falls into the water, or things,
and-and rocky did a gag on that
where he drives a mini moke off the edge into the water.
[Car exploded]
- [Man screams] - [Water splashing]
-You know, it was freezing cold.
I did one fall into the water
and [indistinct] did a stair fall,
and all that kind of stuff, but, you know, it was all
part of the game. They were just such fun.
-And now, you know, my street cred's really gone up.
I've done two bonds now,
doubling for the lead in... in one.
[Crash]
And then, pretty soon after that, live and let die,
doubled Roger on the fight
with the [indistinct] in the shark pen.
[Hinges creaking]
-Hold up.
- [Kick thrown] - [Man grunts]
[Body thuds]
-Now, I got three under my belt and suddenly,
you start to get into the premier league, you know.
And there weren't many stunt people around in those days,
and I was one of the few young ones.
Uh, the youngest,
I think rocky's a little bit older than me,
but I'd started just before him.
Rocky, me, Mark boyle, Martin grace,
Tim condren, bill Weston,
we were the sort of newcomers in those days,
and, uh, and I had three bonds under my belt, you know,
plus doubling for the lead in two of them, so,
you know, you have street credit and obviously, you work it
and sell it as much as you can, you know.
[Laughs]
-Octopussy, I had a part in that as... as,
um, Steven berkoff's driver.
[Car engine revving]
His character was called orlov, and I was orlov's driver.
And I get shot by bond and do a stair fall.
[Rapid gunshots]
-It was a great, great crew to be part of,
and then to be asked to be the stunt coordinator,
um, was... was wonderful.
License to kill, I, um, I-I had an American stunt guy,
who was... who brought all his equipment
and he was going to do the big fire burn at the end,
um, but I was doubling Sanchez on the back of the truck
and jumping off, uh, uh, off the trucks and things like that.
[♪♪♪]
[Punch thrown]
[Man groans]
[Kick thrown]
[Man groans]
[Man grunts]
-So, I was dressed as him and I was a good double for him.
So I was coordinating, and a double for Sanchez.
And when... the day before we were about to do...
We turned the truck down and it crashed down the rocks,
and the day before we were about to do the big burn
he said, came to me, he said, "if I leave tonight,
I can get a job for two months, but I have to leave tonight."
I said, "okay."
Well, you know, I know what it's like
when you've got one day's work
and... and it stops you doing a-a-a few weeks' work.
So, I said, "okay. You go ahead, leave this stuff here.
I'll do it myself."
Fire jobs are very dangerous, um, you know.
You can't run away from fire.
You-you have to rehearse,
let them know exactly what you're gonna do,
and then when you've had enough, you lay flat on the phone...
On the floor, with your arms outstretched,
and you don't move, um,
because they can't catch you if you run.
Um, so you may be burning but you lay still
while you're burning, and then they come and put you out.
So, this was a-a tricky job because, uh,
I was going to be on fire
for I thought about 30 seconds, which is long.
It's a long time.
So, I was on three minutes of air.
So you get a little air bottle you put down in your costume
and you have a tube going up
underneath the mask into your mouth.
So I figured that it'll take me a minute and a half
to get onto the set, um, and probably a-a minute for them
to do the wig and...
Hairdressers... they want every, you know, get it dead right.
And so I said,
"I'm going to have probably, um, two and a half minutes
before I-I-I do the job."
And just 130 seconds at the end of it,
to be, to be got out.
So, I got on the set, I got...
[clears throat] A minute and a half,
they're messing around, so they then gel me up,
and they say, "okay, stand by," and I'm on there [inhaling]
I figured I'd have done about a minute and a half,
just over [clears throat]
And he said, "turn over, and... Hold on, hold on, hold it.
Problem with the camera."
So, i'm, [inhaling] "Sure. Hurry up, hurry up."
Timothy Dalton sitting opposite me,
and he's got to pretend to light me
and then run when I catch on fire.
So, we're standing now, and I'm going [inhales]
"Come on, come on," and he said, "okay, and action."
[Bond breathing heavily]
-You could have had everything.
-Don't you want to know why?
-He set me alight, boof, I go up.
And as I go up, I go, [Blowing] Nothing.
So I think, "don't panic."
It was like sucking up treacle.
It was like [inhaling]
"See, if you can just blow the tube, clear the tube..."
so I blew the tube, and [inhales] I had air.
So then I could do the job.
So I-I was on fire. I couldn't see anything.
But I'd rehearsed with the boys
I would fall down onto my knees,
get up, move forward, feel the side of the truck.
Then on the floor,
I had rocks so I could feel it with my feet.
And I could get in position and then fall over.
I was out of air.
When I hit the floor, I was out of air.
And then they were putting the flame bars up behind me,
and it was like the whole place blew up.
Lucky enough they came in very quickly,
and took the mask off and I was
but when I stood up and they're shaking my hand and saying,
"oh great, shot, wonderful."
That's when I was burning.
The hand... heat transference through the costume.
The first costume had gone,
the fire suit had been burned all the way up the back,
but the heat transference going through the costume
was suddenly on me, I was going
[groaning]
But I was... I was feeling the heat then.
-And the highlight of bond for me is being a ninja in 1966,
and it's 65 quid a week, to
the last bond I did, which is die another day,
I think the boat chase and all that stuff.
Spending, you know, 15-20 mill, whatever it was,
millions of dollars and pounds,
doing that boat chase, and it was all the other chases,
and coming up with ideas and directing it
and, you know, editing it with the editors
and inventing it.
I'm very, very proud of that, you know.
So they're the highlights.
-There... there are some hairy ones you do. But
you've given yourself to the industry.
-It scares the life out of you a lot of times.
You know, I did a hundred-foot fall for
Mark boyle on the final conflict.
[♪♪♪]
[Horse galloping]
[Horse neighing]
And you're standing there on the viaduct
looking down, and the airbag looks about this big,
and you know you're gonna be doing, you know,
70, 80 miles an hour when you hit it.
You better be in the right position,
but you also got to look like a falling body.
You can't be a swan diver you know
[horse neighing]
[Man screaming]
[Water splashing]
-I think, "Whoo, why am I doing this?"
[Laughs]
-If you've got any sense, there's fear.
The stuntmen, or so-called stuntmen who say,
"I'm fearless, I will do anything,"
and they're not worried about it,
they're the ones that you want to stay away from,
and don't do stunts with.
You don't say, "I'm fearless."
You stand on the edge, you look at it,
you check everything out before you do it.
-Fear. Fear is... is the edge
that's... that's about judgment and everything.
And it's a question of-of channeling that,
to do that and not being overwhelmed by the fear.
Because the moment you get overwhelmed by the fear,
you're... you're... You're knackered.
Your sphincter is going half-crown, sixpence
every time any of us work if it's a tricky job.
But you... you over... You overcome that,
or you learn to say no.
But if you learn to say no more than two or three times,
when there's no good reason for it,
then you kind of go,
"mm. Okay, well, I don't think... I'd rather not be
put in the position where I've got him on the set
and he's gonna say no, so I won't use him."
And then they kind of
you don't see them very much after that.
But I wouldn't ridicule anybody
who admits that his time has come
or that his bottle is not what it was.
-You've got to be conscious of fear.
You got to be aware of it.
Otherwise, you're gonna hurt someone,
someone's going to get hurt badly.
-The most important thing is that you do it yourself.
Your... you're number one,
and you go out and you know the risks.
And the risks are, you're going to get hurt.
-The director's got his way,
he's got his film he wants to make.
He obviously wants to make the best film
that ever has been done.
He gets hold of the first assistant,
the art department, gets them all there.
He wants the greatest sets.
He wants to, you know, a-a stunt coordinator to come in,
and give him the best, most spectacular stunts.
You know, and... and... and which we all want to try and do.
But sometimes you have to, you know,
he has to bend a little way to-to make that work.
They've got to look after us like we want to look after them.
[Ray Winstone] One director, who, it could be said,
did not look after his crew, was this chap. Michael winner.
-I'm just wondering whether you're a little insensitive.
-I don't see anything wrong today
in showing what goes on in life. It was not done.
-But it isn't like that in life.
I'm sorry, Mr. Winner. - No, you don't know.
- It just isn't. - You've never been raped.
-Have you ever asked me?
-Well, [chuckles] Have you been raped?
-Never liked him. He was a horrible man.
-He got his stuff done but he used to terrorize people.
-Michael was probably the only one
that I diss in my book. [Laughs]
Yeah, I did have a run-in with him on the big sleep.
He was doing things which only a bully would do.
-I used to see him on the set.
And he used to have this 15-, 16-year-old,
learning to be in the industry boy.
And he used to click his fingers.
[Snaps fingers] That was for a script.
[Fingers snapping twice] That was for a cigar.
[Fingers snapping thrice] That's for a light.
And it was just pathetic to see it.
-I mean, a lot of people like him for what he is,
but he is... he was rude.
-I was doing a film called revolution
with Eddie Stacy,
and we came back from cornwall somewhere
or down in Plymouth; Plymouth.
And I had a phone call from Mark boyle to come down,
on a film called death wish 3.
-You're letting me loose?
-I'm letting you loose.
[Yelling]
[Rapid gunshots]
-And I'm on it for about two weeks,
I think; Odd days here and odd days there.
[♪♪♪]
And driving a motorbike,
I had to drive a motorbike, crashed it, as I said,
done bits and pieces.
Got shot, went down some stairs, got on fire.
All different gags that were in the film.
One shot where I come
tearing down a road and they put a wire across,
take me off the bike, the bike crashes and all that.
All that was going on.
And then I walk in one day, Michael winner and Mark boyle
standing there looking at this building to the left.
And I could hear Michael winner say,
"he'll do it. Rocky."
I went, "what?" He said, "yeah.
We want someone to come off of that building.
It's on fire, and we need someone to jump."
Yeah.
I'm... "sure. I'll have a go at it."
I didn't know that two people had turned it down
before... before I went up.
So, I go up with Mark boyle, up to the roof,
and look 'round, look down.
He said, "we'll put boxes down there, put a car, dig a hole,
put the boxes there.
We'll hide the camera behind the car.
You'll be over there.
Flames come up.
You'll come to the edge of the building.
And the flames go up.
As you jump, the flames go up behind you.
It engulfs."
"I mean, yeah.
Sounds fine to me."
-Winner's on one of his bad days,
uh, and rocky's up there.
Johnny Evans, special effects.
Um, and John always does what the director says.
If he says, turn up... Turn up the flames,"
John would turn up the flames.
-I'm standing there, and I could hear,
"turn over."
I turn over. "Light the building."
They lit the building.
And before I knew where I was,
the building wasn't just a little bit aflame.
It was 17 feet, 20 feet high.
The flames just come up like a bomb; It blew up.
Winner flicked up the switch. I'll never forget it.
-And all I could hear was winner going,
"rocky, where are you? Rocky?
Come on, rocky. Where's rocky?"
I gotta... I gotta go.
I know... I know that over there where the boxes are.
They're over there.
If I can get through them flames, and drop,
I could land on the boxes, and hopefully,
everything will be alright.
But it was very, very, very hot.
So I put my hands to my face,
I covered my face.
And I ran to the wall.
Coming down, I could see it was a foot away
the edge of the boxes.
[♪♪♪]
-If he hadn't of pushed off as hard
he'd have made the rig, totally.
But because he...
To get through the flame, he pushed that bit harder,
half of him went into the rig and the other half stayed out.
So he split himself in two.
And it didn't need to happen,
but it didn't need the flames put up any more.
[Rocky Taylor] I broke my pelvis,
my back, I have a burnt...
My face is all blistered, my hands are all blistered.
So, I was in traction for, uh, for three weeks
where they had to put a bolt through here,
and a wire coming up here.
And pull this bit every day, with weights on,
pulling it down, to get it level.
Mr. Winner then came into the hospital,
followed by five or six newspapers.
He laid next to me.
And he whispered in my ear,
"don't think you can sue me, rocky,
because you can't get away with it."
And he's got people taking photographs of him
lying next to me, cuddling me, saying
what a wonderful man I was and all that.
I'm now, you know, 40 years of age,
just had a terrible accident at the peak of my career.
Gone.
And it... it ruined, you know,
that film ruined my life completely.
-I've done some heavy stunts on the movies.
I've... I've coordinated
and there've been very little accidents if any.
The only one that we did have was with Richard hammatt was,
I had him doubling for Superman on Superman III.
And we had a Russian swing.
-I was playing, um, Clark Kent, and it was an evil Superman.
Christopher was the evil Superman.
[Kent] Aw, aw.
[Superman] Come on, chicken!
I'm gonna get you.
Been on my nerves for a long time.
[Kent grunts]
-He throws me in the car crusher.
-You always wanted to fly, Kent.
Now's your chance.
-O-On the Russian swing,
you... you have somebody behind you on this like a seesaw
and you stand on one end.
And when you get to your height,
where... to the trajectory you want,
then you go off and you get flown 35 feet, 40 feet.
He just slightly mistimed it,
and went straight up, and came straight down.
-I was turned to look down,
I'm on... There's a stack of cars,
all these American cars in a stack,
and the airbag's a bit further out
because I'd gone higher up. I went...
"I'm not going to reach the airbag."
So I turned, and as I started to go over onto my back,
I thought, "I'm not going to get right on the bag,
I'm gonna lose kind of catch my head,
I'll be on the edge of the bag."
So, I came down between the bag and the cars
and took it on this shoulder.
It snapped all the ribs off on this side.
They went through the lung, punctured the lung,
and I had to get rid of the blood in the... in the lung.
So [laughs] my... my face is like that.
That's what the doctor was doing.
Anyway, I did.
I got to discharge myself out of hospital and
I was back at work.
-We were filming in Greece for Pete brayham, sky riders,
it was called sky riders.
[Lively music]
And what occurred is, they were going to do one explosion
what came out about 60 feet there and land there,
and we were going to run forward,
and the second one would come and explode over us.
[Suspenseful music]
[Bomb exploded]
But this first explosion went over our heads
and it landed on the crew.
I think 13 of them got burned.
But the... I think he... He was the boom operator,
quite a big guy.
He was the most burnt.
So I ran after him and I got him, and it was all alight here,
and I've lived with this ever [Indistinct] in my life,
and we all had shorts on.
And this is all alight.
So I tried to tear it off.
I started jumping on him
and trying to get him on the ground.
And I've lived with it the rest of my life.
I didn't save him.
Then I think the producer got him on the ground.
But he died five days later.
And it's come back to the same point.
You live with your mistakes.
And you arch yourself to your mistakes
and... and there... there it is.
-I hate it. I don't like it.
I have to be responsible, it's my job.
But I worry about them,
you know, but we've got a job to do.
And I need them to, you know, fall over as hard as possible
to look like they've been shot or blown up, you know,
but it's not a... you know, I have to sign off on that,
and I really... I've been hurt.
And I know at some stages, they are going to get a knock
or bruise or whatever.
But to be responsible for that, it's not very nice.
Um, you know, I've had one serious injury on a film,
and I would really never want to do that again.
You know, it's... it's not a nice feeling at all,
because it lives with you forever.
And I had a really hard time for months and months
after that injury that they sustained.
But, you know, uh, that was... That was the name of the game
and that's what we all signed up to do, you know.
No one put a gun to my head or his head,
to do what he done, and he... David willingly done it.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out that well,
and poor David's ended up in a wheelchair
for the rest of his life.
Um, and I sort of carry that guilt that I was the one
who said "action" on that... On that particular rehearsal.
[Ray Winstone] Greg was the stunt coordinator
on all the Harry Potter films.
During rehearsal on the final film,
Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double,
David Holmes,
sustained an injury with a devastating result.
-He just did a jerk-back, you know,
which we've done that... On Harry Potter,
every day was there a jerk-back, you know, wand
you know, expelliarmus,
a flick and a swish, stuff like that.
It was a jerk-back, you know, that he just landed wrong on.
It's just... it's just one of those things that happens.
You don't want it to happen at all.
Not even if you had a worst enemy,
you wouldn't want that to happen.
And especially to David who i...
He'd come into it as a kid like I did,
doing it, and then I brought him in on Potter,
of course he doubled for Daniel Radcliffe,
and poor sod ended up in a wheelchair.
-Do you stop shooting, or do you carry on?
Everyone straight away, you say no,
we can't carry on or whatever.
But you have to.
There's no there's nothing you can do for him.
There's nothing, you... you know,
everything's being done for him.
You may feel, you know, that out of respect or whatever,
you w... you wouldn't want to carry on,
but the producers are right, you know.
You've just got to get back in there
and do it and then you just carry on. Um
I'm sure... with fatalities that happen around the world,
I'm sure, you know, it must affect the crew very badly.
But what do you do? Where do you... you know?
Do you stop or do you...
And how long do you stop for, you know?
It's... it's far better to just carry on with your job
and knowing that they're being taken care of.
-The low parts have been away from the family.
The family pay for it.
-I missed the kids because I was traveling a lot.
When in the early days, you just went where the money was
or where the work was.
So yeah, you know, they... I think they missed me as well,
as much as I missed them.
But in those days, you-you... That's where the money was.
That's where the work was, so.
-I think they knew that it's my job
and I'm a professional and I know what I'm doing, hopefully.
So they had confidence in me, i'm sure
but it's like someone driving a lorry,
"dad, be careful today," you know
I'm sure they did worry. But, uh
where are we now?
[Laughs]
-So, they're the worst things of it,
I think, not seeing your kids and everything else.
You see them, you know, the best you can and everything else.
And there's obviously... That's the worst thing, yeah.
-So I think the industry's changed an awful lot,
an awful lot.
And a lot of the craft is gone, because most of the stunts now
are done on the green screen.
You can do it and get away with it.
-Everything's different now, uh, uh, you know, the
you-you-you're working on sets
while I'm not there maybe, you know.
You're riding horses that you're sitting on a box.
They can put the horse on after.
It's... it's, you know, it's as simple as that.
You could be driving a car at a hundred mile an hour in a chase,
or the actor can.
He's... he's not doing it, but they put him in there,
or put the car 'round...
It's... it's amazing what they do today.
-You could do the greatest stunt in the world,
and people think, "oh, yeah, it was missing cg.
That was, uh, you know."
And yet they see a cg thing and go,
"oh, you were fantastic." And then, "yeah."
You put the costume on and walked into the shot
and the rest is all cg.
You know, it's, uh, i-it is depressing.
But i... you know, everything goes round in a circle,
certainly in the film game.
And you can't knock cg.
I think you can just knock the people that use it too much,
overuse it and abuse it,
but it is a wonderful thing and it's the type of films
people want to go and see.
-I'm not knocking cgi, because they do a very good job.
I mean, you've got marvel,
you've got DC doing all this stuff.
I mean, good stuff, great stuff.
But I think the live action
beats any of that stuff hands down, personally.
-Nowadays, you get specialists in to do the jobs.
I... fast and furious,
I worked on fast and furious, which was great.
I mean, any... Any stuntman in the world
want to work on fast and furious.
And when I got the opportunity
through Greg to work on it, I was over the moon.
Unfortunately, I didn't get into the position
doing the fast-driving stuff,
because he got specialists in, which was a bit downer for me
and a bit downer for some of the boys
because we could all drive.
I can drive as well as them.
But he wanted rally drivers
and people that do it for a living,
which is understandable.
But a bit of a kick up the old balls for us, you know.
-When I started, you... you were characters.
You were brought in from extras,
and if you were able to do something that was great.
Then you do stair falls, then you start doing stunts.
Um, but we weren't necessarily trained in anything particular.
So, we learned to do those sorts of things.
And we, and... got away with it all these years.
I wouldn't have got in today in what they do.
Uh, um, none of the earlier stunt guys would have done.
They... they are just tremendous athletes.
They have really perfected the art of-of stunting.
-They're a lot different now, you know.
Lot of... Different type of people.
The guys that are coming in today,
a lot smaller in stature because there's the big guys
struggle to get through the, uh, all the gymnastic stuff
they have to do
because physically not... It's hard work for them.
Uh younger
I don't think some of them necessarily
think about the stunt work so much.
I think they like the money,
which is nice, which is important.
But, you know, it's a lot of us on the first
we just... We all like a pound note,
and... and we want that,
but the job's always been important to us.
-I do think the characters have disappeared
that were the Ken buckles,
Bob Simmons, George leeches
absolute... paddy Ryans...
Absolute incredible natural stunt people.
-It's not as nice now
because there's so much money involved now.
You know what I mean? People sit and they're...
They're doing that at lunchtime in the afternoon.
Where years ago, you'd be pulling tricks on the guys,
you'd be doing the three-man lift,
you'd be hitting them over the head with spoons,
throwing wardrobes over each other, tripping them up.
It don't happen so much now, and it was a laugh then.
[Indistinct] It's... We still have a laugh now.
But, you know, when you go into the dressing room,
everyone used to be gambling or reading the paper,
or doing some work there.
They all sit there now, they're tapping away.
See how much money they got in their accounts.
[Laughs]
[Interviewer] What age are you now?
-What a no-good bastard.
Er, 82.
-Seventy-seven.
-I'm 72 now.
-Well, I miss, at my age,
being able to do what I could do.
And when I'm over with my children,
or my great-grandchildren,
they say, "oh, granddad, show us what you do."
Yeah, well, it hurts a little bit now if I do it, you know.
The bones... I don't want to take that chance,
wind up with a hip replacement.
-I have a lot of... A new pair of knees
and a new shoulder, so you don't get up, you know.
You fall over.
It takes you like ten minutes to get up now.
Years ago, I'd do whatever you want,
but now that just takes too long,
and the bruises last a lot longer.
-And I don't miss performing at all.
It was a means to an end.
And again, I had the brains to get out while I was still fit,
you know, and I could feel the reactions weren't there
on the last crusade.
It was there on the last crusade, that I thought,
"nah, I've had too many racehorses
that you have given one race too many," you know.
Dave bickers is my guru.
Dave bickers, he was one of the smartest people I've ever met
in the business.
I got him into the business; He was a motorcycle racer,
and he became my engineer and designer.
And... and he was one of those guys
that had so much common sense.
And he said to me when we were rehearsing,
he said, "Vic, I always want to stop before the last one."
[Mutters] "What do you mean, stop before the last one?"
Then the penny dropped.
Because it's like, um, it's like that, you know
"watch this. I'll just give you one more.
You watch this." And that's always the one you hurt yourself on.
Of course it's the last one, because you've broken your leg
or had a crash or something's gone wrong with it, you know.
[Laughs] And it made so much sense to me.
And I've told everybody around the world.
You know, you rehearse things, rehearse things.
"Let's do one more," and,
"yeah, get ready." You know, you do it.
And it's not quite right, and so it's "get ready" again.
And people are going, "okay," we get ready,
and I said, "okay, and that's a wrap. We're not doing it."
"What do you mean?" And I was, quote, stopped before the last one.
-You don't leave the industry.
The industry leaves you.
And that's what happens with stuntmen.
-The phone never rings anymore.
I don't mind because as I say,
I can make money somewhere else,
or I'll have something else to keep me busy,
and so forth and so forth.
So that doesn't ring anymore.
-If the phone stops, then you're retired.
Well, at the moment, it's only twinkling. It's twinkling.
That's the problem at the moment.
The financials.
Coming in this industry, you know, you get good money,
and then you're out of work.
You get good money, you're out of work,
you get good money, you're out of work.
And that's how it's been all my life.
And people always used to say to me,
"put some money away for a rainy day, rock."
"Yeah. What rainy day?"
It never happened, that rainy day,
and it's started pouring down now.
You understand? And it's too late.
When it's too late, what do you do?
-It's time to live a life now.
All that running around all over the world,
getting paid, was nice,
I've got to say.
But it's a young man's game now, I think.
-Why wouldn't you keep going?
I mean, it's just... it's fun.
You're getting paid for playing cowboys and Indians,
and you're getting paid well, and as long as, you know,
and-and... if i'm in a zimmer frame one day,
and they say, "we want you to do a zimmer frame fall," I'll go,
"I'm your boy. I'll have a go at it."
-In the, um, force awakens,
I doubled for, um, Max-Max Von sydow,
uh, in the opening sequence when he gets cut in half.
[Suspenseful music]
Uh, skyfall. Spectre and skyfall.
Um, and since then,
I've done the mummy with Tom Cruise in London.
Star wars, um, rogue one, I played a part of
the... one of the engineers getting shot.
- Fire! - [Rapid gunshots]
-Transformers: The last knight.
I'm in the next star wars,
I'm just getting blown up in that.
But as long as I can do it,
and I'm comfortable with it, I'll do it.
I just... i don't... obviously won't do anything
that I think my old body is not capable of doing,
or it would make me look silly doing,
so a little bit dignity in old age is good.
-I mean, without, being a stunt performer
going into the stunt industry
which took me into the film industry,
I would not be sitting here now as a elderly gentleman,
director, writer, novelist, producer
without the stunt business.
The stunt business took me into the industry
and gave me every break I ever had.
-I met some great people like Wayne,
Harrison Ford, Larry Olivier.
I enjoyed it. And I'm pleased my son
and that maybe my grandson is gonna follow me.
And I hope they have the fun that I have.
-I've got some personal stresses that drive me mad, but
I am happy.
-I wouldn't change any of it.
Not one bit.
-I wish I could do it again.
I wouldn't change it.
I'll save some of me money, though.
[Laughs]
-I love the business, and I hate the business,
but I love it more than I hate it.
You know, a great friend of mine, Terry Leonard,
who used to double Harrison with us on raiders as well,
he did the stuff under the bus, under the truck,
which I can't claim credit for, he did that.
But he always used to say to me,
"Vic, at the end of this game, business,
all you got is memories, friends and eight by tens."
And he's so right.
Eight by tens being the photographs,
memories and friends.
-If I drop dead now and they nail the lid on,
all I've got left is the memories
and the memories have been absolutely fantastic.
Because all the, everything around here,
the motorbikes and the house and everything,
we're just guardians of those things, we don't own those.
Those have nothing to do with anything really.
It's what you've seen, what you've done,
the people that you've met, the people that you've enjoyed,
or helped or whatever,
it-it-it-it's about the journey.
Um, and when the flag, you know, drops and, you know,
they put you in the box,
that's all that's left there.
And so, I consider myself extremely fortunate,
extremely fortunate.
And those occasions when I have had near-death experiences,
and there've been three or four of them, um
were times when I thought, "well, it is what it is."
-[Exhales deeply] I can't believe half of what I done
when I look back and I think the situations...
And-and the things that we just,
"yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Okay."
Unbelievable.
Now I'm very happy,
I'm very proud of what I've done.
[Inhales deeply] Yeah. It's always one more film.
Just do one more film and then I'll quit,
just before the last one [laughs].
[Ray Winstone] So, there they are.
The British bulldogs that took Hollywood by storm.
You might not have recognized their faces before,
but maybe you'll look out for them
next time you stick on an old movie.
And remember that for every time someone fell,
jumped, crashed,
punched, kicked, stabbed, swung or got blown up,
there was someone like this
putting themselves on the line for it.
And having a bloody good time.
["Houses that you lived in" performed by the family machine]
♪ Houses that you lived in ♪
♪ remember you today ♪
♪ the car you drove away in ♪
♪ you're sad because you changed ♪
♪ oh, don't leave me far behind ♪
♪ this is how you say goodbye ♪
♪ the songs you used to sing her ♪
♪ will never fade away ♪
♪ the fields you walk [indistinct] ♪
♪ Were aching just to say ♪
♪ oh, don't leave me far behind ♪
♪ you will live and you will die ♪
♪ it's easy when you make it ♪
♪ it's easy when you break it ♪
♪ to leave your [Indistinct] remind ♪
♪ hey ♪
♪ haah ♪
♪ hey ♪
♪ haaah ♪
♪ hey ♪
♪ haaah ♪
["The stuntman" performed by Pete ivatts]
♪ Rough around the edges not known for our looks ♪
♪ we jump from high ledges ♪
♪ get knocked down by trucks ♪
♪ it's a risky old life, but at least it's the life we choose ♪
♪ you don't see our names up there with the stars ♪
♪ but it says on the screen ♪
♪ when they're crashing their cars ♪
♪ we work hard on the stunts ♪
♪ then we work hard on the booze ♪
♪ they ask the impossible ♪
♪ put you through hell but you give it a go ♪
♪ 'cause they're payin' you well ♪
♪ it's dodgy at times ♪
♪ but it's better than nine to five ♪
♪ we didn't have green screens to fake our effects ♪
♪ we jumped off of rooftops got blown up in wrecks ♪
♪ you had to be fit and put up with a sprain or a break ♪
♪ you work it all out ♪
♪ break it down into bits ♪
♪ and try to cut out the worst of the risks ♪
♪ and hope you could get it all done in only one take ♪
♪ we're all independent ♪
♪ we set our own rates ♪
♪ we work for ourselves but we still need our mates ♪
♪ we rely on each other to make sure you come home at night ♪
♪ you're never quite sure how long it'll last ♪
♪ so you work even with both your legs in a cast ♪
♪ old stuntmen don't quit ♪
♪ just work harder on getting it right ♪
♪ and when you call time cause your body says no ♪
♪ and there's no fuel left when the green light says go ♪
♪ you can sit in a pub with your mates ♪
♪ and not have to fight ♪
♪ yes the stunts can be tough ♪
♪ but a stuntman's life is all right ♪
[♪♪♪]