monsterman:

The Villain (1979)

Monday: We talk to stuntman Hal Needham about his death-defying, stunt-making activities in Hollywood for 40 years.

The audio for Terry’s interview with stuntman Hal Needham is now up. Enjoy!

Percodan. Carried a bottle with me all the time. When a stuntman got hurt, they’d call Hal and tell him to bring his Percodan. When I’d go on location — maybe Mexico or something like that — hell, I’d take 100 with me. Because I know I’d be the only one who had them. So I could pass them out when the guys got hurt. You work a lot when you’re hurt when you’re a good stuntman, because you’re going to be hurt quite a bit. And you can’t let a sore leg or a bruise or something stop you, so you just take a Percodan and go to work.

— Former stuntman Hal Needham explains what he always carried with him on set (don’t try this at home)

I hate it! … A guy jumps off of a 250-foot dam, and it cuts to the water and he bobs up, like he’s a duck. And you go, ‘Wait a minute. Give me a break. A guy would kill himself doing that. There’s no way he could do it.’ And it just — with cars and motorcycles and all kinds of things. To me, it takes all of the reality out of the show. I just can’t stand it. Even as a director, I never did that stuff. We did it for real. I can look at it on screen and go, ‘That’s b.s.’ That don’t work. You can’t do that. And so I lose all interest in the film.

— Stuntman Hal Needham’s thoughts on the current special effects in movies

Stuntman Hal Needham explains what the rudimentary safeguards were like on Hollywood sets when he was performing in the 1950s and 60s: “When I started, they would take sawhorses — like carpenters use — and put pine 1-x-12’s across the top, put some cardboard boxes on top [of those], and put a mattress or two underneath. And that’s what saved you from being killed.”

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana (LOC) (by The Library of Congress)

I’m listening back to the interview with Hal Needham. The toughest stunt he ever did, he says, was jumping from the back of a moving horse — to another moving horse — and then repeating the entire stunt again.

sweetbloodyrevenge:

Uma Thurman and stunt double Zoe Bell.

Monday: inside the world of stunt doubles, with stuntman Hal Needham (who doubled for Jimmy Stewart, Dustin Hoffman and Burt Reynolds.

Have Gun - Will Travel. One of the many Westerns stuntman Hal Needham worked on during his 40 year career.

(Source: youtube.com)

swamiswampy:

Smokey and the Bandit

On Monday, we’re talking to Hal Needham, who was a stuntman on 92 films, including Smokey and the Bandit (which he also wrote and directed.) He’s going to tell us all about what it was like to be a stuntman in the 60s and 70s, on films like Little Big Man, Chinatown, A Star is Born, How the West Was Won, McLintock!, and The War Lord.