| 11th October 2007 06:07 AM |
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| Ade |
Steve McQueen's Stunt Double Dies
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1287947,00.html
Bud:-
Steve:-
Steve McQueen's place in movie history owes much to the incredible stunts in films like The Great Escape and Bullitt.
But what few people realise is that the actor didn't actually perform some of them himself.
Bud Ekins doubles for Steve McQueen in a family photo from 1963The man responsible for a handful of the most daring jumps and chases in cinematic history was a little known American bike rider called Bud Ekins, who has died from natural causes at the age of 77 in a Los Angeles hospital.
When McQueen's character in the World War Two epic jumps a barbed wire fence to try to escape pursuing German soldiers, the man on the bike is Ekins.
He doubled again for McQueen in Bullitt in one of the most famous car chases the silver screen has ever seen.
Ekins was behind the wheel of Ford Mustang during the breakneck chase through the streets of San Francisco in the 1968 crime drama.
"Steve could have done it himself," said Bob Hoy, a stuntman friend of Ekins.
"He did the lead-up to it and rode the bike wherever he was running in that escape, but Bud did the jump. It was a tough jump. You only can do that kind of thing once. You either make it or you don't make it."
The stuntman's daughter, Susan Ekins, said her father was very proud of the Great Escape jump, adding that he and McQueen had dug out a ramp in the dirt and practised jumping the motorcycle over a rope to see if it would be able to clear the fence.
She said: "Steve was a very capable rider, but my dad did the jump because they wouldn't let a star do a jump of that nature because they couldn't afford to have him hurt."
Ekins was an off-road motorbike champion in the United States when his friend McQueen invited him to Germany in 1963 to do stunt riding in The Great Escape.
His first paid work as a movie stuntman turned out to be one of the greatest ever.
Hollywood-based publicist Paul Bloch hailed it as "perhaps the most famous motorcycle stunt ever performed in a movie".
Over the years he amassed credits including the TV series CHiPs and films ranging from Diamonds Are Forever to The Towering Inferno and The Blues Brothers.
Ekins had often taught McQueen how to improve his off-road motorbiking skills. His daredevil exploits on screen carried on for 30 years until he retired to run a small motorbike shop in Hollywood.
He was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall Of Fame in 1999. |
| 11th October 2007 12:38 PM |
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| glencar |
TTM? Why didn't you post about this???? |
| 11th October 2007 01:51 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
glencar wrote:
TTM? Why didn't you post about this????
FUCK! He beat me to it. Damn....I must be slipping. But I AM a busy man. I was on the road for three days with ALOT of important people to see. |
| 11th October 2007 02:07 PM |
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| gypsy |
Keith Moon was once Steve McQueen's next door neighbor. It's true!
Lots of funny stories about that in Moon's bio. |
