Stuntwomen

by Mollie Gregory

  “Did anyone accompany you . . . ?”

  “I know I made the effort,” Bass said. “It could have been . . . I think Roy Harrison was with me in line and he went with me.”

  “Please, Mr. Bass, don’t speculate or imagine what would have happened. If you remember, tell us.”

  “I remember I went to see how they were,” Bass said. “I was focused on their welfare.”

  Continuing his testimony, Bass said that after lunch he had to complete a 180-spinout, and Jean and Julie were waiting to finish their scene. Grey asked, “Didn’t you try to spin the vehicle four or five times and you couldn’t do it?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that Ronnie Rondell had to do it for you that day because you were not in condition to make that vehicle spin?”

  “No,” Bass said. Harrison backed him up, stating that Bass had done the spin, not Rondell.

  On cross-examination, Koska asked who usually set the speed of a car in a stunt like the one done by Julie and Jean. “The person performing the stunt . . . has the say-so,” Bass answered. “It’s most important that [the driver] follow to the letter that issue.”

  “Was this particular stunt a typical type of basic stunt?”

  Bass replied, “It might be typical for a man, might not be typical for women, however.”16

  Since the defense was citing Julie’s lack of “camera sense” as one reason for her failure to be rehired, Koska put Richard Rawlings Jr. on the stand. Rawlings had started in 1965 as a camera loader and later moved up to second and then first assistant cameraman. He had been hired as a camera operator on Charlie’s Angels, and three months later, during the last half of the third season (1978–1979), he had been promoted to director of photography. He testified that his responsibilities were “to be able to interpret what the director wants, ‘the look of the show,’ and get it done in the amount of time and money the producer has.” Rawlings defined “camera sense” as “knowledge of optics and lenses” and other factors.

  “To perform your job in the filming of a stunt,” Koska asked, “what is necessary for a stunt coordinator to do?”

  “To communicate with me. To explain themselves properly so that I and everybody listening understand what we’re going to be doing in that stunt.”

  “Did you have any problems working with Julie Johnson?”

  Rawlings responded, “Yes.” Overall, he attributed her inability to communicate what she wanted to “her lack of experience as a stunt coordinator.” He said her ideas often wouldn’t work because of camera angles or because the sun would be in the lens; she had no camera sense, and he didn’t have the time to show her. “And towards the end of the season, I think she more or less gave up . . . she just allowed me to go ahead and do it. . . . She would give the set-up and if I had to change it, I’d change it, and that’s the way the pattern went after that.”

  Grey asked Rawlings if a director of photography “generally had the final word as to camera placement, camera angles and things of that nature on the set?”

  “Yes,” he said. But when there were disagreements about camera placement, the director had the final responsibility for the way a sequence would appear, not the director of photography. “I really and truthfully think that Julie Ann was a very good stunt person,” Rawlings said, “but I don’t think she was cut out for being coordinator, and I felt that maybe she recognized that. That is my personal opinion, sir.”17

  The issue of drug use remained on the periphery of the trial, only hinted at or mentioned indirectly. Julie’s attorney was eager to bring it in, but the Spelling-Goldberg legal team seemed keen to keep it out. Stunt coordinator Roy Harrison denied using or selling cocaine on the set; he also claimed he had never seen an unsafe car on a Spelling-Goldberg production.18 Everyone denied that Bobby Bass used drugs. Only Jean and Julie, who had been in the car with him, had a different view. Producer Elaine Rich testified that she didn’t know of any safety or drug-related complaints Julie had made to people above her in the chain of command. Rich contended that Spelling-Goldberg’s policy was that anyone seen using drugs would be fired on the spot. Asked whether that policy had been adopted before or after Julie had been let go, Rich said she didn’t know exactly when, but she “would have thought it would have been there all the time.”19

  After two weeks of sometimes devastating testimony against her, Julie believed her case was lost. The next day, Koska called Gary Epper, who had replaced Julie as stunt coordinator for the 1980–1981 season. Like his sister Jeannie and brother Tony, Gary had started working in 1950s TV shows, when the production manager handled “the business that a stunt coordinator now does.” Epper had “put in hundreds of days as a stunt coordinator,” whose duties he described as follows: “The bottom line is he’s the man who has read the script. He is the man that has sat in the production meetings. . . . It’s his responsibility to tell the director what will or won’t work, what’s dangerous, what isn’t. . . . He needs a calm disposition; not take whatever is said to heart because there are so many egos on movie sets.” Koska asked Epper’s opinion of Julie’s “ability to do the job of stunt coordinator.”

  Julie had hired Epper to perform stunts on the 1979–1980 season of Charlie’s Angels, and he said her reputation as a stuntwoman was “very good.” He continued, “Julie had the ability to handle the mechanics of running the show as far as attending meetings, making sure the stunt people were hired. If—I mean, she lacked in a number of areas and I figured, you know, it was nothing but being new and a little inexperienced.” About her camera sense, he said, “Well, there was an ongoing battle [with] Richard Rawlings, and I believe I understand what Julie was trying to convey to Richard . . . keep the action crisp and moving.” Epper’s experience had taught him to “make suggestions to a director and to the D.P. [director of photography]. If they want to buy them, fine; if they have faith in you as a coordinator . . . they will give you the right to place cameras where they belong.”

  On cross-examination, Grey asked Epper to describe the on-set problems more specifically. “When there is a communication problem between the stunt coordinator and those in key positions on a television show,” Epper responded, “there’s going to be a problem not only in performance, but in creativity. When you don’t have a working knowledge of camera[s], there’s going to be a communication problem with the director of photography. You have to know your stuff . . . you cannot be fooling anyone. Either you know it or you don’t.”

  Grey asked whether the “ongoing battle” between Rawlings and Johnson was “a usual circumstance.”

  “It absolutely is. I have had my run-ins with D.P.s, and believe me if one of us goes, it won’t be the D.P.”

  When asked whether he had he been told to make the stunts more exciting than Julie’s had been the previous season, Epper replied that it was clear they planned to add more action sequences, but “the only thing said to me was that the argumentative attitude [of the last season] they didn’t want to see that.”

  Epper reported that he had asked Julie to double the new Angel, Tanya Roberts, on the first shows of the new season, which were being shot in Hawaii. Julie turned him down, partly because she was tired of hitting the ground. “You have to remember at that time Julie was a hot stunt lady,” Epper said. “I wanted the talent with me, and not only that, she was a friend . . . I knew she was hurt because she had lost her job . . . we were all concerned for Julie, we were all feeling ‘Hey, the best way to get Julie over this is to keep her working.’ But Julie turned people down when they gave her a call, including myself.”20

  “Gary was a good guy,” Julie said, long after the trial. “Back in 1980, I was emotionally overwrought, in shock. . . . He told me that given the same circumstances of the show that I had had, he could not have done any better. When I was coordinating, I felt I was working with one hand tied behind me.” Stuntman Bob Minor observed that, back then, women and minority stunt people “did not get the chance to fail.” They had t
o be perfect. Ron Rondell, Gary Epper, and, to some extent, Richard Rawlings took into consideration Julie’s learning curve as a new stunt coordinator. At the time, women could learn from supportive male mentors, but they couldn’t shout or sulk or exhibit any of the bad behavior men could.

  A pillar of the Spelling-Goldberg defense was the quality of the stunts on the shows Julie had coordinated. Producer Elaine Rich judged them “just adequate. No, not exciting.” When asked whether some of her criticisms might have been attributable to the cinematographer or to camera placement, Rich claimed that part of the stunt coordinator’s “expertise [is] to advise a D.P. where to place the camera to get exciting stunts on film.” Grey brought up the shot of the 1979 car jump that showed only one side of the car—a flaw that Julie had predicted. He also pointed out that, according to Rawlings, the director had ultimate responsibility for camera placement when disputes occurred, and Rich later conceded the point. When Julie’s lawyer asked whether the camera angle determined the distance between vehicles when seen on film, Rich was unable to answer. She was more forthcoming on the issue of safety. It is the stunt coordinator’s job to make sure the equipment is in working order “for a safe stunt, for a good stunt,” she said. When asked how Julie could have done that if she had no access to a car before it arrived on the set, Rich responded, “I find it very hard to believe a stunt coordinator has never seen a car . . . before filming. That’s something that has never happened to my knowledge.” Rich was asked: If the transportation director did not give a stunt coordinator access to cars, would that be a serious deficiency in his responsibilities? “It would not reflect upon the transportation captain,” Rich said. “It would reflect on the stunt coordinator’s lack of assertiveness . . . to say, ‘I want it prepared such and such a way. It’s my responsibility for the safety of those people.’ Therefore, it is the stunt coordinator’s responsibility.”21

  Earlier, Ron Rondell had testified that Julie had complained about “cars showing up not only without seat belts, but without seat belts that actually worked. If you looked in the car and saw seat belts, you’d assume they’d work, but in some cases they did not. Transportation neglected to check on these things.” He admitted that Julie had been frustrated by these improperly equipped cars. “But in a sense,” Grey asked, “isn’t that a shared responsibility when a stunt coordinator depends on other people for the proper preparation of equipment?”

  “Of course,” Rondell said.22

  Declining ratings during the fourth season of Charlie’s Angels influenced management decisions. The slump was blamed on the stunts. It was Julie’s “responsibility as stunt coordinator to . . . make an exciting stunt,” Rich said, “to make it appear very dangerous, but not be dangerous, obviously.” Grey asked whether Julie had been warned that her job was in jeopardy. Had Rich spoken to Julie about the lack of excitement in her stunts?

  “Yes, I did.”

  “When was that?” Grey asked.

  “When the season was over.”

  “Who asked for that meeting?”

  “Julie Ann did.”23

  Rondell testified that he’d had no warning that Julie might not be brought back. He hadn’t participated in the decision, and no one in management had consulted him. “When Elaine told me they didn’t want to rehire Julie . . . I asked was she sure we couldn’t keep her on. I felt Julie could probably do that job.”24

  After the trial, Julie’s attorney summed up his impressions of the proceedings: “The most successful witness was Julie, obviously. The jury did not sympathize with her, they empathized with her, and it was not possible for Mr. Koska to make inroads into Julie’s credibility. If you’re a truthful person and all you’re doing is telling the truth, nobody can trip you up. Her strong testimony was believed and it discredited what the people opposing her were trying to say. The truth is consistent; it doesn’t deviate. Julie is so principled, she will sacrifice her own financial interest in favor of doing the right thing.”

  At the end of a trial, a plaintiff has the opportunity to rebut damaging or contrasting testimony. “In your opinion,” Grey asked Julie on the witness stand, “what does it take to have good, exciting stunt work on a television action series?”

  First, she said, it takes “a producer’s willingness to allow and to insist on excitement.” Next, the director needs “to confer with the writer to put the initial stunts on paper.” Exciting stunts “come down the line and end with the coordinator—if the coordinator is allowed to take part in designing that action.”

  “Were there any limitations in your work as stunt coordinator that made it more difficult for you to get a high level of excitement in your stunts?”

  “Time. Limitations with creativity. Creativity takes time. Limitations of the directors, and time. Always no time. Also, limitations of cameras. Often we had only two cameras and that contributes to the lack of exciting stunts.”

  “Did anyone tell you that your work as coordinator did not result in exciting stunts?”

  “No, sir.”

  During the testimony, one witness had implied that Julie was unprofessional because she hadn’t carried a briefcase. But she had, she said. “It contained what I needed . . . production reports, pictures of stunt people, little toy cars. . . . We use the cars to map out certain stunts to show the stunt people what they’re going to do, to show camera and the director, once he tells us what he wants us to do.”

  As a stunt coordinator, had she leaned too heavily on Gary Epper, as some witnesses had claimed?

  “On a few occasions I asked him to talk to Mr. Rawlings to try to make a shot what you call ‘more exciting.’”

  “Why did you use Mr. Epper rather than talking to Mr. Rawlings yourself?”

  “Because the communication basically had stopped with Mr. Rawlings.”

  “Did you have any serious confrontations or heated arguments with the D.P.?”

  “Frustrations, yes, but I can’t think of any arguments. Just frustrations.”

  “What did you do in order to alleviate your frustrations?”

  “Basically, I let him do his job as he saw it.”

  “So you just backed off and gave up, as has been described by some other witnesses?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt that, as my experience again dictated, if someone doesn’t want to listen or doesn’t want to take the time, and if it doesn’t involve safety you let them go ahead and do their job.”

  “In your work relationship with Mr. Rawlings or others on the set, did you ever become overly sensitive or moody?”

  “No, sir.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “May I say one more thing?”

  “Go ahead,” Judge Savitch allowed.

  “With the frustration—possibly ‘oversensitive’ runs with frustration.”

  “That is in the eye of the beholder, wouldn’t you say?”25

  Shortly after that, the jury began its deliberations.

  On May 30, 1987, three months before Julie’s case began, the Twilight Zone jury had found John Landis and four other defendants not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Jubilation reigned in court, but one union executive snapped, “Nobody can believe that nobody was responsible.”26 Years later, few of the safety regulations proposed by labor and management groups had been enacted, so the Screen Actors Guild “stepped into the breach, negotiating into its collective bargaining agreements the safety requirements it had requested from the Legislature,” including seat belts in stunt cars.27

  On September 2, 1987, after almost four days of deliberation, the verdict in Johnson v. Spelling-Goldberg arrived. It was a stunner. The jury awarded $1.1 million to Julie Johnson. “I heard the words and could not believe it,” she said. “At that moment, I realized I’d never expected to receive justice. But I wouldn’t lie down. I had to put up a fight.” The courtroom erupted. Her ecstatic attorney hugged her, got on his phone, and shouted, “We got ’em!” But Spelling-Goldberg planne
d to appeal the verdict. The battle was far from over.

  III

  New Professionals in

  Better Times

  1990s–2000s

  13

  High Falls

  Risks build my character, my confidence, and make me stronger.

  —Leigh Hennessy

  Doing a fall is one of the riskiest stunts. It goes against every instinct, and each fall is different—height, obstacles, landing, and, for women, wardrobe. In the early 1990s five-foot-ten Shawnna Thibodeau was new to the stunt business. She crammed everything she might need into her stunt bag, including pads to protect her. “There was a small back pad in it,” she said, but “I never wore it because wardrobe put me in such teeny, tiny clothes the pad would show.” On one stunt, she suffered three slipped disks in her neck after a tandem jump with a stuntman who had landed on top of her. She managed to walk away, and no one knew she’d been hurt. “You keep your mouth shut because you have other jobs lined up and you hope it will be okay.” A week later she agreed to do a fall from three and a half stories, even though it was for a music video that paid almost nothing. On the day of the stunt she learned it was a backward fall with no wires (wires make high falls safer). “My generation usually does falls on wires,” Shawnna said. “I sort of panicked. I was in excruciating pain from the last fall, and why was I doing this?” She didn’t back out. Luckily, the stunt gods were watching out for her. “I landed flat on my back, it realigned the disks in my neck, and I felt like a new woman!”

  Padded and unpadded, stunt players have fallen into rugs, nets, blankets, and mattresses to cushion their landings. In 1945 Babe DeFreest and Polly Burson took a seventy-five-foot fall into a net held up by “some grips.” Over time, experience changed the way they landed. For falls of forty feet or less, stunt performers used to fall into stacked cardboard boxes (called box rigs). In the 1960s they fell into crash pads filled with foam rubber and then into airbags, which became bigger and better. In the 1990s a high-faller wore a full harness attached to a rig by wires, and a computer braking system controlled the rate of the fall. Today, stuntwomen rarely do high falls without wires.1