Stuntwomen
Page 29
As a small group inside a little-known profession, stuntwomen have come quite a distance, too. Before 1970, all stunt players who doubled the stars had to hide their identities and keep away from the press. Today, they have websites that list their stunt specialties and the stars they double.
Many of today’s stuntwomen praise the work they’ve chosen for what it has taught them about life and, sometimes, how it has changed them. For Glory Fioramonti, “Stunts gave me the way to live a bigger, braver, more empowered life. I had a dysfunctional childhood. My mother was an alcoholic, she was abusive, and I had to survive. There are different ways to survive. I wanted to confront everything I feared. Learning stunts gave me those tools.”
Leslie Hoffman said, “Whether you’re doing dialogue in a scene or throwing yourself down a staircase, it takes courage to act. Taking action is one of the keys to life.”
Luci Romberg’s stunt work led her to a sport that saved her life. A consummate gymnast, she strived for perfection. “I always felt I wasn’t skinny enough,” she admitted. “I starved myself as much as I could . . . I’d end up eating a ton and purging.” When she was working on Clint Eastwood’s Changeling (2008), her friend, stuntwoman Natascha Hopkins, introduced her to members of Victor Lopez’s Team Tempest, the top Los Angeles–based freerunning group.11 Luci became its only female member, and by 2010, she was the first female athlete in the World Acrobatics Society for Freerunners. These ultimate athletes, who perform in urban environments, must have strength, endurance, agility, and the power to imagine a movement and then achieve it. “The sport is about how we get over or around the barriers in our path,” Luci said. “We create what we call art, and movement is our art.” Freerunning saved Luci’s health and gave her confidence because, unlike gymnastics, freerunning is about individual styles of movement, both on the ground and in the air. “New moves in freerunning are invented every day,” she said. “It’s whatever you can create in your mind.”12 It seems like a perfect sport for stunt people—improvised, incessant forward motion studded with twists, leaps, and flips propelled with power and style.
“I enjoyed doing something most people would call insane,” Jadie David said. “I enjoyed being able to override my body’s natural instincts, push the envelope and not allow fear to overtake my judgment. I learned about life. The more fearless you are in what you do, the fewer regrets you’ll have. I learned those things from doing stunts.”
As a theater major in college, Nicole Callender studied unarmed, hand-to-hand combat and fighting with weapons.13 “When I picked up a sword, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t held one before,” she said. “It came so easily to me. It informed my work as an actor. That sword was like I’d found a missing link.” She worked in New York as an off-Broadway actor and began doing stunt work in 2001. Only later did she realize that her image as a woman armed with sword had impact, especially when teaching fight techniques to young actors. “On one level they know women have more opportunities now, but when they see me physically fight with a broadsword, and then do it themselves, I hear them say, ‘I can do anything now—no limits!’ They don’t have to settle for a job behind a desk.”
Taking action, overcoming fear, improvising on the spot, dealing with changing situations, hiding your injuries, saving your own life—that’s what stunts are! The work can seem like barely controlled chaos or a new online game or a course in emergency procedures. When Danny Aiello III worked as a stuntman, people kept asking him, “Are you stunt guys crazy?” His response: “No. We’re probably the sanest people on the set. We’re very smart. We have to be. If an actor screws up, all they do is say ‘Cut.’ If we screw up, people can get seriously hurt.”
Stunt performers are not daredevils; they analyze stunts mentally, physically, even geometrically. However, they know that every time they do a stunt, it’s going to be different. “A famous stuntman told me that,” said one stuntwoman. “‘You could do 100 high falls,’ he said, ‘and each will be different.’ The location is different, the wind, the height—something. So each time you work, it’s almost like your first time, no matter how many times you’ve done it in the past. All you can do is prepare yourself and perform the stunt, because it’s never going to be the same.” Those challenges build life skills. Stunt people always remember the surprises that changed a gag, threw off their timing, crashed the car. The recurring appeal is facing the challenge and succeeding.
This profession can deliver disaster and delight. Despite grueling hours, inequality, and injuries, every stuntwoman embraces the joy of the work in her own way. There are “moments of bliss,” said skateboard champ Christine Anne Baur. “You picture the action in your head, you’ve worked it out technically, studied the actor you’re doubling, you’re in character for what’s happening to her at that moment, which generates the stunt. They roll action, and it all comes together simultaneously in Mach one speed and super slow motion. I become what’s happening, I’m in the explosion that blew out the window, my body is mechanically performing as I told it to, and at that moment, I literally let go. It is magical.”
According to stuntwoman Sharon Schaffer, “The best time is making a moment come alive visually by using your body, mind, and soul to express what’s going on in the story.”
Mary Albee said with her typical but perceptive brevity, “The joy happens when the stunt comes out just as you visualized it. That’s fairly rare.”
Melissa Stubbs described how she feels when performing a stunt: “I get the jazz, the adrenaline rush of not knowing how I’ll do it, that I might get hurt because the outcome is never certain, but you pull the magic out of your soul and you do it.” When she’s stunt-coordinating, she creates the idea, works with the actors and the stunt team, brings all the elements together, and orchestrates it. “It’s always a gamble,” she said. “There are too many shots and never enough time, the cars break down, the stunt guy doesn’t show up, we only have the street for three minutes every hour—and yet we prevail! It’s like no other feeling.”
“When you do a challenging stunt and come out unscathed—to me, that’s being ‘on top of the train,’” said Monica Staggs. Both she and high-faller Nancy Thurston do live stand-up comedy “for the fun of it.” Monica, who has performed at comedy clubs such as the Laugh Factory, said, “After you survive death in stunts, being on a stage and making an ass of yourself is not a stretch.” Three weeks after Monica fractured her skull in four places and fractured her eye socket while doing a stunt for Joy Ride (2001), she was asked to double a Guess supermodel in a video of American boy band *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.” She didn’t want to take the job, but “finally I agreed to do it because sometimes if you don’t get right back on the horse, you never will.” She was supposed to run on top of a moving train, jump the three or four feet between cars, run across the next car, jump, and keep running. “The roofs of the boxcars I ran across were slightly arched, not flat,” Monica said. “I was about fifteen feet from the ground that was covered with rocks and gravel on both sides. I knew if I fell off, with my skull fracture, that was it for me. At the end of the day, after all the running and jumping, I was to stand still on top of the train. The helicopters were circling around me overhead, the sun was setting, and I felt really victorious. I’d taken the risk, I got back on the horse, and I’d won.”
Victory rewards those who take the risk. One stuntwoman summed up the essence of her profession: “The efforts that really count come from your ability to act on your dreams.” Great stuntwomen have what old-timers called “go-ahead.” They have heart. They are keen and strong, and they seize opportunities with zeal. They hurl themselves into the moment, betting on their skills to see them through safely.
“What we do is absolutely exhilarating,” said stuntwoman Sophia Crawford. “When you get a stunt, you dream about it that night, how it will go the next day, but sometimes [when] you get on set, it’s completely different, and that’s part of the fun—especially at high-pressure times. It’s five in the morn
ing, the stunt is the last shot, got to get it in one take, thousands of dollars at stake, the crew is tired, the actors have gone home, and you’re on the line. Here we go, ‘Action!’”
More than a century ago, movies were just a flickering novelty. Today, motion pictures and television are considered the most influential form of art and entertainment ever created. Stuntwomen have been there from the start, delivering acting and athletics, action and drama to our dreams on the screen. Despite the danger, despite the discrimination, their perseverance and adventurous spirits took them into the heart of motion pictures, earning them an essential role in our history as women. That is quite a legacy.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many people who helped me research various aspects of this book. In the early stages of my work, three generous and knowledgeable men gave me advice about a period they are well acquainted with—the silent movie era. I knew of author, historian, and film preservationist Kevin Brownlow from his book The Parade’s Gone By, which I read in film school. He sent me a videotape, a transcript of one of his interviews, and the photograph of John Ford’s “Wild Bunch.” I was already acquainted with Anthony Slide, noted film historian and author of the seminal Early Women Directors. He gave me guidance, recommended archives for further research, and suggested key questions the book might answer. I found William M. Drew (Speaking of Silents) through a lively and information-packed website that presented chapters of his Speeding Sweethearts of the Silent Screen. He gave me a number of research sources and early news accounts of silent movie stuntwomen.
Many others came to my aid. Bob Birchard provided photographs from the silent movie era that included his handwritten notations identifying everyone pictured. Sue Terry located other photographs from that era in Los Angeles and tracked down myriad references for me, from the budgets of obscure movies in the 1930s to major studio changes in the 1960s.
Staff members of the Screen Actors Guild were always ready to search their archives or suggest where I might find other information: Valerie Yaros, SAG historian; Glenn Hiraoka, national director of stunts, singers, dancers, and safety equipment; and author and former SAG senior staff member Kim Fellner.
Stephen Hanson, director of the USC Cinema-TV Library Archives, put me in touch with valuable advisers, including film critic, historian, and author Leonard Maltin. Ned Comstock, senior library assistant at the USC Cinematic Arts Library, helped me answer questions about stuntwomen in Destry Rides Again. Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive; Dr. Linda Harris Mehr, director of the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and Karen Herman, vice president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, also provided invaluable assistance.
I am grateful to many friends. Some read the manuscript—Loraine Despres, screenwriter and novelist; Barbara Blair, executive director; and Diane Baer, producer. They all offered structural ideas and made many notations all over the pages. One of the first readers, film director Lynn Hamrick (Chess Kids), exclaimed, “These women are like Olympic athletes without the laurels they deserve.” Producer Gale Anne Hurd introduced me to her aunt, Jewell Jordan, a stuntwoman in the 1930s; Debbi Bossi, producer and postproduction supervisor, gave advice and supplied me with a digital recorder for the interviews; and Destiny McCune is the best transcriber ever to be found.
Thanks to other friends who came through with ideas, contacts, and suggestions: Beth Kennedy, Pola Miller, Mary Ledding, Beth Solomon, Johnna Levine, Melissa Miller, and author Cari Beauchamp. Rick Ruiz built the best computer I’ve ever had; Alison Barrett provided marketing guidance and rebuilt my website; and Teresa Hulme provided super computer support. Reporter Dave Robb’s knowledge of legal and labor issues expanded my understanding of the conflicts in stunt work. The intrepid Tracy Burns, lawyer and writer, helped in so many ways—researching, editing, and organizing the endless lists and numerous photos. She made much of the work on this book not only possible but also enjoyable.
Over the years, I had amassed many photographs from stuntwomen and collectors. Writer, director, filmmaker, and friend Jon Wilkman (Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood) read the manuscript and made lots of notes. Since I know nothing about handling photos online, he spent untold hours manipulating, shifting, numbering, and checking them. I will always be grateful for his skill, patience, and humor.
I want to thank Patrick McGilligan, biographer of Clint Eastwood, Alfred Hitchcock, and others, who introduced me to the University Press of Kentucky, to superb senior acquisitions editor Anne Dean Dotson, and to the very able Bailey Johnson, acquisitions assistant. To my tenacious, tireless, and wise agent Ellen Geiger at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency, I send recognition and gratitude. A respected filmmaker who started working in the 1930s told me in 1973 that everyone needs friends in the trenches. I took in his pronouncement, but I was too young to fully appreciate his advice. Now I do.
Stuntwomen exists because stuntwomen were willing to tell me about their work. Their influence on the movies has been hugely underrated; without their stories, we would have no history of this remarkable profession. In the interviews, they spoke to me with vitality, candor, and wit. Many interviews still come back to me: May Boss, Danny Aiello, Jadie David, Donna and Debbie Evans, Christine Baur, Kym Washington. I can hear Leigh Hennessy and Conrad Palmisano patiently explaining how a ratchet works, Polly Burson whooping with laughter, and Bonnie Happy quietly telling me, “The horse has to give you the stunt.”
I am very grateful to all of you for sharing your experiences with me. You made this book possible.
Notes
Introduction
1. The Screen Actors Guild began to recognize the work of stunt players in 2008 at the Fourteenth Annual SAG Awards.
1. The Rise and Fall of Female Stunt Players in Silent Movies
1. Helen Gibson, as told to Mike Kornick, “In Very Early Days: Screen Acting Was Often a Matter of Guts,” Films in Review 19 (January 1, 1968): 28–34. Helen Gibson (1892–1977) was born Rose August Wenger in Cleveland, Ohio. For the stunt described, she was doubling for Helen Holmes in episode 45, “A Girl’s Grit.” Gibson herself starred in the serial from 1915 to 1917.
2. Eleanor Clift, Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 3.
3. Shelley Stamp, Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 140, 154–55.
4. Clift, Founding Sisters, 10.
5. See Virginia Scharff, Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York: Free Press, 1991).
6. William M. Drew, Speeding Sweethearts of the Silent Screen, chap. 1, at www.welcometosilentmovies.com. See also William M. Drew, Speaking of Silents: The First Ladies of the Screen (New York: Vestal Press, 1997); At the Center of the Frame: Leading Ladies of the Twenties and Thirties (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1999); and Drew’s many articles for Take One and American Classic Screen.
7. Ally Acker, Reel Women, Pioneers of Cinema (New York: Continuum, 1991), 252.
8. Drew, Speeding Sweethearts, chap. 3, citing “Helen’s Daring Stunt,” New York Dramatic Mirror, June 9, 1917.
9. A preeminent film historian of the silent era, Slide has published seventy books, including The American Film Industry: A New Historical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001), and The International Film Industry: A Historical Dictionary (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1989). He has also consulted on a number of documentaries and directed others, such as The Silent Feminists: America’s First Women Directors (1993).
10. Anthony Slide, Early Women Directors (New York: Da Capo Press, 1984), 13, quoting a December 1923 article in The Business Woman by Myrtle Gebhart, “a prominent fan magazine writer of the period.”
11. Nell Shipman’s (1892–1970) movies include The Girl from God’s Country, The Grub Stake, White Waters, Trail of the North Wind, and Something New.
13. Anthony Slide, The Silent Feminists: America’s First Women Directors (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 2–3.
14. Carey McWilliams, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land, ed. Erskine Caldwell (New York: Duell, Sloat & Pierce, 1946), 331.
15. Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: How the Movies Changed American Life (New York: Random House, 1975), 74–75. See also McWilliams, Southern California Country, 333.
16. H. Sheridan Bickers, “Extra Ladies and Gentlemen,” Motion Picture Magazine, August 1917, 91–96.
17. Frances Denton, “Ride, Swim and Dance,” Photoplay, May 1921.
18. William M. Drew, “Esther Ralston,” American Classic Screen 5, no. 4 (1981): 27–28.
19. Kevin Brownlow, The Parade’s Gone By (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 314. In addition to being an author, film historian, and film preservationist, Brownlow is a producer and director. He received an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as “the preeminent historian of the silent film era as well as a preservationist.”
20. William M. Drew, e-mail to the author, citing Mary MacLaren’s (1896–1985) lawsuit as reported in Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1917.