Gregory - Stuntwomen: the untold Hollywood story

STUNTWOMEN

The Untold
Hollywood Story

MOLLIE GREGORY

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Copyright 2015 by Mollie Gregory

Published by the University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gregory, Mollie.

Stuntwomen : the untold Hollywood story / Mollie Gregory.

pages cm. (Screen classics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8131-6622-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8131-6624-7 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8131-6623-0 (epub)

1. Women stunt performers. 2. Women in the motion picture industryCaliforniaLos AngelesHistory. I. Title.

PN1995.9.W6G744 2015

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Character gives us qualities, but it is in the actionswhat we do
that we are happy or the reverse....
All human happiness and misery take the form of action.

Aristotle

II. Taking on the System and Fighting for Change:
1960s1980s

Before I wrote this book, I didnt realize that being athletic is as much a gift as having a musicians perfect pitch. Whether athletes are male or female, that physical talent shapes and leads them, and they ignore it at their peril. I learned that many stunt performers in movies past and present were champion gymnasts, acrobats, riders, or swimmers. I learned that dealing with physical challenges is a skill and that taking risks builds self-confidence. A great stunt person is an athlete and an actor who has a quality known as hearta blend of courage and endurance. They have guts and grace.

The story of stuntwomen is a classic come-from-behind, risk-it-all saga. Their arena is one that few knowa community of gifted athletes whose work makes movies thrilling. Like all stunt performers, stuntwomen risk injury or even death, but over the years, they have also faced institutional discrimination, unequal pay, and sexual harassment. The professional environment has improved, but the ultimate praise for a stuntwoman is still the same: She hits the ground like a man!

I never expected to write this history. Then, stuntwoman Julie Ann Johnson asked me to write a book about her life in the business and to include other stuntwomen in it. As she extolled the joys, sorrows, professional pride, prejudices, and hair-raising stunts, I was hooked. I began to interview stuntwomen, and I realized the combination of action, women, and the movies was a largely unexplored topic that was more than just enlightening. Eventually, a book about a few stuntwomen became an action-packed history of the profession.

Stunt communities are found wherever movies are madeCanada, Australia, China, France, Great Britain, India, and Japan. But this book is about the American film industry, located primarily in New York and Los Angeles. I interviewed sixty-five stuntwomen and a few stuntmen. The oldest worked in the 1930s; the youngest began in 2005. My questions covered their personal backgrounds; their best stunts (hilarious or scary) and how they were done; professional conflicts, such as race or sex discrimination; and what theyd like to change about the stunt business. Occasionally they went off the record, but 98 percent of the information they provided was available for publication (with a few exceptions for clarity, quotations from these interviews are not cited in the notes).

These interviews chronicle a history of individuals in a unique line of work. At some point, I became fascinated by the attitudes that shape our beliefs, expectations, and legends, all of which are reflected by the stunt community. Since the advent of motion pictures at the end of the nineteenth century, audiences expected to see men jump from moving cars or drive wagons over cliffs. Back then, no one imagined that women could do the sameand more. When women performed such stunts onscreen, they confounded all expectations of proper feminine behavior. Their exploits opened a new view of the modern woman and her astonishing possibilities. In fact, stuntwomen have been a source of inspiration since The Perils of Pauline in 1914. Theyve traded punches in knockdown brawls, crashed biplanes through barns, and raced to the rescue in fast cars.

Stuntwomen begins in the era of silent films. Before World War I, athletic actresses played famous action heroines in serial dramas that brought audiences back to theaters week after week. In those years, women also wrote, directed, edited, and produced movies. Then, almost overnight, movies became big business. Men pushed in for the profits, and except for popular actresses such as Mary Pickford, women were eased outand that included stuntwomen. Donning wigs and dresses, stuntmen took over their jobs. Ignored and marginalized, a few stuntwomen (maybe ten or fifteen) performed from the 1930s into the 1960s. But men dictated what these women were and were not allowed to do. The struggles of this pioneering generation of stuntwomen went on for years.

Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the movie business changed dramatically, and so did America. Activism by women and minorities increased, and a public clamor against discrimination and injustice exploded. Boosted by that dynamic decade, young womens attitudes began to change: they had aspirations, not just hopes; their mothers often worked outside the home; some of their fathers supported their unusual career choices; and more stuntwomen became members of the Screen Actors Guild. By the 2000s, stuntwomen had won some recognition and respect. However, they still face daunting challenges, such as a fair distribution of stunt work and the consequences of digital visual effects.

Stunts are an engine of the movies. Onscreen, a stuntcalled a gagseems like a spontaneous physical feat, but it is actually a carefully planned set of actions, and thats the art of it. In the early 1800s a gag was defined as a joke, an invention, or a hoax; then it became a theatrical term; and by the 1920s, a gag was a daring or showy feat that involved skill or cunning. Another meaning of a gag was a false story told for gain, which is, in a way, what stunts are. They create an exciting action that appears to be more spontaneous or dodgy than it actually is. And when a stunt person dons a costumea disguiseto surreptitiously replace or double an actor, the gag enhances the movie stars reputation.