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Date Posted: 19:28:16 01/04/22 Tue
Author: Rick
Subject:

Re: Michael Landon and stunts
In reply to: Rick 's message, "Re: Michael Landon and stunts" on 21:23:12 01/01/22 Sat

Harold can remember some things in general, but not everything. The one with the great memory is Jesse Wayne… you should buy his book. You can buy it at Amazon, just type in his name under books… confessions of a Hollywood stuntman….

Rick

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[> [> [> Re: Michael Landon and stunts -- Gerry (Dooley), 09:57:57 01/08/22 Sat [1]

Overall my point being that Michael was a tremendous screen fighter but seemed to be very humble about, never mentioned it as far as I know. I was wondering why they let Michael do so much of his own stuff while they doubled Dan, Pernell and David. Any thoughts Rick?

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Re: Michael Landon and stunts -- Rick, 19:15:06 01/08/22 Sat [1]

Michael was a very good athlete and learned how to do his fights with the help of Bob Miles to teach him. You see, when they started the show in 1959, Mike had no knowledge of fighting. Eventually he developed his own style. There are a lot of actors who do not like to do fist fights, because they can get hurt. Guy Williams didn’t like to do the fist fights on the show, so he let Buddy Van Horn do them. Williams would only film the shots where you could see him doing the fight and that was as far as he was going to go. His daughter Toni told me when I spoke with her some years back, that he didn’t like them.

In the first couple years, the other three did more of their fights because NBC wanted to economize to save money by not paying the stuntmen. Greene, Blocker and Roberts insisted the stuntmen do what they could, so they could get paid. Pernell Roberts could do good fights and Bob Miles told me that he was happy working with him.

I give them all credit for doing what they could with their fight scenes, because they put an effort into doing it. You must remember the insurance company, too. The cast members were insured later on, and if they would’ve got hurt seriously there could be a lawsuit.

Dan Blocker was afraid of horses. He didn’t like to go near them at all. He did what he could and gave much of the work to Bill Clark. Later on, he put on more weight and had to wear a back brace by 1968. He couldn’t get on the horse without putting the back brace on first, because his weight was so heavy it would affect his back. He had Bill to double him daily. When they were filming “Salute to Yesterday” at Truckee in June 1968, Dan would sit on a big, wood stool and the director would film a few shots he needed. Things like that would be done all the time to help him out. He was a lovely man…

Rick

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[> [> [> [> Re: Michael Landon and stunts -- Gerry (Dooley), 07:45:33 01/09/22 Sun [1]

very interesting , thanks

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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Michael Landon and stunts -- Tim, 10:08:34 01/24/22 Mon [1]

Thanks for all the great information, Rick, and thanks to Gerry for starting the topic.

When the subject of actors doing their own stunts comes up I always think of Michael Landon and Burt Reynolds. Burt did some of his own stunts during his Gunsmoke years, although I believe Hal Needham and others sometimes stood in for Burt during a brawl.

Tim

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