Cascadeur , Montreal, Canada, in 1946 The earliest stunt performers were travelling entertainers and
circus performers, particularly trained
gymnasts and
acrobats. The origin of the original name—the French word cascadeur—derives from cascade, which is an archaic French term for "fall" (from French cascade, from Italian cascata, from cascare, “to fall”). Later, in German and Dutch circus usage, the word Kaskadeur referred to performing a sequential series of daring leaps and jumps without injury to the performer. This acrobatic discipline required long training in the ring and perfect body control to present a sensational performance to the public.
Early cinema , who did his own stunt work, in a potentially life-threatening scene from his 1928 film
Steamboat Bill, Jr. By the early 1900s, the motion picture industry was starting to fire-up on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean, but had no need for professional stunt performers. Professional daredevil,
Rodman Law, was a trick parachutist known to thousands for climbing the side of buildings and parachuting out aeroplanes and off tall
base objects like the Statue of Liberty. Some of his stunts were filmed by newsreel cameras and media still photographers. Law was brought into movies in 1912 to perform some of his stunts as the hero. As the industry developed in the West Coast around
Hollywood,
California, the first accepted professional stuntmen were clowns and comedians like
Charlie Chaplin,
Buster Keaton and the
Keystone Cops. These mostly western-themed scripts required a lot of extras, such as for a galloping cavalry, a band of Indians or a fast-riding sheriff's posse; all of whom needed to proficiently ride, shoot and look right on camera. Producers also kept pushing the directors calling for riskier stunts using a recurring cast, necessitating the use of dedicated stunt doubles for most movie stars.
Thomas H. Ince, who was producing for the
New York Motion Picture Company, hired the entire show's cast for the winter at $2,500 a week. The performers were paid $8 a week and boarded in Venice, where the horses were stabled. They then rode the each day to work in
Topanga Canyon, where the films were being shot. In 1912, Helen made $15 a week for her first billed role as
Ruth Roland's sister in
Ranch Girls on a Rampage. After marrying
Edmund Richard "Hoot" Gibson in June 1913, the couple continued working rodeos in the summer and as stunt doubles in the winter in California, most often for
Kalem Studios in
Glendale, California. In April 1915 while on the Kalem payroll doubling for
Helen Holmes in
The Hazards of Helen adventure film series, Helen performed what is thought to be her most dangerous stunt: a leap from the roof of a station onto the top of a moving train in the
A Girl’s Grit episode. The distance between station roof and train top was accurately measured, and she practiced the jump with the train standing still. In the actual shoot, with the train's accelerating velocity timed to the second, she leapt without hesitation and landed correctly, but with forward motion she rolled forward, saving herself from injury and improving the shot by catching hold of an air vent and dangling over the edge. She suffered only a few bruises. Eventually, the out of work cowboys and out of season rodeo riders, and the directors/producers, figured out a system for the supply of extras. A
speakeasy called
The Watering Hole was located close to a Los Angeles located
corral called the Sunset Corral. Stuntmen were now an integral part of a film's drawing power, helping to fill cinemas with thrill seeking patrons anxious to see the new Saturday matinee.
Swashbuckler films Swashbuckler films were a unique genre of action movies, utilising the earlier developed art of
cinematic fencing, a combination of stage combat and fencing. The most famous of these were the films of
Douglas Fairbanks, which defined the genre. The stories came from romantic costume novels, particularly those of
Alexandre Dumas and
Rafael Sabatini, and included triumphant, thrilling music. There were three great cycles of swashbuckler films: the Douglas Fairbanks period from 1920 to 1929; the
Errol Flynn period from 1935 to 1941; and a period in the 1950s heralded by films, including
Ivanhoe (1952) and
The Master of Ballantrae (1953), and the popularity of the British television series
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1959).
Action movies The preference to employ ready existing professionals from outside the film industry, either as performers or doubles, continued in the period both up to and beyond
World War II, when again the industry was awash with young, fit men looking for work. with stunt coordinator
Carey Loftin and a stunt team including
Ray Austin, Neil Castes Sr.,
Robert Hoy, and
Dale Van Sickel, introduced the era of the
car chase movie. With the later development of modern action movie, the accident rate of both stunt performers and movie stars started to quickly increase. In the 1960s, modern stunt technology was developed, including
air rams,
air bags, and
bullet squibs.
Dar Robinson invented the decelerator during this period, which used dragline cables rather than airbags for stunts that called for a jump from high places. The co-development of this technology and professional performance training continues to evolve to the present, brought about through the need to not only create more visual impact on screen in the modern action movie era. which featured a pyramid fight scene that holds the record for the most
takes required for a single scene, with 2900 takes, and the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a
back flip off a
loft and falls to the lower ground. In 1983,
Project A saw the official formation of the
Jackie Chan Stunt Team and added elaborate, dangerous stunts to the fights and typical slapstick humor (at one point, Chan falls from the top of a clock tower through a series of fabric canopies).
Police Story (1985) contained many large-scale action scenes, including an opening sequence featuring a car chase through a
shanty town, Chan stopping a
double-decker bus with his service revolver and a climactic fight scene in a shopping center. This final scene earned the film the nickname "Glass Story" by the crew, due to the huge number of panes of
sugar glass that were broken. During a stunt in this last scene, in which Chan slides down a pole from several stories up, the lights covering the pole had heated it considerably, resulting in Chan suffering
second-degree burns, particularly to his hands, as well as a back injury and dislocation of his pelvis upon landing. Chan performed similarly elaborate stunts in numerous other films, such as several
Police Story sequels,
Project A Part II, the
Armor of God series,
Dragons Forever,
Drunken Master II and
Rumble in the Bronx among others. Other
Hong Kong action movie stars who became known for performing elaborate stunts include Chan's
Peking Opera School friends
Sammo Hung and
Yuen Biao, as well as "
girls with guns" stars such as
Michelle Yeoh and
Moon Lee. Other
Asian cinema stars also known for performing elaborate stunts include Thai actor
Tony Jaa; Indonesian actors
Iko Uwais and
Yayan Ruhian; and Indian actors
Jayan,
Ajith Kumar,
Akshay Kumar,
Puneeth Rajkumar,
Vidyut Jammwal and
Tiger Shroff. ==Awards==