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"Behind the Action: Conversation with Hollywood Stunt Powerhouse Diane Peterson" · Retro Life 4 You

• 5:30
  You know, we've been fortunate in the past to
• 1:00:54
  be able to bring on some top stars from
• 2:51:42
  80s movies to come in to sit with us
• 5:37:55
  and talk about their career and some of the
• 9:19:31
  movies we grew up watching and loved. But we've
• 13:56:32
  never really had the opportunity to have somebody from
• 19:28:57
  behind the scenes come on the show and talk
• 1:56:46
  about that aspect of the movies. So this week,
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  we are very happy to announce that we have
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  got Diane Peterson, who is one of the top
• 2:52:39
  stunt women in Hollywood, if not the top stunt
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  woman in Hollywood. And she's on the show with
• 6:55
  us this week talking all about doing the stunts,
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  how she got started, some of the people she's
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  doubled for, people she's worked with. She has a
• 14:53:50
  new book she's just put out. She's all around
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  great, and I think you're really going to enjoy
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  her. So just sit back, grab something to drink
• 13:59:23
  and take it in. Here we go. Hello again,
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  everybody. Welcome back to the podcast Retro Life for
• 2:00:06
  you. My name is Chris Adams, host of the
• 21:23:34
  show, and sitting in with me this week, as
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  always, is Mr. Travis Rollins. Travis, how you doing?
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  What's going on, everybody? Y'all can't see it, but
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  I got my Dolly Parton shirt on today because
• 23:01:35
  we girl power today.
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  Boy, you're girl power today.
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  Yeah, we're girl, all right.
• 6:36
  Well, we do have a fun show. You know,
• 35:57
  we'd sit here and we ramble on about a
• 1:34:41
  movie or something, but this time we got somebody
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  in with us, going to sit in and talk
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  to us and tell us about her story and
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  things that she does. And I'm going to go
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  ahead and bring her on with us here.
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  Travis, I'm so excited.
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  And bringing into the show with us here is
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  Ms. Diane Peterson. Diane, thank you so much for
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  coming on the show with us tonight.
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  Oh, thank you. I'm happy to be here.
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  So just for the people that don't know, diane
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  is a Hollywood stunt woman. She's been in some
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  movies and TV shows. Well, and some acting roles.
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  Just a few.
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  Just a few. She's got a few credits under
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  her belt.
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  Was it 200 credits?
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  Yes.
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  And was the president of the Stunt Woman's Association
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  of Motion Pictures for seven years.
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  That's right.
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  Anne just wrote a book, so we're staying busy.
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  Yes. My book, Hollywood Stunt Woman, launched in March,
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  and the audiobook is launching August 22.
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  I'm an audible addict, so I can't wait for
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  that.
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  Perfect. So many people were asking me to do
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  an audiobook, so that's why I did it and
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  I narrated it myself.
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  I was just about to ask that. That's so
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  awesome.
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  Then when I was talking to her last week,
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  I asked her the same question, I believe, and
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  I told her it just made perfect sense for
• 30:28
  the person who's writing the book to do the
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  audible version, too. I mean, to narrate it.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yeah. It was funny. When I talked to the
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  studio director, he said, have you ever done an
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  audiobook before? And I said, no. I said, but
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  I'm an actress and I've done dubbing for Line,
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  so I can do it. And it was really
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  fun.
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  Absolutely.
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  I imagine it was a blast. I'm for I
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  noticed, you know, of course, looking at your bio
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  before you got your start there as an acting
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  role with Kelly Savalis and Kojak, how long did
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  it take you to actually get into the stunt
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  part of the business?
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  Well, it's funny. That day on the set, it
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  was like an epiphany. My role was the woman
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  with the baby carriage, and I was pushing a
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  baby carriage across 77th street in Madison Avenue, and
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  a car chase went by. A cop car was
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  chasing the bad guys. And the scene was they
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  were supposed to almost hit the baby carriage. So
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  it was like, wow. I was like, I want
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  to be driving those cars. Yeah. And so it
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  just got my adrenaline pumping, and I knew that's
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  what I wanted to do. So that was in
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  the went over to the stunt guys. They're always
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  drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes after a take. And
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  I said, I'm Diane Peterson and I ride horses
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  and motorcycles, and I race my car in quarter
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  mile drags, and I really want to do stunts.
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  And they said, Forget it, honey. We put the
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  wigs on and we do it. And that's what
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  they did in the 70s. They didn't want to
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  give any of their work away to a girl.
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  You were actually the first stunt woman of the
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  East PSA. Yeah.
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  Yes, I was.
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  I'm sorry for the listeners. That's the East Coast
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  Stunt Men's Association, right?
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  That's right. I was the first token female. So
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  after that day when they said, forget it, I
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  mean, the gauntlet was thrown, and I wasn't going
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  to take no for an answer.
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  There you go. There you go. Heck, yeah.
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  She's like, hold my beer.
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  Watch me do this.
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  The first stunt woman.
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  Yeah. So every time I ran into them on
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  different stunts when I had little acting roles, I'd
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  be watching how they set up a fight, and
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  I'd be bugging them for a job. Bugging them,
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  give me a job. And so it probably took
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  about three or four months of me hounding them.
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  And they called me and they said, we have
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  a job for you. I was like, great, what
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  do I have to do? You have to get
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  hit by a car. Oh, my God. Are you
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  sending me a message?
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  Welcome to the business. Welcome aboard. Glad to have
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  you. We're going to run you down today.
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  Okay? So they were like, don't worry, we'll teach
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  you how to do it. So they padded me
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  up like the Michelin tire man. I had elbow
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  pads, knee pads, hip pads, all these pads on.
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  I walk across the street. It was like a
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  four lane highway, and the first car stopped, and
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  then I sauntered on, and the next car came
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  speeding by and hit me. I took the hit,
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  but it's all in timing. So it's all in
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  timing where they hit the brake for 1 second,
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  and I swing myself on the car, and then
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  they pour the gas, and I go flying off.
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  Wow.
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  So the timing is absolutely critical. And so on
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  the first full speed take, I got hit in
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  the knees really hard, and I go, that's it.
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  I quit. I'm going home. I was acting. I
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  was modeling, and I certainly didn't want to get
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  run over by the car on the next hit.
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  And the guy that was teaching me, who was
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  the president of the East Coast Stuntman's Association, alex
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  Stevens, he grabbed me by the shoulder, and he
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  goes, diane, it's like falling off a horse. If
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  you don't get right back out there and do
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  it again, you'll never do another stunt in your
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  life. Right. And I was like, I fell off
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  plenty of horses in my life.
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  A few of those, too. It's not fun.
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  Did you get back on?
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  Yeah. That was the way of life back then,
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  too, though.
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  That's right. So I went back out there, and
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  I did a car hit that was, like, unbelievable.
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  And they were like, wow, that was incredible. And
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  then I got to drive and hit them. Then
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  I was a club.
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  There you go.
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  So it made up board altogether when you got
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  to run them over, right?
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  Exactly.
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  Awesome.
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  Yeah.
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  I didn't tell that's back before. Really? A lot
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  of you all kind of had to pioneer the
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  safety of it all as well, wouldn't you? I
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  would think, like, wires and well, of course. But
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  certainly we didn't have airbags in the 70s would
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  be something else.
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  Yeah, we definitely was pioneers. There were cardboard boxes
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  then to do high falls into, and right before
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  I left New York, one of the stunt guys
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  called me up. His name was AJ. Bacunis, and
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  he actually died doing a high fall. And he
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  said, we have a thing called an airbag, and
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  do you want to learn how to do a
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  high? And, like, in my head, I'm going, no
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  way. I hate heights. I knew that I needed
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  to learn how to do this because I wanted
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  to be a top Hollywood stunt woman. And so
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  I said, yeah, sure. And I went out to
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  the set, and they had a fire engine there
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  with the cherry picker, and AJ. And this other
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  guy, Alex. And I get in the cherry picker,
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  and they go up about 40ft, and they both
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  jump out, and they leave me up there one
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  way down. It was a cruel torture. It really
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  was. And so I'm like, bring me down, bring
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  me down. So they brought me down to about
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  20ft, and then they explained how to tuck my
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  head and land flat out. And so that was
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  my first thing into the airbag, which was probably
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  in 76, but it was cutting edge then. It
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  was just coming out.
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  Right. I would imagine when you take the fall,
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  it would be kind of like taking a bump,
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  and you want to tuck your chin and kind
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  of put your arms out so your shoulders kind
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  of take the brunt of everything when you hit.
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  Yeah. And you kind of want to land flat
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  out on your back, kind of as flat as
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  you can and not near an edge.
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  I'm sure of that.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, I know basically, you answered one of my
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  first questions. My other questions I had, too, like,
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  what was the first big stunt that you did?
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  I imagine that jump from the height. Like, that
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  was the first big stunt that you did, right?
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  As far as yes, but all stunts are kind
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  of different and challenging, even kind of like small
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  stunts that you think are a piece of cake.
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  Stuff goes wrong. I mean, unusual things happen. I
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  was working an Annie Hall movie in New York
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  in the was doubling Diane Keaton, and I was
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  driving the Volkswagen bus, and Woody Allen was afraid
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  to ride passenger with me, so they had a
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  stunt guy for him. And I'm racing through the
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  traffic in New York City. I have a cameraman
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  in the seat with a camera taking my point
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  of view, and in between the cars, a guy
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  walked out, right? The streets were supposed to be
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  blocked, but somebody came out of a doorway, and
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  boom.
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  This was unexpected then. This wasn't part of the
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  stunt.
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  Totally unexpected. So I was young and new, and
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  I knew the cameraman was in the seat. I
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  aimed for the guy, right? I aimed for the
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  guy, and the guy jumped out of the way,
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  and then I slid sideways into this tiny little
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  parking space, and Woody supposedly gets out of the
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  car. All of a sudden, a policeman comes over,
• 5:33
  and he goes, what was that? What do you
• 8:00:44
  mean? He goes, you almost hit that pedestrian. And
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  I go, well, he kind of just walked out
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  between the cars. He said, but you aimed at
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  him. And I was like, I'm sorry, I won't
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  do that again.
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  Did that make it into the movie, into the
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  final cut? The guy yes, it did. Watch it
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  now.
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  Yeah. So things like that happen unexpectedly, and I
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  mean, that's a small thing, but big things happen
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  unexpectedly as well. A friend of mine was killed
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  and doing a stunt, a movie I was working
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  on. That movie was released in 1978 called The
• 8:57:54
  High Riders, and it was a fun car picture.
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  In fact, I went to a documentary on Friday
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  night in Beverly Hills. They called it the Masters
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  of the Grind and the Grind.
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  I saw your photo on IG.
• 18:58
  Yeah. So the grind is when they were grinding
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  out all those low budget car pictures and things
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  in the 70s. Anyway, they did a documentary, and
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  it was amazing. But my friend, it was the
• 10:35:48
  last shot of the movie. We had been filming
• 15:44:13
  for four weeks or so. Last day, last shot.
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  He was doing a ramp jump in a pickup
• 5:06:06
  truck, and he was supposed to come down this
• 13:19:35
  bumpy road and hit a high ramp, about a
• 22:34:44
  five foot high ramp, and then sail into a
• 8:51:34
  pool of water. Well, when the truck was bouncing
• 20:10:06
  like this, it hit the ramp. It busted a
• 8:30:18
  hole in the ramp, and the truck went upside
• 21:52:11
  down, flipped upside down into the water.
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  Oh, no.
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  And instead of coming out the side window, he
• 15:43:16
  went out the back and he got trapped under
• 17:47:25
  the bed of the truck.
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  Oh, man.
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  And the safety divers went in. The water was
• 18:37:35
  all murked up, and they looked around in the
• 20:21:09
  cab and they couldn't find him because he wasn't
• 22:56:31
  in the cab. He went out the back. So
• 2:23:39
  they had to put a chain and a tow
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  truck and pull it out, and by then it
• 11:53:18
  was too late. It was absolutely horrific. It was
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  just the worst.
• 7:42
  No doubt the worst ever.
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  He was 29 years old and a fabulous thrill
• 2:12:42
  show guy, and his name was Vic Rivers. He
• 4:23:28
  was amazing. But stuff like that happens that you
• 7:39:36
  just right.
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  It's not nearly as tragic as that. I think
• 5:58:02
  that for a lot of us, especially my age,
• 8:12:27
  jackie Chan kind of introduced us to how cool
• 11:34:04
  the stunts were, the actual stunt people. Well, actually,
• 16:02:54
  the fall guy did that.
• 10:24:30
  Yeah, I worked on the fall Guy a lot.
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  I know, but I remember I believe it was
• 11:58:29
  Rumble in the Bronx. It was Jackie's first big
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  American production, or the one that got him big
• 16:33:18
  over here. And one of the simplest stunts in
• 20:13:08
  the entire movie. He jumped off of, like a
• 47:57
  bridge pylon onto a boat or hydra. It was
• 6:17:43
  some kind of boat, and he just hit the
• 12:42:26
  landing wrong and just snapped his ankle. Been through
• 20:02:08
  all this other crazy stuff and then just this
• 4:16:47
  little ten foot jump and boom. Broken ankle. This
• 13:26:23
  teeny tiny little thing that's like me last winter.
• 23:30:58
  I was walking through the front yard and it
• 10:30:30
  had snow. And it doesn't snow very much in
• 22:24:59
  South Carolina. That red clay mixed with that snow.
• 11:14:27
  And I'm just walking across the front yard casually,
• 58:52
  and then all of a sudden, my foot slips
• 15:38:14
  and goes up underneath my back. I land on
• 7:12:35
  my knee. It's just little tiny things. It's crazy.
• 3:35:20
  Oh, wow. So did you break your knee?
• 4:45:10
  It hyperextended. It pretty good. I hadn't yelled like
• 5:36:43
  that in a long time.
• 6:06:16
  It was a good one.
• 7:06:30
  Definitely sounds painful.
• 7:34:06
  Yeah, does. Yeah.
• 8:47:50
  Of course, in California you get lots of snow,
• 9:31:47
  right?
• 9:50:50
  Well, only about 2 hours away. I can be
• 10:59:02
  at Big Bear skiing. Big Bear. I live in
• 13:15:27
  Malibu, so I live on the beach. And it's
• 16:40:05
  pretty sweet here. It's really great. I love it.
• 15:03:30
  What were your favorite types of stunts to do?
• 15:44:42
  Was it like fighting or cars or.
• 16:17:08
  Jumping out of car chase is my absolute favorite
• 17:16:42
  and one of my favorite jobs doing a car
• 19:15:50
  chase. I got to go to Hawai and do
• 22:14:32
  a car chase with the Magnum Ferrari.
• 20:10:30
  No way.
• 20:28:56
  Yes. It was the best. It was unbelievable. And
• 21:32:15
  it's funny how it came up. I was working
• 23:38:54
  on a movie. I was doubling Sharon Stone called
• 2:48:53
  Ellen Quartermain the lost city of Gold.
• 36:30
  Like it?
• 57:52
  And in between scenes, I had to do a
• 1:50:53
  sword fight with another stunt guy. And in between
• 3:36:57
  scenes and practicing our sword fight, I was telling
• 6:16:02
  him that I was saving to buy a Ferrari.
• 9:48:09
  Right. That every job I did. I put away
• 14:13:18
  a little money for my Ferrari that I was
• 19:31:28
  going to buy someday because I wanted to buy
• 1:42:41
  one, but I didn't want to have huge car
• 8:46:55
  payments. So I said, I have a Ferrari fund.
• 16:44:10
  I love Ferraris. We finished that movie, and a
• 1:34:28
  couple months later, he called me. He was the
• 11:17:47
  stunt coordinator for Magnum, and he said, Diane, you
• 21:54:08
  want to come to Hawai and drive the Ferrari
• 9:23:31
  in a car? Like, yeah, sure. I thought he
• 21:45:56
  was kidding me. And he goes, no, really? It's
• 11:01:22
  an episode where a girl steals the Ferrari. You'd
• 1:09:50
  be perfect. And I was like, when do I
• 16:11:20
  live? And it was so fun. It was so
• 8:05:51
  fun. I got to go to Hawaii. And working
• 53:25
  with Tom Selleck was pretty cool, too.
• 19:12:50
  I'm sorry, I have to do this to my
• 20:11:04
  cousin real quick. That's the Volkswagen 308 GT Quattro
• 22:07:34
  valve. Ray, we were talking about the fall guy
• 1:02:18
  one day, and I said, I think was it
• 4:55:18
  a Dodge F 150? And then Chris stopped and
• 9:46:32
  said, what did you just say earlier today on
• 15:36:01
  Facebook, my cousin said something about that. And I
• 22:23:44
  was like, hey, we can talk about the Magnum
• 6:09:43
  Pi. Volkswagen 308 GT Quaco Valve, too, if we
• 14:53:56
  want to.
• 4:40:10
  Drive them crazy.
• 5:00:12
  Oh, my goodness.
• 5:55:10
  They have the car in the Peterson Automotive Museum
• 6:51:47
  here in Los Angeles. And last summer, when my
• 8:45:01
  book was in pre sales, they brought the car
• 11:34:52
  to the San Marino Car Show. And so I
• 15:21:20
  was there with the car, and I was pre
• 20:04:25
  selling my books. It was cool.
• 11:28:50
  Hey, beautiful. Remember me? Close as we get to
• 12:29:33
  something like that's, like the Star Cars Museum or
• 14:31:00
  something. Did you ever get to drive any, like,
• 17:33:11
  monster trucks, crush stuff?
• 15:04:10
  No. That would have been fun. Yeah. But I've
• 16:04:45
  gotten to drive 18 wheelers, and there was an
• 18:05:55
  episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, and I was working
• 21:07:41
  on that a lot, and I read an upcoming
• 1:10:02
  episode, and it had an 18 wheeler in it.
• 6:12:58
  So I said to the stunt coordinator, I have
• 12:16:30
  my Class One license. Let me drive the truck.
• 19:20:36
  And he said, forget it. He said, the guy
• 3:25:18
  that's bringing the truck is going to drive it.
• 12:30:35
  Right? So that day we were having lunch. We
• 22:36:28
  finished lunch, and the stunt coordinator threw me the
• 9:42:55
  keys. Heck, it's all yours. I was like, really?
• 21:49:58
  And so the guy that brought the truck, he
• 10:57:36
  said, Can I ride passenger with you? And I
• 1:05:50
  said, well, if you promise to be quiet. He
• 16:14:38
  goes, I promise I won't say a word. Because
• 8:24:02
  we were doing a head on near Miss with
• 1:34:01
  a bus. And the bus and the bus driver
• 19:44:35
  was my friend stunt guy. The bus driver called
• 14:55:45
  it at the last second and nearly ran into
• 11:07:30
  us head on. This guy was like white knuckled.
• 12:46:10
  I mean, you got to have, like, nerves of
• 13:31:33
  steel for this job, it sounds like. Yeah, I'd
• 15:02:21
  be the guy with the white knuckles at this
• 17:18:32
  point, headed toward the bus, for sure.
• 15:46:30
  And then I get all kinds of other stuff.
• 17:01:02
  I drove a train one. Yeah, that was pretty
• 19:30:08
  fun. And all kinds of tractors and yeah, I've
• 23:13:46
  driven all kinds of weird equipment.
• 20:26:50
  I remember talking with you the other day. What
• 20:54:45
  was it you did to MacGyver? You said you
• 21:50:35
  loved MacGyver. You get to be on there a
• 23:14:21
  couple of times.
• 22:03:12
  Oh, yeah, I did so many stunts. And MacGyver's
• 23:17:06
  like explosions and fights. MacGyver was a great series.
• 1:44:56
  I love that.
• 1:15:10
  When you said explosions, did you get into doing
• 2:02:39
  setups and wiring and stuff, or were you just
• 3:37:37
  involved? Were you like not to put this too
• 6:00:04
  crazy, but a flying body?
• 4:20:50
  Yeah, I was flying body in front of the
• 6:43:28
  big explosion.
• 7:17:50
  That's what I would want to do, too.
• 8:21:10
  It's pretty intense. It really is the first explosion
• 9:14:25
  I was ever in. I said to the special
• 11:00:55
  effects guy, how big is it going to be?
• 13:40:40
  How big is the blast? He goes, It's just
• 17:13:40
  going to be a little thing while my ears
• 21:39:55
  were ringing for a week.
• 14:05:50
  That is, I think, shocking for someone who hasn't
• 15:17:37
  ever been in front of any kind of explosive
• 17:41:11
  happenstance. The concussion from it, the way that the
• 21:16:33
  air moves, the air itself is, like, against you
• 2:03:42
  and wants to hurt you. It's an incredible feeling.
• 20:06:38
  It makes you tumble like a tumbleweed when concussion
• 21:15:58
  hits you. So after that first time, I started
• 23:34:38
  studying Pyrotechnics, and I got my Pyrotechnic operator's license
• 3:02:39
  so that I could look at what they were
• 7:39:59
  using for explosives. And I had a pretty good
• 13:26:40
  idea of how big the blast was going to
• 20:22:42
  be, except when I was working on a movie
• 4:28:03
  in South Africa, they could use nitro there. And
• 13:42:45
  we weren't allowed to use nitro in the United
• 6:46
  States.
• 6:40:36
  Race cars over here.
• 7:36:50
  That was by far the I was ever in.
• 8:35:24
  It was unbelievable. It just threw me like a
• 10:32:33
  rag doll.
• 11:06:30
  So my stepson would choke me if I didn't
• 12:10:51
  ask you this question. It might be kind of
• 14:19:34
  out of the blue, but RoboCop favorite movies. So
• 17:32:38
  if we go back and watch RoboCop again or
• 21:50:04
  RoboCop Two.
• 15:40:12
  RoboCop Two? Yeah.
• 16:28:30
  Where are we going to spot you? How many
• 16:58:40
  places are we going to spot you there?
• 17:26:40
  Well, I'm in the scene, it's like in the
• 18:46:57
  convention center when the RoboCop goes crazy and starts
• 21:27:32
  machine gunning people. And so I was squibbed with
• 1:28:25
  probably 200 squibs. And so there's a lot of
• 6:49:36
  people in the scene, but you can see me.
• 13:31:04
  I'm getting machine gun down. Right.
• 1:27:50
  We're going to go look for it. I guarantee.
• 2:25:09
  You've done so much with so much stuff that
• 4:19:47
  I love. It's like Universal Soldier. Chris and I
• 7:11:44
  are suckers for any kind of martial arts. And
• 11:01:00
  old eighty s. I said old retro eighty s.
• 15:47:35
  Ninety s. Seventy s. Action movie. And then the
• 21:31:30
  remake of The Green Hornet. Like, there's so much
• 4:12:43
  had to be oh, yeah.
• 8:43:12
  And the Steven Seagal movies were great, too. Out
• 9:46:37
  for justice and Mark For were those were really
• 11:53:27
  great. I got shot in the head. Out for
• 15:03:42
  justice.
• 12:48:50
  Travis I know you know the parts he's talking
• 13:20:31
  about, too, because the crazy guy, Richie, gets out
• 14:23:54
  of his car at the lady who's yelling at
• 15:58:59
  him.
• 14:27:48
  In yeah, yeah, I'm yelling at him. Move the
• 15:27:37
  goddamn car. Was you talking to me? Yeah, I'm
• 17:27:17
  talking to you. Move the damn car.
• 17:53:30
  That's so awesome.
• 18:28:10
  But it wasn't the car.
• 18:54:20
  And on the first take, they had this blood
• 19:57:46
  bag set up under my wig so that when
• 22:04:40
  he shot me, they had too much pressure and
• 1:15:00
  too much blood, and it, like, blew across the
• 5:28:47
  street.
• 23:50:10
  Did that hurt? Surely you could feel that coming
• 55:25
  off.
• 1:20:50
  There's like a leather pad that they put on
• 2:42:45
  your head that protects your head. I mean, you
• 5:26:36
  can feel the think.
• 4:41:28
  Of another thing that I would have never thought
• 5:25:07
  of. With the squids. When they explode, are they
• 6:52:27
  concussive, too? Can you feel it? Do those ever
• 9:03:27
  get painful?
• 7:04:50
  No, because there's either well, they used to use
• 8:14:32
  leather pads, but now they use, like this, mylar
• 10:33:58
  stuff. And you can't feel anything, which is bad,
• 14:03:06
  because at least with the leather pads, you could
• 18:41:56
  feel a little you knew it was happening. With
• 30:30
  the smiler stuff. You don't feel anything. And if
• 7:28:46
  you're not on the number that it's supposed to
• 15:36:44
  happen, you can be late. Late. And then they
• 54:26
  have to redo. So that's what they had to
• 11:21:50
  do on out for justice. They had to redo
• 22:58:56
  they had to redo my wardrobe and my hair
• 11:45:46
  into another cake. Yeah, that was a great scene.
• 21:03:46
  Now, you obviously love the stunt work. Well, we
• 21:42:23
  can tell that and everything. It looks like it's
• 22:59:37
  a really big part of you and everything. Do
• 55:29
  you still go out and look for roles to
• 3:29:59
  act in as well? Or is it mostly just
• 6:43:05
  stunt work you concentrate on?
• 51:10
  Well, at this point, people just call me people
• 1:53:07
  call me to do a little part in something.
• 3:57:01
  And now I'm older, so I get called to
• 7:02:53
  be like, an older person that gets beat up
• 11:10:42
  or something. I did a movie with Meryl Streep
• 16:20:28
  a couple years ago, and it was called The
• 22:32:11
  Laundromat. And they hired me and a bunch of
• 5:45:51
  other older stunt people to be the retired people.
• 14:01:29
  So they stick a gray wig on me and
• 23:19:04
  they put some frumpy clothes on and we loaded
• 9:38:36
  onto this boat. And it was a true story
• 21:00:05
  that in 1995, all these retired people got on
• 9:23:31
  a boat in Lake George and there were too
• 22:48:55
  many people, and it was kind of top heavy
• 13:16:16
  and a big boat went by and the boat
• 4:45:34
  capsized and 20 people drowned. And that happened in
• 21:16:49
  real life, so they were recreating this. And so
• 14:50:01
  we shot the exteriors out here on Lake Arrowhead,
• 9:25:11
  and then we shot the boat capsizing in the
• 5:02:18
  pool at Universal. And so they put, like, a
• 1:41:22
  rotisserie mechanism on the boat that they could control
• 23:22:23
  the speed of the boat flipping over. And then
• 22:05:21
  they had a crane that would bring it back
• 21:50:17
  up into position. So all these stunt people were
• 22:37:10
  all on the boat. And the guy sitting next
• 26:00
  to me, I was on Titanic with him. I
• 3:16:47
  said, what's up with us and sinking boats here?
• 7:09:32
  There were three of us in this seat, and
• 12:04:13
  it's a line from the Titanic. And I said
• 18:00:52
  to these guys, women and children first.
• 8:02:10
  There you go.
• 8:19:48
  When this boat flips, I'm going first. But it
• 9:16:16
  was all arms and legs with this boat flipping
• 11:09:12
  over, and it was kind of fun. So at
• 13:58:37
  this point in my career, people call me for
• 17:44:30
  stunt jobs. And my favorite jobs now are car
• 22:26:52
  jobs where I'm the Cougar and I pick up
• 4:05:41
  the young guy and my.
• 15:24:10
  How cool would it be if you got to
• 16:19:46
  play the Cougar driving the Mercury Cougar with Alan
• 18:10:58
  Jackson singing? If I was to make a movie,
• 20:57:46
  that would happen. Yeah, the thing that you just
• 40:11
  said about the boats made me think of something,
• 5:18:12
  too, with having so many experienced. And I would
• 10:51:49
  think if they're calling you in because of the
• 17:21:02
  age, then I would think that most every stunt
• 45:51
  person who would be on that type of movie
• 9:06:16
  would be super experienced. How hard does it become
• 18:22:18
  to not make it look like you're not falling?
• 4:33:55
  You know what I mean? Like, if you're all
• 15:41:09
  going into the water at the same time, you
• 3:43:59
  know what's safe, what's not, especially with water and
• 16:42:25
  drowning and this and that. Yeah, I already asked
• 6:36:27
  the question once. How hard is it to actually
• 21:26:06
  make it look like you're not falling properly and
• 13:11:20
  safely to look like it's wild and cold?
• 8:23:10
  We're trained to make it look real. We're not
• 9:32:07
  there to make it look like a gymnast doing
• 11:50:03
  it. So I make it as natural as I
• 15:16:57
  can and be as loose as I can, like
• 19:52:49
  you would be in real life. We talk about
• 1:37:38
  the safety of it and where I'm proposing I'm
• 8:31:25
  going to land and where the other guys are
• 16:34:11
  going to land. But then once action happens, you
• 1:45:54
  don't know exactly how it's going to happen, but
• 12:06:35
  you have to be loose and feel like in
• 23:36:14
  your head that you're just falling. You don't get
• 12:14:51
  tense in the moment.
• 21:35:28
  So do you when you hit the water, or
• 22:21:12
  it's one of those things when you know you're
• 23:52:42
  out of frame, I guess you count, like a
• 2:09:57
  high fall. You would count split seconds or seconds
• 5:12:56
  or whatever. Is it one of those things where
• 9:01:40
  you at a last moment would maybe tuck or
• 13:36:10
  make those micro adjustments to try to do better?
• 2:57:56
  You just go for it. Yeah, you just go
• 4:10:40
  for it. And then you try to yeah. And
• 6:36:10
  like, under my clothing, I had, like, a wetsuit
• 10:14:24
  vest that would take some of the shock out
• 15:05:22
  of hitting the water and also give a little
• 21:09:06
  buoyancy. I could hide anything. You could hide to
• 4:25:34
  keep you safe. You do. In the beginning, I
• 12:54:46
  used to not want to look fat, and then
• 22:36:44
  in the end, give me every tag. Who cares?
• 13:55:34
  You brought up the Michelin man earlier. You look
• 14:26:55
  like the Michelin man now. We won't have a
• 15:29:38
  problem at all with it.
• 15:16:36
  Right?
• 15:30:28
  You want me to slide down a dam in
• 15:58:23
  a bikini now you want to give me some
• 16:54:14
  pants and paint them beige.
• 17:23:30
  Do you ever get asked about how to get
• 18:00:57
  into the business and what it takes to get
• 19:15:52
  going and started on it?
• 19:01:12
  Yeah, especially when I was the president of the
• 20:00:56
  Stunt Women's Association. I would get calls and letters
• 22:00:24
  from ladies all over the country on how to
• 59:37
  get started. And my advice always was to learn
• 4:58:34
  everything you can. Like, I went to driving schools,
• 9:57:16
  bob Bonderan school of high performance driving and skip
• 15:55:41
  barber school, and I studied taekwondo, and I learned
• 22:53:51
  how to fence, and I'm excellent on horses and
• 6:51:46
  motorcycles. So you have to learn how to do
• 15:49:24
  a whole lot of things, and then you have
• 1:46:47
  to be in the right place. Like, you can't
• 12:43:54
  stay in Peoria and expect to be a stunt
• 40:46
  person. Nothing against Peoria, but how many movies are
• 13:37:21
  shot there? So you got to be somewhere in
• 3:33:41
  either preferably Los Angeles, where it's the movie capital,
• 18:29:45
  where something good can happen, but you got to
• 10:25:34
  have the talent, you got to have the goods
• 3:21:07
  when you get the opportunity. Like when I moved
• 21:16:24
  from New York to La. I was sent out
• 16:11:25
  pictures and resumes. That's what you did in those
• 12:06:11
  days. And I had a interview at a modeling
• 9:00:41
  agency on Sunset Boulevard, and I. Had a little
• 6:54:55
  corvette. And I parked on Sunset Boulevard. And I
• 5:48:53
  walked across the street. I got in the elevator
• 5:42:36
  and a guy says to me, excuse me, are
• 6:36:03
  you a stunt woman? And I go, yeah, how'd
• 8:29:15
  you know that? He said, I parked behind you.
• 11:22:10
  And in my rear window, I had East Coast
• 15:14:50
  Stuntman Association sticker. And he says to me, can
• 20:07:14
  you drive? I said, I'm a dynamite driver. I'm
• 1:59:23
  the best. And he said, well, come to my
• 8:51:16
  office after your interview and meet the stunt coordinator.
• 16:42:53
  I went down, I met the stunt coordinator, Conrad
• 1:34:14
  Palmisano. He said, can you drive? I said, I'm
• 11:25:20
  dynamite. I'm the best driver ever. He goes, OK,
• 22:16:09
  we're going to Arizona and we're doing a picture.
• 10:06:44
  And boom, we started doing car picture after car
• 22:57:02
  picture after car picture. We did Ronnie Howard's first
• 12:47:05
  directorial picture, grand Theft Auto.
• 9:27:38
  That's awesome.
• 9:51:48
  Yeah. So what I'm saying is you got to
• 10:48:54
  have the goods. And then you got to be
• 12:43:06
  in the right place for the magic to happen.
• 15:34:24
  You got to be prepared. And you got to
• 19:22:48
  be in where.
• 13:59:52
  It is basically for those that are listening. If
• 14:36:36
  you do have that bug and you want to
• 15:50:04
  do this, like she said, learn everything you can,
• 17:40:16
  but don't just think you can stay at home
• 20:07:12
  in today's day and age with Internet and remote
• 23:10:52
  access and stuff like that and think you're going
• 2:51:16
  to get these jobs. You really need to be
• 7:08:24
  out there selling yourself to people, putting it out
• 12:02:16
  there, hey, I can do this. Let me do
• 17:32:52
  this for you. Hire me for the job. Let
• 23:40:12
  me show you what I can do at least.
• 6:24:16
  And you can't do that from sitting at home.
• 22:00:50
  I was going to say, too, I would think
• 22:54:16
  as well that on top of that, it would
• 41:08
  take a certain toughness and determination too. Because like
• 3:21:27
  you said about getting hit by the car, this
• 6:55:12
  isn't your regular I'm going to Hollywood. And I
• 11:22:23
  would think, too, that a lot of people are
• 16:43:00
  looking up to Jesse Graff. I'm a big American
• 22:57:03
  ninja warrior. American Ninja Warrior. I don't know why
• 6:04:33
  people don't why is that not a water cooler
• 14:05:29
  talk show? But I know Jesse Graff has done
• 22:59:51
  stunt work for maybe not Gel Gadot, but on
• 8:47:39
  the Wonder Woman movies. And I think a couple
• 19:28:54
  of the X Men things transition.
• 9:18:46
  Well, her dad her dad is a stuntman.
• 10:15:10
  Oh, really?
• 10:34:24
  Her dad, Alan Graff, is a stuntman who I
• 11:44:56
  worked with for many, many years.
• 12:34:44
  So then you probably know Jesse too, then.
• 13:10:44
  Yes, I do. I know her mom and her
• 14:37:58
  dad. And yes, she's amazing.
• 15:29:28
  She is. And there's so many kids like Chris
• 16:28:04
  talking about with wrestling because of American Ninja Warrior.
• 18:25:18
  There's so many people that's looking up to her
• 21:21:09
  now. But there again, we look up to them
• 1:15:37
  because of that toughness and desire and want that
• 6:08:42
  they have too. And then that being a natural
• 12:00:23
  transition over, I would think, into the stunt work
• 18:50:42
  and things like that. I can't imagine how a
• 2:39:38
  day would go. You know what I mean? Gosh,
• 11:27:10
  you've done so much of it. How does your
• 21:13:20
  day go from, let's go wreck a car, let's
• 7:58:06
  go jump out of a building? Are you an
• 19:41:30
  adrenaline junkie? I guess we'd say, do you love
• 8:23:30
  the adrenaline, or was it something that just kind
• 22:04:07
  of grew from having that first experience where you
• 12:43:22
  almost got sideswapped by the car with the baby
• 4:21:13
  carriage?
• 7:16:30
  No, I'm definitely a born adrenaline junkie. Definitely. When
• 8:17:10
  I was just a little kid and I started
• 10:18:31
  riding ponies, I'd make the pony rear up and
• 13:20:32
  run fast, and all the other kids were hanging
• 17:23:14
  on for dear life. And then as soon as
• 22:26:36
  I got my car, I was doing quarter mile
• 4:30:39
  drags, and as soon as I got the motorcycle,
• 11:35:22
  I was jumping over stuff. It's like it's in
• 19:40:46
  my blood. It really is. And in my book,
• 4:46:50
  I give an inspirational message about people to follow
• 14:53:34
  their dreams and to overcome their fears. Like, fears
• 2:00:59
  can stop you from following your dream. You feel
• 14:09:04
  a fear of failure, or in my case, fear
• 3:17:50
  of heights, or you feel you're not good enough,
• 17:27:16
  but you can't let fear bully you. You have
• 8:37:23
  to just take control and be strong and focus
• 48:10
  on your dream. There's obstacles, but you need to
• 17:59:38
  get over them and keep going for it 100%.
• 1:30:04
  I love that you just said that, too. It's
• 2:13:32
  wild because I tell people that fear is the
• 3:40:30
  only true emotion that we have, and they ask
• 5:50:57
  me why. I said, Because it's the only one
• 8:44:52
  you can feel physically, mentally and emotionally. You can't
• 12:22:16
  feel anything else all three ways. Those are all
• 16:43:10
  three planes of existence. So which one are you
• 21:47:32
  more scared of? Are you more scared of getting
• 3:35:22
  hurt? Are you more scared of not living your
• 10:06:42
  dream? Are you more scared of, you know what
• 17:21:31
  I mean? What causes the more fear? So that's
• 1:19:48
  awesome. Yeah. And like you said, know, being in
• 10:01:35
  the right take. If you're going to live a
• 19:26:50
  life taking chances of being a stunt person, you
• 5:35:34
  got to take that first chance of getting out
• 16:27:47
  there to get seen, get out there.
• 12:56:28
  And, you know, I've run into people working on
• 13:51:35
  sets when I've been in Arizona or I've been
• 15:41:51
  on locations, and they're going, I really want to
• 18:27:15
  be a stunt person. I said, well, you come
• 22:07:47
  to know, and they're in Phoenix, and I'm like,
• 2:43:26
  you got to come to La. Well, I don't
• 8:14:13
  know. I don't know if I'll ever get a
• 14:40:09
  job. I said, well, you can't think that way.
• 22:01:12
  You got to think, I'm going there and I'm
• 6:17:23
  going to get a job and I'm going to
• 15:28:42
  make it. If you're doubting yourself, you're finished before
• 1:35:09
  you start.
• 23:17:40
  That's a lot of times, too. We always talk
• 23:58:01
  about speaking things into existence. If you have that
• 1:18:44
  little bit of doubt or that room for that.
• 3:19:48
  And if you start putting out there into the
• 6:01:14
  universe the things that might happen.
• 2:45:30
  Exactly. You got to visualize the future. Like I
• 3:45:32
  visualize every stunt going perfectly right before I do
• 5:45:36
  it. I have some meditative time where I just
• 8:45:43
  see the stunt going perfectly right from beginning to
• 12:45:52
  end. And I keep going over that in my
• 17:46:03
  head like you would a mantra. And so when
• 23:46:17
  the stunt is ready and they call me for
• 6:46:33
  action, boom. I already see what's going to happen.
• 14:46:51
  I know what's going to happen. And if something
• 23:47:11
  pops up and I have to readjust, I still
• 9:47:33
  know it's going to go right.
• 13:29:12
  Absolutely. That just came up. So you can make
• 14:07:16
  this it was all supposed to happen that way.
• 15:23:25
  It's got to go. It all happens the way
• 17:17:38
  it's supposed to happen. When nothing bad is going
• 19:49:55
  to happen, it's all going to go right.
• 16:44:10
  One time, a stunt woman was riding passenger with
• 17:49:43
  me, and I was about to start this very
• 20:00:50
  intense car chase. And she says to me, what
• 23:17:31
  do you do if you have to abort? I
• 3:39:45
  just said, shut up, man. There is no aborting.
• 9:07:32
  Just shut up and hold on.
• 23:07:30
  My dad drag race. Motorcycles, actually. Michael Tate Held.
• 23:57:30
  Oh, my gosh. It's like four or five records
• 1:37:30
  back in the early to mid eighty s on
• 4:07:30
  the naturally aspirated gas powered Harley Davidson. But anyway,
• 7:27:30
  that's what my dad used to say. But brakes.
• 11:37:30
  That's just extra weight. That'll slow us down. Brakes.
• 5:10:30
  Wow.
• 5:21:28
  Full throttle.
• 5:41:02
  So you probably saw the clip from Bachelor Party.
• 6:37:03
  I did that movie Bachelor Party with Tom Hanks,
• 8:29:05
  and we're watching a 3D movie, and all of
• 11:17:08
  a sudden a punch comes out and it hits
• 15:01:12
  me in the face.
• 10:10:50
  I was going to bring that up to you.
• 10:46:28
  I was I was going to tell you to
• 11:57:46
  refresh my memory because I could not remember if
• 13:44:42
  it was Bachelor Party or if it was something
• 16:07:17
  different. But there was a fight in theater, right?
• 19:05:31
  You're watching a 3D movie, and the boyfriend with
• 22:39:24
  you goes, man, this is the best thing that's
• 2:48:56
  3D I've ever seen. And you're like, I've seen
• 7:34:06
  better.
• 15:02:44
  And all of a sudden, you get.
• 15:18:28
  Clocked right in the nose, and you're like, whoa.
• 16:19:30
  Yeah. That was an award winning scene. We won
• 17:29:51
  actually best fight scene for that scene because it
• 19:50:35
  was just so funny.
• 19:58:50
  Who are some of your favorite people to work
• 20:33:04
  with over the years that.
• 20:52:28
  You'Ve been you know, there's a couple people that
• 22:13:19
  guys that I just love, like know, he was
• 55:03
  like an idol. I loved, you know, I love
• 4:57:39
  and, you know, some of the girls I really
• 10:21:06
  love diane Keaton. She was wonderful.
• 3:23:30
  We love her. Watching anything with her. My wife's
• 4:09:04
  in love with her. It seems like whatever movie
• 5:40:14
  she's in, I just believe with all my heart.
• 5:40:52
  She's that sweet in person and she know. On
• 6:37:36
  Annie Hall, I shared a trailer with her. These
• 8:31:04
  days you never share a trailer with the star.
• 11:21:17
  In those days you did. And she was just
• 15:08:15
  so wonderful, really fantastic. And then there's been so
• 19:51:56
  many people over the years know when you do
• 1:32:22
  a stunt for them, they're so know. Jessica Lang
• 8:09:32
  was great. I worked with her on King Kong
• 15:43:27
  and then again on the movie blue sky. I
• 14:05
  don't know if you saw that, but that was
• 9:41:28
  a really great movie about when they did h
• 20:05:36
  bomb testing out in the desert and they weren't
• 7:26:28
  telling anyone, and these bombs were going off and
• 19:44:04
  I had to gallop this horse through the desert
• 8:58:24
  with a helicopter chasing me. And then an h
• 23:09:28
  bomb went off and I mean, this horse just
• 14:17:17
  stood up on its hind legs and twirled around.
• 6:21:51
  It was pretty.
• 22:58:30
  Awesome that you said Charles Bronson, too, because that's
• 23:37:55
  like one of my dad's favorite ever. I grew
• 56:46
  up on the death wish movies and I can't
• 2:55:02
  remember which one it was. He was real young,
• 5:32:44
  but he was stacked and he was a boxer.
• 8:49:51
  I can't remember it's all black and white one,
• 12:46:24
  but that's so cool.
• 3:14:52
  I was on death wish four, and I'm walking
• 4:15:45
  to my car in a lonely garage, and I
• 6:17:32
  get in the car and I see this hooded
• 9:20:12
  guy coming toward me. I lock the doors and
• 13:23:45
  he starts smashing the windows and dragging me out
• 18:28:12
  of the car. It was scary even though it
• 33:32
  was a movie.
• 10:29:10
  Speaking of movies and all, you had mentioned to
• 11:13:15
  me along with your book and the audiobook, you
• 12:41:26
  had a desire to have it go into some
• 14:53:43
  kind of a movie of its own if it
• 17:50:05
  could.
• 13:33:28
  Yes.
• 13:45:12
  Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 14:14:16
  Yes. So I'm hoping that my book gets made
• 15:20:43
  into a movie. It would be really a terrific
• 17:33:37
  movie and I'd really like Jennifer Lawrence to play.
• 20:52:58
  Yeah. So my agent sent my book to her
• 1:18:46
  manager and then they asked for a treatment for
• 6:51:01
  the screenplay. So I wrote a treatment. Know writer's
• 13:29:43
  strike is on now. I'm not in the writers
• 21:14:52
  guild, right. So I wrote a treatment and I'm
• 6:06:28
  going to start writing the screenplay for it now,
• 16:04:31
  hopefully.
• 22:06
  What an amazing woman, people. We are in the
• 1:12:18
  presence of greatness. I swear, the first stunt woman
• 2:52:42
  we've got the most probably prolific stunt woman because
• 5:23:18
  she's still working books like movie. And you're going
• 8:44:06
  to write the screen. So you narrated on audible.
• 12:55:07
  You wrote it, narrated it, and now you're going
• 17:56:19
  to write as a movie for it, too. I
• 23:47:44
  love it.
• 6:36:10
  And if you get Jennifer Lawrence, please, you're my
• 7:46:44
  new best friend. Because I want to meet Jennifer
• 10:07:54
  Lawrence.
• 9:25:30
  Yeah, she's amazing.
• 9:46:52
  Got a couple of overweight middle aged nerds that
• 10:32:17
  will.
• 11:24:50
  She would be perfect for the role.
• 12:54:10
  What an amazing movie, too. Oh, my God. Let's
• 13:44:45
  turn it into a TV series, too. Let's do
• 15:25:57
  the movie of the book and then do your
• 17:57:44
  life story as a TV series. It's the new
• 21:20:07
  fall guy. But that's what I was going to
• 1:33:06
  say.
• 17:13:28
  We've had the fall guy, now we got the
• 17:44:26
  fall girl.
• 18:14:50
  It's time for the fall girl.
• 18:43:40
  For sure it is no time for the fall
• 19:19:22
  girl.
• 20:26:50
  And she really is a funny person and really
• 21:23:53
  good actor. So that'd be an excellent choice. Yeah,
• 23:18:00
  I almost got choked up thinking about it.
• 23:37:50
  Right.
• 16:50
  I worked on Titanic, too. I know it's not
• 1:28:17
  the 80s. That was the.
• 2:44:50
  Some of us had to see that movie several
• 3:23:44
  times at the theaters. And it wasn't out of
• 4:41:33
  choice for the most part. I did like the
• 6:38:17
  movie. No, I liked the movie, but I did
• 9:13:55
  not go watch it four times out of personal
• 12:28:27
  preference.
• 6:04:46
  Okay, yeah, 3 hours in the movie theater four
• 6:45:04
  times would be tough. But I love the movie.
• 7:27:46
  So why did you have to go four times?
• 8:04:44
  I went with four different people to it.
• 8:57:30
  Four different dates, right?
• 9:23:56
  Yes. What? We don't watch Titanic. I'm like, okay.
• 11:49:50
  You didn't have the heart to say, I've already
• 12:25:25
  seen it three times.
• 12:43:12
  No, I couldn't do it.
• 13:31:30
  I tested out.
• 14:50:10
  It was a good movie, though. I'm not going
• 15:15:24
  to take anything away from it.
• 15:32:52
  Well, the funny part is James Cameron, the director,
• 16:37:03
  brought us to Mexico, Rosarita Beach, Mexico, four days
• 18:45:26
  before shooting began to watch documentaries of what happened
• 21:58:01
  to the Titanic. And all us stunt people are
• 2:14:47
  sitting in there thinking, we're getting paid to watch
• 7:35:45
  these documentaries. What's up with this guy? We just
• 14:00:55
  didn't get it. But anyway, it gave us the
• 21:30:16
  feel for what really happened then. And it was
• 6:03:49
  so great working on the movie because he was
• 15:41:33
  a stickler for detail. All the costumes and everything,
• 2:23:29
  the hats, the shoes, everything was from the period.
• 14:09:37
  And there were stunt people from all over the
• 2:59:56
  world there. In a rehearsal, there was a guy
• 16:54:26
  from the Czech Republic, and he was sitting across
• 7:53:09
  from me in a lifeboat, and he had his
• 23:56:03
  name on his shirt and something else was written
• 17:03:08
  underneath it. And I said to him, what's that?
• 11:14:25
  And he said blood type. I'm like blood type.
• 6:29:54
  You have to blood type on your jacket. It
• 2:49:34
  was an accident waiting to happen.
• 13:05:30
  Best be prepared, I guess.
• 13:56:10
  Just in case I need a transfusion here.
• 14:42:40
  But it was so great working on the movie,
• 15:36:59
  and then we went to the screening of it
• 17:25:38
  at 20th Century Fox and they had, like, smokestacks
• 20:08:37
  going on top of the theater. And we saw
• 23:45:56
  the movie. We had no idea it was going
• 4:17:34
  to be that terrific. I mean, it really was
• 9:43:32
  amazing.
• 20:39:30
  I think for its time, too, was second to
• 21:47:14
  none. We just went over what was it? The
• 2:44
  Matrix. That was made around the same time. And
• 3:25:58
  we were hitting kind of a quasi renaissance for
• 7:56:57
  filmography or cinematography during that period. I think it
• 13:35:40
  was just blown away by the Jurassic Park and
• 20:22:09
  the Matrix, the Titanic. We just had all this
• 4:16:22
  new special effects stuff happening and then yeah, just
• 13:18:20
  mind blowing how it looked.
• 6:22:08
  Yeah, well, I get residuals on all the movies
• 7:30:39
  and TV shows that I've done and Titanic has
• 9:47:43
  certainly been the best in that department.
• 9:48:50
  I contributed four times.
• 11:15:30
  You mean hulk hogan ain't making any money on
• 12:01:19
  suburban commando.
• 13:05:10
  Oh, my gosh. We do a lot of here
• 13:44:30
  as far as movies go and everything. What do
• 15:03:12
  you think was your favorite thing during the 80s
• 17:01:14
  that you did since we are a retro podcast
• 19:38:38
  like that. What's your favorite of that time frame?
• 16:24:02
  Yeah, I'm trying to think in the 80s. Let's
• 17:32:22
  see. In the 80s, airplane. That was the 80s,
• 19:49:03
  wasn't it?
• 18:57:52
  Yeah.
• 19:05:20
  Airplane. Surely you can't be serious. Yeah, and stop
• 20:11:21
  calling you Shirley, okay?
• 20:41:36
  I am.
• 21:05:50
  Yeah. I love the airplane. I was in a
• 22:11:14
  scene we were in the airport when the nose
• 22:03
  of the airplane came crashing through the window and
• 3:38:17
  all the people were in the terminal. That was
• 7:59:56
  amazing. Yeah, I love that. And then I love
• 13:26:59
  the Steve Martin films. The jerk. Do you remember
• 19:59:27
  that movie? The Jerk?
• 4:08:46
  Absolutely. I just need this lamp in this remote.
• 5:52:10
  I was in the scene where he's in the
• 6:46:52
  French restaurant with Bernadette Peters and it's his birthday
• 8:36:17
  and he's got 100 gold chains on his neck
• 11:20:25
  and she gives him a birthday present and it's
• 14:59:16
  another gold chain, right? And he leans forward for
• 19:32:49
  her to put the chain around his neck. And
• 1:01:05
  then as he's going back, he loses his balance
• 7:24:03
  and he starts crashing through tables in the French
• 14:41:44
  restaurant. And he crashed into our table and everything
• 22:54:08
  went flying. And then he lands on the floor
• 8:01:14
  and he goes, check, please.
• 16:50:30
  Steve's. One of the best ever. I got a
• 17:39:34
  question for the lot of people that I know,
• 19:17:43
  at least haven't seen it. And I got told
• 21:44:57
  about it by someone that I used to work
• 1:01:15
  with when I was a teenager, but it was
• 5:06:38
  Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway and Barfly. So we
• 10:01:06
  were talking a while ago about what would you
• 15:44:38
  do in these other kinds of where you wouldn't
• 22:17:14
  think of this as stunts needed to be done
• 5:38:55
  in it. Was that something that you would have
• 13:49:41
  just driven in or was that something.
• 1:42:28
  No, this was a great scene. I love barfly
• 2:40:36
  too. It's great. So I was doubling Faye Dunaway
• 4:36:54
  and Mickey Rourke is sitting at the bar in
• 7:31:20
  that sleazy bar, talking to another woman. And I
• 11:23:55
  walk in the bar and I see this and
• 16:14:39
  my blood is boiling. And so I walk up
• 22:03:32
  to the girl that's sitting next to him and
• 4:50:34
  I wrap my hand in her hair and I
• 12:35:44
  yank her back off the bar stool and start
• 21:19:03
  a big fight.
• 10:46:20
  Right.
• 11:23:10
  And so the first take, I yanked her back
• 12:26:59
  off the bar stool, I pulled the wig off
• 14:34:38
  her head.
• 14:13:50
  So you had to reset.
• 14:41:26
  And the director didn't yell Cut. And so we
• 15:53:55
  continued fighting, and she had, like, a skull cap
• 18:18:53
  on, and we continued fighting until he yelled, Cut,
• 21:56:21
  and then everybody was laughing.
• 20:07:30
  So did you get to be on set during
• 20:54:22
  times with this movie? That was a great scene,
• 22:28:08
  too, and the fights and everything. So when Mickey
• 48:47
  was fighting in the alleyway with the two or
• 3:56:19
  three or four guys in the alleyway, as a
• 7:50:43
  stunt person, are y'all always on set for shooting
• 12:32:01
  in case something like, if there's something that they
• 18:00:11
  need or do they actually call in a like,
• 15:15
  so if you were Dublin for Faye and say
• 7:17:11
  something? I don't want to do that. Call a
• 15:06:00
  stunt lady. Not that she would, but I mean,
• 23:41:43
  does that really happen like that in.
• 5:55:30
  Well, they know in advance that the actor is
• 6:51:28
  not going to do it. That's a given. It's
• 8:43:26
  not a last minute thing. So they'll either have
• 11:31:22
  me on a daily contract if it's just that
• 15:15:18
  fight, or they'll have me on a weekly contract
• 19:55:12
  if there's a couple of other things I got
• 1:31:05
  to do to double her, and then I don't
• 8:02:57
  have to sit on the set the whole time.
• 15:30:47
  I go to my trailer, my dressing room, my
• 23:54:37
  trailer, but a lot of times I want to
• 9:14:25
  be on the set because I want to watch
• 19:30:12
  them doing the fight with doing the fight. But
• 6:41:58
  it's the other stunt guys, and a lot of
• 18:49:43
  time you just want to watch them doing the
• 7:53:26
  fight. Right.
• 19:28:30
  Actually, some of the question, too, I guess you've
• 20:10:06
  added to it what I was kind of getting
• 21:33:20
  at you. Do you hang out like I would?
• 22:39:30
  Frank Stallone was in that movie as well. Sylvester's
• 23:47:28
  brother. Yeah, but that was fun. That was really
• 2:03:24
  fun. I'd like to say dunaway. She was a
• 5:27:19
  sweetie, too, but Mickey Rourke was a trip.
• 3:22:50
  Mickey's got to be like, I can imagine from
• 4:07:38
  beginning of his career to now, he's got to
• 5:37:16
  be something else to be around.
• 5:36:30
  Yeah.
• 6:03:10
  Character as much as he is his characters.
• 7:25:50
  I love that movie, though. That was a great
• 8:14:17
  one.
• 8:35:10
  It's weird to me that I don't find a
• 9:16:47
  lot of people that but there again, I go
• 10:40:02
  to work and we're talking about Top Gun, too,
• 12:44:55
  and one of the 20 somethings. That was great.
• 15:31:25
  And they've never seen the first top. I've never
• 18:59:32
  even seen it. You don't even know who Goose
• 23:09:17
  is. Then you don't get to talk about the
• 4:00:40
  second movie. How are you?
• 14:23:50
  We have this conversation every single week, Diane. You
• 15:17:52
  so understand. Every week we have this conversation. I
• 17:05:56
  can't believe these people have not seen this movie.
• 19:48:03
  Or like the Goonies or the last starfighter or
• 23:24:13
  the picture of China or the last dragons, the
• 3:54:24
  American ninja. Anything with Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger or
• 9:18:38
  Stallone in it. And they're like, rambo. Who's?
• 20:36:38
  Rambo king Kong.
• 21:05:42
  I know it's know? I did. Chuck's TV show.
• 22:11:09
  Walker, Texas Ranger. I worked on that for a
• 22:04
  number of years and he was great. I loved
• 3:38:27
  working with Chuck.
• 46:02
  I actually got to meet him about it was
• 1:23:47
  June. He came to Nashville with his wife for
• 2:39:18
  a Comic Con here, and I got to meet
• 4:32:34
  him there. He's the only reason why I went
• 7:03:36
  to it was just to meet him.
• 3:48:08
  Oh, wow.
• 4:02:32
  And he's a really nice guy. I thought, what's
• 5:39:55
  that, Travis?
• 6:03:42
  I said, whereas I want to meet Don Cheadle.
• 6:48:22
  Don was on Walker for a while, too. He
• 8:17:44
  was like his way in the beginning for a
• 10:31:46
  few wasn't he?
• 8:34:04
  Don Cheadle.
• 9:01:50
  Wasn't he on Walker?
• 10:04:30
  Clarence Gilliard was.
• 10:32:32
  Clarence, clarence. Clarence passed away, too.
• 12:00:48
  Yeah, last year. The year before, I believe.
• 12:53:50
  Swear to God. I remember Don Cheadle being on
• 13:44:35
  Walker.
• 13:51:02
  You know, I'm not going to tell you he
• 14:20:36
  wasn't just because I can't remember last week.
• 14:48:52
  Maybe he was a guest star.
• 15:35:30
  I swore I remembered it. That might be that.
• 16:20:03
  2012 hadron Collider that knocked us into another dimension.
• 17:49:11
  That's what that was.
• 17:26:28
  That's what it was, yeah. I think you landed
• 18:09:46
  on your head, Travis, and you didn't recover from
• 19:36:23
  it.
• 18:58:32
  Mandela Effect.
• 20:05:30
  There were some other good TV shows, too, that
• 21:20:14
  I did besides that, besides Full Guy. There was
• 23:49:42
  Cagney and Lacey and Mike Hammer. I don't know
• 3:33:55
  if you remember those. Oh, yeah, those were fun.
• 8:32:51
  And then there was a lot more movies in
• 14:46:32
  the 80s besides let's see the Sentinel gumball rally.
• 22:14:57
  That was the 70s, right? Man with two brains.
• 6:58:07
  That was Steve Martin man with Two Brains. You
• 16:56:00
  remember that?
• 6:42:10
  I don't think I've seen that one.
• 7:04:08
  I know it's his, but I don't think I've
• 7:27:27
  seen it, though.
• 7:35:52
  Oh, it's really hilarious. He has this brain and
• 8:19:40
  he's running around trying to find a body to
• 9:47:17
  put it in, and he takes the brain out
• 11:58:42
  in a rowboat, and he's talking to the brain.
• 14:53:56
  He's got the brain in a jar.
• 11:41:30
  He's got a ton of hilarious things in 80s.
• 12:25:22
  He's one of my favorite for comedians, for sure.
• 13:11:12
  Yeah.
• 13:17:36
  You got another one with Mickey Rourke, too, don't
• 13:54:51
  you? Year of the Dragon.
• 14:17:42
  Oh, yeah, the Year of the Dragon, yeah.
• 15:25:50
  Mickey Rourke. Flick.
• 15:53:10
  Yeah, that was pretty cool. That was great. I
• 16:56:32
  did a near miss with a taxicab as a
• 19:03:18
  body, her running across the street and taxicab is
• 22:13:26
  doing a car chase. And luckily I didn't have
• 2:26:56
  to get hit. The girl I was with had
• 7:43:50
  to.
• 21:17:28
  Do the car watching. I'm going to be watching
• 22:12:17
  every single one of these movies.
• 4:10
  In that movie, I was doubling an Asian, which
• 1:03:08
  you're not allowed to do that anymore. They have
• 3:01:06
  to have an Asian double, an asian, so I
• 5:58:03
  had a black wig on. I don't look anything
• 9:53:59
  like this. And like in Titanic, I had a
• 14:48:53
  wig on. Brown curly wig and a big hat.
• 20:42:47
  I'm in many disguises in all these movies except
• 3:35:39
  where I'm playing a part. But I'm always in
• 11:27:31
  disguise as the character so I don't look like
• 20:18:21
  this. So it's hard to pick me out.
• 9:50:28
  So was that you? And I won't get this
• 10:34:51
  name wrong, I promise you. I might have got
• 12:03:38
  Don wrong. I'm sorry, but I won't get this
• 14:16:49
  one wrong. Were you the one that Carl Weathers,
• 17:14:24
  Mr. Action Jackson, jumped on to knock out of
• 20:56:22
  the way of the taxicab?
• 13:58:58
  Was that a new no, I crashed through a
• 15:28:36
  window on Action Jackson. I went backwards through a
• 18:27:53
  gigantic window.
• 17:20:50
  Oh, my gosh.
• 17:39:14
  Yeah.
• 17:45:16
  I believe that's in your demo reel, isn't it?
• 18:52:30
  Yeah, probably. There's a bunch of me crashing through
• 19:42:36
  windows in the demo reel.
• 20:12:38
  I think I've seen something like that in the
• 20:38:21
  demo reel when I was watching that.
• 20:59:16
  Yeah, but in Action Jackson, it was this huge
• 21:56:47
  window, and it's tempered glass. And what they do
• 23:51:49
  is, right before you hit it, the special effects
• 2:44:22
  guys have a little prong that hits the window
• 6:34:26
  and it gets the molecules moving in the glass.
• 11:22:01
  And then when you hit it, you can bust
• 17:07:07
  through. If they're late, you bounce off it. And
• 23:49:44
  if they're early, the window will collapse before you
• 7:29:52
  hit it. So it has to be right on
• 16:07:32
  time. And in that one, I crashed through the
• 1:42:42
  window and I slid, and my hands got all
• 12:15:23
  cut up from the tempered glass. So I had
• 23:45:35
  to go to the hospital and get all this
• 12:13:19
  glass taken out of my hands.
• 10:44:50
  I know we're right at our hour, but I
• 11:45:35
  got one more question. Slide in sure. Out of
• 13:47:06
  the stars that our listeners might know of hearing
• 16:49:23
  their names. Who is the one that you've worked
• 20:52:25
  with who's been the craziest about wanting to do
• 1:56:13
  their own stunts? Did you ever have anybody like
• 8:00:46
  no, you can't do that. You have to leave
• 15:06:05
  that.
• 17:58:52
  Well, it's kind of know sean Penn. We were
• 18:58:51
  doing a movie I can't remember the name of
• 20:58:50
  the movie right now, but anyway, sean Penn, we
• 23:58:49
  were doing a movie, and he wanted to drive
• 3:58:47
  the cop car in a chase scene. Colors.
• 23:12:30
  Oh, my gosh. You were in colors, too, Dang.
• 23:52:06
  Yeah. Thank you for remembering the name. And so
• 38:03
  he wanted to drive the car, and the director
• 2:09:59
  was like, no. And he insisted on doing it.
• 4:27:52
  So he drove the car and he came around
• 7:31:44
  the corner and he smashed into a fire hydrant.
• 11:21:33
  So all the stunt guys are there.
• 4:54:30
  Drive the car, big man. Drive the car.
• 5:55:50
  Do the stunt.
• 6:50:30
  That's great. You need to figure ordering pizza spicoli.
• 9:03:50
  But most of the women, they don't want to
• 10:08:43
  do the stunts. They're happy and grateful. That it's.
• 12:18:29
  So anyway, I hope people buy my book, Hollywood
• 15:33:08
  Stunt Woman. It's on Amazon and other sites.
• 13:41:50
  I was about to ask you if you could
• 14:07:48
  put that out there for everybody. And also, if
• 14:59:46
  you will, when we're done with this, if you'll
• 16:17:43
  send me a link or something, I'll get it
• 18:01:39
  out in our stuff and everything we put out,
• 20:11:34
  too.
• 15:56:04
  Oh, perfect. Great. Audible august 22.
• 18:05:12
  August 22 for audible.
• 18:43:50
  So write that down. Travis, that's your next book,
• 19:42:59
  birthday.
• 19:50:22
  I don't have to. I'll remember it. I'm going
• 20:51:51
  to daughter Diane's book for her birthday. It really
• 22:54:50
  is, though, because she's in college, and she's entering
• 1:59:19
  into her senior year this year, too. So it
• 6:05:17
  would actually be perfect.
• 33:50
  Oh, she'll love it. It'll be inspirational for her
• 1:35:12
  to follow her.
• 2:01:50
  Yes, if you will, before we go. Let everybody
• 2:43:11
  know where they can find you at online, like
• 4:05:54
  your website, any social medias you might be a
• 6:09:58
  part of that you want them to have.
• 4:51:30
  Yes. On Instagram. It's Hollywood Stuntwoman at hollywood Stuntwoman.
• 6:21:50
  And it's Hollywood stuntwoman on Facebook and LinkedIn. And
• 9:22:32
  then my website is Hollywood Stuntwoman.com. And the book
• 13:53:34
  is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and
• 19:54:56
  all those great stores. And hopefully a movie soon
• 3:26:40
  hopefully a.
• 12:43:24
  Movie soon that you pinned as well.
• 14:21:50
  We have to make sure the word gets out
• 14:56:39
  for that movie because we got to get Jennifer
• 16:06:18
  Lawrence in here, no doubt.
• 16:36:30
  Not just speaking with us tonight, but for all
• 17:31:40
  of your body of work, the phenomenal, amazing woman
• 19:22:00
  that you are and continue to be in putting
• 22:07:30
  this book out to inspire others, not just young
• 1:48:10
  women, but anyone who might read it. So just
• 6:24:00
  thank you. Thank you. We love oh, thank you.
• 22:10:00
  I enjoyed talking to you both. Thanks so much.
• 23:00:56
  Thanks a lot, Diane. I'll follow up with you
• 23:48:39
  soon. Thank you.
• 6:32
  Okay, bye.
• 24:02
  All right. Bye bye. All right, Travis. What's? Diane
• 1:26:17
  Peterson, everybody. That was such a fun episode, man.
• 3:30:49
  I mean, things that she has done and everything,
• 6:37:37
  that's awesome.
• 3:49:50
  I'm blown away by that woman that's like, wow,
• 5:08:42
  she's done more on a dag on Tuesday.
• 7:20:30
  Than we have in 20 years. Yeah. No, she's
• 7:59:56
  great. That's a lot of, like you said, over
• 9:18:50
  200 credits of work, and we just touched the
• 11:17:11
  surface of it. Talking with her tonight. We could
• 13:54:58
  have probably had her on all night long telling
• 17:12:12
  these stories, and we would have just been blown
• 21:08:53
  away.
• 11:22:12
  With all of them. No doubt.
• 11:54:34
  It's really great. I guess we better go ahead
• 12:47:34
  and start wrapping things up. Joe.
• 13:23:42
  Hey, when you follow up with her, I'm going
• 14:05:40
  to say this while we're on the air. When
• 15:29:37
  you follow up with her, I'm going to go
• 17:35:32
  ahead and ask her if we mail her a
• 20:23:26
  copy of her book and a donation, if she'll
• 23:53:18
  sign it for me to send it back to
• 4:05:09
  my daughter, I'll send a stamp with it, too.
• 8:58:58
  So I'll have. The postage covered.
• 18:59:10
  We can put that out there. I can help
• 19:48:11
  you out with that, for sure. All right, well,
• 21:26:14
  if you're by chance new to the Show tonight,
• 23:53:19
  which shocking if you were, because we're everywhere to
• 3:09:26
  be found, right? But if you are new to
• 7:14:34
  The Show Tonight, make sure you hit that follow
• 12:08:44
  button and subscribe to us. Go to the website
• 17:51:55
  where we're at at WW dot retrolifethenumber fourthhelter U.com,
• 24:08
  and subscribe to the newsletter there. We have some
• 7:45:23
  good stuff out in that for you monthly and
• 15:55:40
  what. Instagram, Facebook, retro life. The number four. Y
• 54:58
  ou. And we'll put an occasional TikTok out there
• 10:43:17
  every now and then with some eighty s and
• 21:20:38
  ninety s, movie related stuff or maybe a little
• 8:47:01
  few clips of us on here.
• 7:01:32
  That's right. Heck yeah, baby. Man.
• 7:40:00
  Anywhere you listen to your podcast at, you'll find
• 8:35:11
  us, itunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio Google, Amazon, you name it's
• 10:25:35
  there, I'm sure. So thanks for listening to the
• 13:11:10
  show Tonight. We hope you enjoyed Diane Peterson and
• 16:51:56
  all the stuff that she's done. Look her up,
• 21:27:55
  buy her book, get her Audible book, follow her.
• 2:59:05
  Can't go wrong.
• 13:31:32
  Yeah, she hasn't done any stunts in the Teslas.
• 15:00:47
  Because I shouldn't say that.
• 15:52:36
  You can't even get it out, can you? Because
• 16:27:26
  the Teslas burn up before you.
• 17:02:10
  I don't want to involve her in it. It
• 17:41:32
  might be in bad taste. I was saying, like,
• 19:00:17
  so, you know, Tesla has actually named their new
• 20:58:25
  car.
• 19:33:30
  Don'T. I don't want to hear it.
• 20:01:16
  Elon Musk.