Lights, Camera, ACTION! Oscar?

More than half a century ago, in 1960, the epic film "Ben Hur" swept the Academy Awards, picking up a record 11 Oscars. The film was shot on location in Italy, its $15 million budget the biggest in Hollywood movie history at the time. For the movie’s central awe-inspiring scene, a perilous chariot race that took three weeks to shoot and required 15,000 extras, lead actor Charlton Heston made it known that he did most of the stunt work himself.

The key word there is “most.” Much of the dangerous work in the landmark race was left to stunt actors, a line of work that has developed into a profession in its own right.

Frank Hanaway was hired for "The Great Train Robbery" because of his unique ability to fall off a horse without hurting himself.

In fact, the stunt men and women of Hollywood have been a necessity of cinema since the art form was invented more than a century ago. The 1903 silent film “The Great Train Robbery” ran only twelve minutes long, but it featured the first recorded example of a stunt double by Frank Hanaway as one of the film’s many bandits.

Since the early days, the work of the stunt double has expanded from falling down at just the right angle to even parachuting vehicles out of planes like in the seventh “Fast and Furious” film. Without the work of stunt actors, it’s undeniable that the action-packed cinema of today would have a different look and feel than it does to audiences now.

And yet, after decades of hard work, a long list of death-defying stunts (and a handful in which the stunt actor died) the accomplishments of these critical performers remains unrecognized by the Academy. Despite a concerted campaign over many years, there is no Oscar for stunt work.

“I’ve heard every excuse in the book,” Jack Gill, one of modern cinema’s most prolific stunt coordinators, said. “None of them hold water.”

In addition to his work on the sets of some of Hollywood’s biggest action blockbusters, Gill has been the spokesman for the movement to add a stunts category to the Academy Awards for nearly 30 years.

“Either they don’t understand what we really do… or they just don't really want us in there,” Gill said. “If you look at ‘Ben Hur,’ how do you take the chariot race out of ‘Ben Hur,’ and still have the same movie? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Gill is used to being persistent - stunt work takes time and focus - but he never expected the quest for an Oscar category to take this long, and still remain unfulfilled.

Jack Gill (left) and Sidney Lumet (right) pause in between takes on the set of the 1999 film "Gloria."

Director and five-time Academy Award nominee Sidney Lumet first called Gill’s attention to the omission on the set of the 1991 film "A Stranger Among Us." Lumet questioned why no category existed given the skill and commitment required of stunt coordinators. Gill responded that he “hadn’t ever really thought about it,” but as he thought about it more, he realized that Lumet had a point and the exclusion bothered him.

Shortly thereafter, Gill was sponsored by Lumet to join the Academy and, upon his acceptance, immediately set out to gain the stunt community the recognition he thought they deserved.

“I started talking to the executive director of the Academy at the time and he agreed with me,” Gill said, recalling the beginnings of his long campaign. Despite the fact that they agreed, he was warned that such a big change could take as many as five years to accomplish.

That was 28 years ago, but the response from the Academy today is still an unwavering parade of silence and smiles. The Academy and its board of governors declined multiple requests for comment on this story.

Hugh Aodh O’Brien, another career stuntman, agrees that recognition at the Oscars is needed, though he questions what the result of such an award could be. The source of O’Brien’s concern?

Hugh Aodh O'Brien's director's chair sits in the conference room of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures.

“I was trained and raised in the business that we were unseen and we were unknown,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien was first inspired to work in the stunt business as a kid when he saw the 1968 film “Bullitt,” long before he had even knew what a stuntman was.

“I wanted to be Steve McQueen,” O’Brien said, noting that, until his mother told him about stunt actors, he didn’t realize that McQueen wasn’t doing everything he appeared to be.

“For me, it’s always been this battle where I believe that we should still be hidden, but the cat’s out of the bag.”

O’Brien emphasized that he thought the awarding of any Oscar for stunt-people should focus on how a stunt works within the context of a story, rather than the biggest and baddest explosions and gunfights.

“I just don't want to see it become… we're going to do huge stunts to do huge stunts to win an Oscar,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes the best stunts in my mind are the ones you don't realize are stunts.”

Still, even with his concerns, O’Brien is confident that the push for change is just, noting that stunts are the only creative department not honored at the Oscars.

“I believe it's time that we should get that recognition,” O’Brien said. “I just think we should be careful of what the award is for.”

Where's the Rulebook?

While the Academy has never laid out a tutorial or specific set of rules to add an award, there is precedent that stunt actors have sought to follow.

Every awards category belongs to a specific branch of the Academy. As of 2019, there are seventeen different branches focused on everything from acting to cinematography to public relations work. But not every branch has a category. In fact, three branches have no award: public relations, executives, and casting directors. Casting directors were the last branch created only six years ago.

Stunts don’t even have their own branch, forcing the stunt community to join the "members-at-large" group.

“It’s difficult to even explain why that is so,” Gill said.

Because stunt work doesn’t perfectly fit under the umbrella of any active branch, the goal has become to add a branch first. In the years since Jack Gill first joined, the number of stunt coordinators in the Academy has grown from 14 to 95.

“The Academy told me about four years ago that if I could get up in the 90-member bracket then they would start taking [a new branch] seriously,” Gill said. “We’re still hearing crickets.”

With a growing number of like-minded colleagues in the Academy, Gill files a petition with the Academy's board of governors every year to present his argument for adding a branch to the annual pre-awards show meeting. This petition has been swiftly denied each and every year.

Jeff Wolfe performed stunts on the first four “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.

But what's even more surprising about The Academy's failure to recognize the contributions of stunt actors are the ways that other parts of the entertainment industry recognize stunt coordinators.

Jeff Wolfe has been active in the stunts industry for the last thirty years. He has worked as a second unit director and stunt coordinator on various television series for which he has received four Emmy nominations and a single win. He also shared in a 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

While Wolfe is an ardent support of the move to add a category to the Oscars, he’s not overly optimistic at this point in time, noting that campaigns have largely “fallen on deaf ears for so long.”

“I feel a larger voice in the voting membership of the academy is the real way to see a change,” Wolfe said. “We need more members to turn the tide.”

Still, in a world where cinema is often elevated above television as an artwork, Wolfe hates the idea that stunts aren’t recognized in film.

“Ignoring stunt coordinators ignores the art and science of the shows that the academy touts their awards consider,” Wolfe said. “Practically every trailer that sells their films shows action to get people in the seats, yet the people responsible for designing it are ignored.”

While the stunt community has struggled to find substantial support in the powers at the Academy, the public has largely been on their side for years. An online petition has brought the group greater attention than ever before, but much to Jack Gill's chagrin still hasn't been enough.

The petition entitled “Stand Up For Stunts! They Deserve An Academy Award, Too!” has over 118,000 supporters.

Many hope that the inclusion of Brad Pitt as a fictional stuntman named Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” could raise the awareness of the stunt community’s predicament. In fact, there is speculation that Pitt could even be up for a "Best Actor" Oscar for the portrayal. So, what does the career of a real stuntman look like?

The Stunt Career

The path to working as a stunt performer can take a number of twists and turns. As the profession has evolved throughout the decades, so too has the path to getting the job in the first place.

Chuck Hicks’s work in cinema was almost an accident. Having just been turned away from the Los Angeles Rams in 1951, Hicks was working as a lifeguard when one of his colleagues asked him for a ride to try out as an extra for a new film.

Hicks agreed and when the two arrived, he noticed that everyone was filling out paperwork on the spot.

“I thought, ‘What the hell? I’ll do the same thing,’” Hicks recalled.

After filling out the paper work, Hicks was chosen as one of five extras taken that day. The next day, he was on the set of the 1952 film, “She’s Working Her Way Through College,” starring then-actor and future-president Ronald Reagan. By sheer coincidence, Hicks was tasked with playing a football player.

“I was just kind of walking around dazed, not knowing what the hell to do,” Hicks said, with a laugh.

After this start, Hicks worked as an extra and a stand-in on various sets for the next few years including as a stand-in for Clint Walker. Today, Hicks admits that he “didn’t really like it”, but it made him the contacts for what would become his lifelong profession.

Outside of his Hollywood job, Hicks had worked as a professional boxer under the name Chuck Daley.

“I had been a fighter off and on, but I wasn’t too serious about it,” Hicks said. “But the industry knew I could fight.”

One day while working on the set of “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” in 1961, Hicks decided that he’d had enough of the “extra” life.

Chuck Hicks performed stunts as a robot in one of his two appearances in "The Twilight Zone."

Hicks informed his bosses that day he was working stunts from then on and never worked as an extra again.

For the next 50 years, Hicks performed stunts for everything from television series like “Gunsmoke” and “The Fall Guy” to films like “Cool Hand Luke” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Throughout his career, Hicks appeared in more than 200 productions, with more than seventy of those being uncredited roles.

“I’m the only actor in Hollywood who worked two episodes of ‘The Twilight Zone’ and never said a word,” Hicks said with a chuckle.

Hicks started his work in an era of Hollywood where the first person willing to do the stunt was probably the person who was hired.

While Hicks’s introduction to show business wasn’t as planned as many who aim to become Hollywood stars, the way that he “fell” into the movie business isn’t something that would be likely to happen today. Hicks’s speciality was largely timing, but today’s stuntmen, more often than not, have to specialize in a task to get a job.

Jack Gill was originally a professional motocross racer and was checking out of a hotel after winning a series of races when a complete stranger asked him if he could jump a motorcycle over six burning cars.

Jack Gill doubled Chris Evans as Captain America in the 2016 film "Captain America: Civil War."

“I said, ‘If I can pick out the motorcycle and the ramp, sure,’” Gill said.

This exchange with Burt Reynolds’s stunt double, Hal Needham, led to Gill’s first stunt job in the 1976 film, “Gator.”

“It was a complete fluke that I got into the business,” Gill said.

Gill’s films have earned more than $4 billion at the box office, making him the 12th highest-grossing stunt coordinator in the world (Jack’s brother, Andy, has the number one spot at just over $11 billion).

While Gill's work has since touched on nearly every aspect of the stunt industry (including once piloting an F-16 fighter jet), his specialty has largely been driving cars and motorcycles.

Since starting in the business, he has worked on everything from stunt driving in the original “Dukes of Hazard” television show to stunt coordinating multiple entries in the “Fast and Furious” film series. He has also doubled everyone from Dennis Quaid to Chris Evans.

While the stunt work that would become their livelihoods discovered Hicks and Gill by mere happenstance, others have taken a more direct route towards stunt work.

“For a seven or eight year old kid, it's pretty much the perfect job,” O’Brien said. “You get to be the cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and you get to do all these things that you would normally get in trouble for.”

In addition to “Bullitt,” O’Brien was further inspired by an automotive stunt group called the “Hell Drivers” that performed at his local county fair.

“Every year, I would make sure that I made the pilgrimage to the county fair to watch the thrill show,” O’Brien said. “I never actually believed that I would be able to do it for a living, but that was always the dream.”

It didn’t take him long to put his goals into action. As he grew up and got involved in technical theater production, O’Brien researched stunt work and practiced on his own, even going so far as to light himself on fire once.

Each time he performed a stunt, a friend would take a photograph so O’Brien could document his work. Eventually, he built up enough of a portfolio to show “Hell Drivers” at the fair and they offered to hire him.

What was originally supposed to be a one month mentorship focused on ramps turned into a much bigger deal for O’Brien after one of the lead performers was injured in an accident. O’Brien landed a deal to replace him and went on a year-and-a-half long journey across the east cost of the United States.

“The thrill show was my college,” O’Brien said. “It was my university for stunts.”

After getting his Screen Actors Guild card, O’Brien worked in New York for five years learning more about the work that he would have to do in front of the camera in order to work in film and television.

“A lot of people when they're coming into the business are learning about stunts,” O’Brien said. “I was very fortunate because I learned that in the live shows before I ever got in front of the camera.”

O’Brien worked in New York for five years and kept hearing “to be a stuntman, you have to be a Hollywood stuntman.” So, O’Brien took a trip to California with the goal of getting a simple taste of Los Angeles.

“The only reason I went back [home] was to pick up my stuff,” O’Brien said in 2019, having made Hollywood his home for the last 29 years.

In Hollywood, O’Brien entered into a much bigger market for his skills where he has worked on the sets of three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films and countless other film and television productions. Since he got his start, he has never had to work a different job in order to support himself and his family.