Bud Elkins: Steve McQueen's stunt double in the great escape
James F Maguire
Great Escape stuntman dies
October 10, 2007 - 1:13PM
Source: ABC
Hollywood stuntman Bud Elkins, who doubled for the late Steve McQueen in
memorable action scenes in The Great Escape and Bullit, has died of
natural causes.
He was at 77.
McQueen, who died at 50 in 1980, did most of the riding in the motorcycle
chase sequence of the 1962 movie The Great Escape - where, as a prisoner
of war, he tries to outride his Nazi pursuers to freedom over the Swiss
border.
However it was Elkins who actually made the famous jump that ended with
McQueen and his bike tangled up in the barbed-wire fence lining the
border.
Elkin's jump, said his press agent Paul Bloch, "was perhaps the most
famous motorcycle stunt ever performed in a movie".
Six years later, Elkins took the wheel of McQueen's Ford Mustang during
the thrilling car chase through San Francisco's hilly streets in Bullit,
setting a benchmark for Hollywood action movies.
- AFP