Stunt club delivers decades of excitement
Part-time thrills for dedicated performers
By day Dean Laverick is a mild mannered office worker. At night however, he’s a gun-toting vigilante setting up explosives and hurling himself off the roof of thirty foot buildings.
While it sound like a movie plot, it’s real life for IT expert Laverick, a longtime member of Calgary’s Gunfighters Stunt Club. This group of men and women stage gunfight performances at corporate events throughout Alberta all summer long. With more than 50 performers in their largest show that features a full gallop pickup, explosion, high fall and fist fight, these performances are a Cowtown must-see.
“I’ve always wanted to be a stunt man,” says Laverick, now in his 13th year performing with the club. “And when I first contacted them they welcomed me in right away. It’s incredible to perform the stunts and they’re like family now.”
The stunt club was born nearly 30 years ago when a then-17-year-old Rick Anderson fixated on the idea of becoming a movie stunt man. He enrolled in a local stunt school, learning the basic skills and making friends he would end up performing with for decades.
“Rick was very into the movies, stunts and sets — he used to build these elaborate dioramas,” recalls Rick’s sister, Cindy Huish. “Once he was in the stunt school, he got the idea to start a western décor business for companies at Stampede. He and a neighbour began supplying companies with hay bales and saddles and things, and eventually the idea of merging stunts and the western business and creating a stunt show was born.”
Co-founding the club was Cindy’s husband Frank Huish. Initially the club hoped to book a regular gig at Heritage Park, but discovered that they weren’t permitted to offer it as regular entertainment because the show isn’t historically accurate. The park was interested in including the club in their corporate entertainment listings, and the members created a marketing package.
“That was the first and only time we did any marketing,” laughs Cindy. “We started with corporate events booked through those packages and backyard performances from word of mouth.”
Today, the group books mainly corporate events at venues such as Brewster’s Mountview Barbeque and Boundary Ranch, and performs in many rural towns as part of their rodeo celebrations.
“We’re already booked for more than 40 shows this year,” says Frank. “There was one year we did 92 shows in the summer. By the end of that season everyone was battered and bruised.”
He admits that the show can be dangerous for performers, but says most of the injuries are minor — the usual sprains and bruises associated with athletes.
“It’s full contact — there’s no cheating with camera angles,” he says.
Though the club welcomes new members, the majority of the group has been hand-picked from friends and family. Some of their shows require just a few performers, which the largest show at Heritage Park includes women, children and horses, and can have as many as 42 performers involved. The audience gets involved as well — Ralph Klein and Gordie Howe have ended up as part of the show in years past.
Members have appeared in various movies and television shows filmed locally and abroad, including AMC’S Hell on Wheels, Lonesome Dove, and Passchendaele. Former member Gerald Paetz, one of the top rated stunt drivers in Canada, has since worked on well over a hundred movies and television productions. Rick Anderson is now a successful stunt co-ordinator in Australia with the likes of Fools Gold and Pitch Black to his credit.
Original member Phil Watson is a City of Calgary firefighter and currently the club’s vicepresident. “Phil is one of the premier high-fall specialists in Canada — he’s done literally thousands of high falls over the last 30 years and has taught a few of our other performers, Dean included, how to perfect this difficult and dangerous stunt,” says Frank.
This year marks the club’s 30th anniversary, and Frank and Cindy’s 30th wedding anniversary as well. “We’re hosting a reunion camp-out at our acreage in August and some past members are travelling from the States and Vancouver,” says Frank. “More than a hundred people have been involved in the show over the years, and we hope to see a lot of them out for the event.”
Will the show end when Cindy and Frank and no longer able to perform the physical stunts? They laugh at the question. “Our kids are 28 and 27 and they plan on continuing the club when we can’t go any longer,” Frank says, “and we certainly don’t see western themed corporate events ending in this city anytime soon.”
Visit their website at gunfightersstuntclub.com to find the dates to see the show in action in small town rodeos across Alberta this year at high noon.