Joe Powell
Commando veteran and stuntman Born: March 21, 1922; Died: June 30, 2016 JOE Powell, who has died aged 94, was a veteran commando whose punishing endurance training in the Scottish mountains and exploits on D-Day equipped him magnificently for a postwar career as a stuntman.
Though he never formally learned how to tackle the job he was fearless and had faced danger almost daily during the Second World War. Consequently, he enthusiastically took on the mantle of some of the 20th century’s most popular film stars, standing in as their body doubles during death-defying stunts.
On one occasion, Michael Caine reportedly could not bear to watch when Powell threw himself 100ft off a cliff in place of Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King. The former soldier skil- fully landed on a tiny ledge. Had he missed his footing he would have plummeted another 2,000ft down the cliff face. Director John Huston said it was “the darndest stunt” he’d ever seen and the feat was named one of the 10 greatest stunts, earning him the reputation as the daddy of British stuntmen. To place your notice in Family Announcements Monday - Friday 9.00am -5.00pm
He doubled for Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins and Telly Savalas, among others, and his credits include three Bond films, The Guns of Navarone, Zulu, The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare plus The Longest Day, an account of the D-Day Landings he had fought through in 1944.
Powell, the son of public house proprietors Joseph Augustus Horatio Powell and his wife Ada, was born at the Shepherd and Flock pub in London’s Shepherd’s Bush.
After leaving school at 14, he signed up for the Grenadier Guards in 1939, aged 17, and trained at Chelsea Barracks. He was posted to Troon in Ayrshire after volunteering for the Special Forces and served with No 4 Commando under Lord Lovat. He learned mountain warfare from a base camp at Braemar but from 1942 the Commando training centre was at Achnacarry in the West Highlands, a forbidding establishment known as Castle Commando.
Powell took part in Operation Abercrombie, a reconnaissance raid on the village of Hardelot near Boulogne, in April 1942, manning an anti-tank gun from an assault landing craft. Number 4 Commando’s next major raid was at Dieppe that August. Then in June 1944 Powell was part of Operation Overlord, the D-Day Landings. They were the first commandos to reach the beach and stormed the heavy fortifications of Ouistreham (Sword Beach) taking out several gun positions.
He spent most of the remainder of the war on patrol duties but was also involved in fighting the Nazi Werwolf troops, who were determined to continue the battle even after the German surrender, and guarding PoW camps holding concentration camp personnel. Powell, who reached the rank of sergeant, was mentioned in despatches and won the Croix de Guerre.
It was a chance meeting at a bus stop with Dennis Price, who Powell was unaware was a fairly well-established actor, that kick-started his stunt career. The studios were looking for some big lads for a film, said Price, and invited him to Shepherd’s Bush Studios. Powell was taken on as an extra and had bit parts in various films. When that led to higher pay for a role riding a motorbike into a tree, in the 1948 film The Small Voice, he realised there was another opening there. He joined forces with former SAS hero Jock Easton and they founded the country’s first professional stunt team.
Powell, who was killed off spectacularly in numerous films, lived latterly in St Leonards-on-Sea and died in Hastings. Married twice, he was predeceased by his wives, Marguerite, known as Clem, and Juliet, and his daughter Shelley. He is survived by his sons John, Nick, Julian, Alex and daughter Penelope.