Risk and reward: life as a stunt double
Rocky Taylor, 80, Surrey: ‘My worst accident came in 1985 while filming Death Wish 3’
I’ve been in the game since 1960. My first film was The Young Ones, starring Cliff Richard. I can’t have been more than 17, and was only paid a few bob. Already a black belt in judo, I went down and taught him some basics: mostly showing how to do some throws on the mats.
My father, Larry, was an actor – he often played supporting-role villains in British films. He’d tried his hand at stunts, but wasn’t much good. Dad took me down to sets regularly as a kid. I got a taste for it immediately.
Early on, I did a bunch of Bond films, smaller stunt roles: Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger. My big break came on The Avengers, the 1960s British TV series, then another, The Champions.Next was six months on Monte Carlo or Bust – that was a good one: I drove a snow-covered car down the icy tracks of the skeleton toboggan racing track in St Moritz, Switzerland. It was the six blokes filming from the wooden toboggan ahead of me who I was most worried about – it just wouldn’t happen now.
There have been so many credits, I can barely remember most of them. There was Cromwell with Richard Harris shot in Spain in 1970 – lots of getting thwacked on horseback and falling off its arse as you’re riding.
Then came Villain, doing car chases with Richard Burton. It was wonderful. I’ve done Indiana Jones, Titanic, Harry Potter, Batman, maybe 10 James Bond films. Sometimes, just a day fighting on set. Others, for months, doubling for Roger Moore or Sean Connery. I’ll never forget, on Live and Let Die, driving Bond’s Mini Moke – a tiny car – off a dock into the water.
My worst accident came in 1985, while filming Death Wish 3. Michael Winner was the director. I was supposed to jump from the roof of a 40fthigh building in Lambeth, set on fire around the edges. There was a hole filled with boxes on the ground; a car was placed in front of it to keep it hidden from the camera. I put my fire suit on and made the jump, while alight. Then we filmed another take. This time, the building blew up before I’d had time to fling myself off it. I had to jump for my life, which I did, but I missed the landing bed and hit the concrete instead: I broke my hip, pelvis and vertebrae. I was out for a while. In 2011, for a TV show, I recreated that jump from Battersea power station. Aged 64, I landed it perfectly. I needed to prove I could; to get it out of my system.
Some 60 years after I started out, the industry is unrecognisable. It was a wild west then, no health and safety and few rehearsals. It was a matter of showing up and doing the best job you could. It meant we’d get a lot of idiots turning up, saying they could do things they couldn’t. It was embarrassing and downright dangerous. In the 1970s, we started a register to ensure people could walk the walk, not just talk the talk. It’s not the only change for the better. We get more money now as well. It was £15 a day a few decades back. Now it can be £500 or more.
I’m not quite retired yet, but I’m 80 now. Old age comes along and stops you. I use my knowledge and experience as a stunt coordinator. I get sent a script and break it down, setting out how many stunt performers the production will need and who’ll be best. Really, though, I miss the buzz of being at the heart of it all. That adre