Joe Powell | |
|---|---|
 Powell in the late 1940s. | |
| Born | Joseph Augustus Powell 21 March 1922 Shepherd's Bush, London, England, U.K. |
| Died | 30 June 2016 (aged 94) London, England, U.K. |
| Occupation(s) | Stuntman, actor |
| Years active | 1947–1986 |
| Children | 4 |
| Relatives | Eddie Powell (brother) |
Joe Powell (21 March 1922 - 30 June 2016) was an English stuntman and actor. [1] He was known as the "daddy of British stuntmen". [2]
Powell was born in Shepherd's Bush, London.
He joined the British Army and served in the 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers Cadet Corps. He enjoyed soldiering, and soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was still only 17, he joined the Grenadier Guards. To break the monotony of drill and PT he took up boxing with the regimental team, but as the war progressed he was selected for No 4 Special Service (Commando) unit, taking part in the 1942 raid on Dieppe, during which he was briefly knocked out, and in the D-Day invasion.
In 1946, he met with the actor Dennis Price which led to him getting a job as an extra at Pinewood Studios. [3] He was sparring at the London's Polytechnic Boxing Club and soon became a founding partner in a stunt team by Captain Jock Easton. [4]
Powell performed stuntwork in many films, including The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Longest Day (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Zulu (1964), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). He also participated in several James Bond films.
Powell is listed by The Guardian as having performed one of the ten-best film stunts ever. [5]
Powell was twice married, first to Marguerite and after to Juliet. Powell was survived by four sons and a daughter. [2] He was the brother of Eddie Powell, also a film stuntman. [6]
Powell also published a book on his life known as The Life and Times of a Fall Guy. [7]
A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed to a daredevil, who performs for a live audience. When they take the place of another actor, they are known as stunt doubles.
Dar Allen Robinson was an American stunt performer and actor. Robinson broke 19 world records and set 21 "world's firsts." He invented the decelerator which allowed a cameraman to film a top-down view of the stuntman as he fell without accidentally showing the airbag on the ground. This was displayed in his fall from the hotel in the movie Stick. The original decelerator can still be seen on display in Moab, Utah.
Enos Edward "Yakima" Canutt was an American champion rodeo rider, actor, stuntman, and action director. He developed many stunts for films and the techniques and technology to protect stuntmen in performing them.
George Frederick Bernard Powell, credited as Nosher Powell, Freddie Powell, or Fred Powell, was an English actor, stuntman and boxer. He is best known for his work in the James Bond film series, most notably From Russia with Love (1963).
James Booth was an English film, stage and television actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Private Henry Hook in Zulu.
The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 adventure film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey and Christopher Plummer as Kipling. The film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king.
Eddie Powell was a British stuntman and actor.
Nigel McGown Green was an English actor. Because of his strapping build, commanding height and regimental demeanour he would often be found playing military types and men of action in such classic 1960s films as Jason and the Argonauts, Zulu, Tobruk and The Ipcress File.
Jacques Joseph O'Mahoney, known professionally as Jock Mahoney, was an American actor and stuntman. He starred in two Action/Adventure television series, The Range Rider and Yancy Derringer. He played Tarzan in two feature films and was associated in various capacities with several other Tarzan productions. He was credited variously as Jacques O'Mahoney,Jock O'Mahoney, Jack Mahoney, and finally Jock Mahoney.
Mystery Mountain is a 1934 American Western serial film directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and starring Ken Maynard, Verna Hillie, Syd Saylor, Edward Earle, and Hooper Atchley. Distributed by Mascot Pictures, Mystery Mountain features the second ever film appearance by Gene Autry.
William Carl Hauber was an American silent film actor and much-in-demand stunt performer, known as one of the original Keystone Cops, and for his decade-long association with comic actor Larry Semon, both as a supporting player and as the star's frequent stunt double. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1913 and 1928.
Darren Majian Shahlavi was an English actor, martial artist and stuntman.
Nash Edgerton is an Australian film director, stuntman and actor, and a principal member of the movie-making collective Blue-Tongue Films.
L'Animal is a 1977 French action comedy film directed by Claude Zidi and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch. It was distributed in the United States by Analysis Film Releasing Corp under the title Stuntwoman.
Rocky Taylor is an English stuntman and actor.
Jung Doo-hong is a South Korean action director, martial arts choreographer, stunt coordinator, and actor.
Ganwari Teddy Vidyalankara is a Sri Lankan actor, and stunt director. Vidyalankara contributed more than 500 films across all languages including Sinhala, Tamil, English, Telugu and Hindi. He is the first stuntman to bring group stunts to Sri Lankan cinema.
Gary Kent was an American film director, actor, and stuntman notable for his appearances in various independent and exploitation films. A native of Washington, Kent studied at the University of Washington before later embarking on a film career. He made his feature film debut in Battle Flame (1959) and had roles in several additional low-budget films in the 1960s, including The Black Klansman (1966) and the biker film The Savage Seven (1968). He also served as a stunt double for Bruce Dern in Psych-Out (1969).
Carl Nick Ciarfalio is an American actor and stuntman. He has appeared in over 300 film and television projects. He is best known for portraying the Thing in the Roger Corman produced, but unreleased movie The Fantastic Four.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
 | This article about a British actor is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
