Kerry Rossall | |
---|---|
Born | Burbank, California, U.S. | June 23, 1947
Education | James Monroe High School |
Alma mater | California Western University |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1975–present |
Known for | |
Notable credits | |
Parent | Frederick J. Rossall |
Kerry Darrell Rossall (born June 23, 1947) is an American stunt coordinator, stuntman, actor and film producer known for three Taurus World Stunt nominations for Apocalypse Now Redux (2001). He appeared in the films Apocalypse Now (1979), They Live (1988), The Crow: City of Angels (1996), Tomorrow You're Gone (2012) and produced the films Friend of the World (2020) and Movin' Too Fast (2006).
Rossall was born in Burbank [1] to Frederick J. Rossall of Sepulveda, California. [2] He grew up in the San Fernando Valley [1] and was a Boy Scout recipient of the God and Country award. [3] Rossall attended James Monroe High School [2] and was on the track team for pole vaulting [4] and played American football. [5] During his summer time in college, he surfed in Hawaii while studying as an economics major [1] at California Western University. [2]
After graduating, Rossall traveled to Europe and continued to surf. Upon his return, he had met stuntman Terry Leonard while working as a ski patrolman at Mammoth Mountain. Rossall was accepted to the Naval Aviation Program in Pensacola, Florida for Marine Corps boot camp and was learning to be a pilot when the Vietnam War ended. His aeronautics training helped prepare him for a career in the film industry. [1] Despite being credited among stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, he has remained out of the news for most of his career. [6] Rossall resides in Carlsbad, California. [7]
After they met in Mammoth, Terry Leonard asked Rossall if he wanted to work on The Wind and the Lion in Spain. Rossall agreed and got along with the director John Milius after discovering he surfed in Malibu. The next project for Milius was writing a script for Francis Ford Coppola. Rossall got involved after Leonard was signed on as the stunt coordinator. [1]
Rossall said his career in stunts and acting took off on the set of Apocalypse Now when he and Steve Boyum were initially there to double as a pair of surfers. Coppola was amused enough by their talent that he fired the original actors after the four of them had a surf-off. [1] Rossall described the helicopter explosion [8] sequence as the most dangerous. He was the lookout for himself and three other stuntmen. It was an expensive shot in which Rossall injured his shoulder, hit is head and caught on fire. He claimed that working with Coppola was inviting and that each day after filming, he would play racquetball with Robert Duvall who he also tried to teach how to surf. [1] On screen, Rossall played "Mike from San Diego" and advises Bill Kilgore about Charlie's point, in which the Duvall's character responds, "Charlie don't surf!" [9] [10] [11] Rossall was on the film set for over 6 months, involved in 5 of the 6 crucial stunts and worked on every major action sequence. [1]
Following a rerelease in 2001 called Apocalypse Now Redux , Rossall shared Taurus World Stunt Awards nominations alongside stunt performers Terry Leonard, Steve Boyum and Joe Finnegan for 3 stunts in the film: Best Fire Stunt, Best Water Work, and Best Work With a Vehicle. [12]
While filming Cobra, Rossall was doubling as a bad guy driver. While doing a test run, he was supposed stop a van 30 feet away from actress Brigitte Nielsen. His foot got tangled in some cables that had fallen from the dashboard and he braked too late. When the van stopped, it was 25 feet over its mark, a near fatal stunt that almost killed Nielsen. During the actual take, Rossall hit cement at 20 miles per hour, cracking his sternum and breaking his passenger's back. [1]
During the filming of Babylon 5 , actress Claudia Christian recalled Rossall choreographing a fight scene for the episode "Eyes" when he intentionally hit his head on a piece of cloth thought to be padded. A metal object underneath caused Rossall's head to swell and bleed, resulting in a noticeable lump. [13]
Rossall produced the action film Movin' Too Fast written and directed by Eric Chambers. The film was completed in 2006 with Artist View Entertainment and starred Layla Alexander, Marquita Terry and Matthew Glave. [14]
Rossall met actor Don Handfield at a gas station after noticing Handfield's car had a camera mounted to it. He was later brought into Handfield's directorial project Driver's Ed as Second Unit Director. It was then pitched to Broken Lizard as a web series, but was eventually released as a television deal. [15]
On February 3, 2011, Rossall was the stunt coordinator while filming an episode of the TV show Justified. At approximately 1:30 a.m., stunt performer Lisa Hoyle was knocked unconscious when a parked car rolled over her ankle after being hit by another car. She and another stunt performer said they were never informed that the car they were near would be involved in the stunt. She claimed she was getting food during the meeting in which the stunt was being explained. On February 1, 2013, Hoyle filed a lawsuit against Sony Pictures in which she says the incident wrecked her body and ruined her marriage. Rossall and Hoyle's husband, now divorced, were among the defendants in the case. [16] [17] [18] Rossall had also organized a phone meeting about the stunt, but both performers allegedly were not informed of that call. [19]
When I find that I'm afraid before performing any stunt, it tells me that further preparation is necessary. [1]
In 2017, Rossall was the executive producer for the independent film Friend of the World written and directed by Brian Patrick Butler and starring Nick Young and Alexandra Slade. It was made in San Diego, premiered at the Oceanside International Film Festival in 2020 and was nominated for two San Diego Film Awards before it was distributed by Troma Entertainment [7] and Cineverse. [20] Video Librarian deemed it one of their Best Narrative Films of 2022. [21]
Year | Title | Stunts | Actor | Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1975 | The Wind and the Lion | Yes | No | No | uncredited |
1979 | Apocalypse Now | Yes | Yes | No | Mike from San Diego |
1941 | Yes | No | No | ||
1980 | In God We Tru$t | Yes | No | No | Stand-in |
1982 | Turkey Shoot | Yes | Yes | No | Officer arresting Chris |
1983 | Blue Thunder | Yes | No | No | |
Christine | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
1984 | Breakin' | Yes | No | No | Stand-in |
Riptide | Yes | No | No | ||
Red Dawn | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
Starman | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
1986 | Cobra | Yes | No | No | Stand-in [1] |
Never Too Young to Die | Coordinator | No | No | Stand-in | |
1987 | Death Before Dishonor | Coordinator | No | No | Stand-in |
Dragnet | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
Dudes | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
Big Shots | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
1988 | Shakedown | Yes | No | No | Stand-in |
Rambo III | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
Spellbinder | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
They Live | No | Yes | No | 2nd Unit Guard | |
Moonwalker | Yes | No | No | ||
1989 | The Abyss | Yes | No | No | Stand-in |
Breaking Point | Yes | No | No | ||
Conquering Space | Yes | No | No | Short film | |
Captain Power: The Beginning | Coordinator | No | No | ||
1990 | Genuine Risk | Yes | No | No | Stand-in |
The Rookie | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
1991 | Delta Force 3: The Killing Game | Coordinator | No | No | 2nd unit director |
Flight of the Intruder | Yes | No | No | Stand-in | |
1993 | Babylon 5: The Gathering | Coordinator | No | No | |
1994 | The Hard Truth | Yes | No | No | |
1995 | Automatic | Yes | No | No | |
Die Hard with a Vengeance | Yes | No | No | ||
1996 | The Crow: City of Angels | Yes | Yes | No | Zeke |
1997 | The End of Violence | Yes | Yes | No | Featured Performer |
She's So Lovely | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Air Force One | Yes | No | No | ||
1998 | Running Woman | Yes | No | No | |
Babylon 5: In the Beginning | Yes | No | No | ||
City of Angels | Yes | No | No | ||
Six Days Seven Nights | Yes | Yes | No | Yacht Owner (uncredited) | |
Babylon 5: Thirdspace | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Blade | Yes | No | No | ||
Finding Graceland | Yes | No | No | ||
Rush Hour | Yes | No | No | ||
Babylon 5: The River of Souls | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Wanted | Yes | No | No | ||
1999 | Babylon 5: A Call to Arms | Coordinator | No | No | |
The Limey | Yes | No | No | ||
Crusade | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Ride with the Devil | Yes | No | No | ||
2000 | The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle | Yes | No | No | |
2001 | Ocean's Eleven | Yes | Yes | No | Flashback Security Guard (uncredited) |
2002 | Local Boys | Yes | No | No | |
Road to Perdition | Yes | Yes | No | Rooney's Henchman (uncredited) | |
2003 | The Life of David Gale | Coordinator | No | No | |
2 Fast 2 Furious | Yes | No | No | ||
American Wedding | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Bad Santa | Yes | Yes | No | Policeman | |
Timeline | Yes | No | No | ||
The Haunted Mansion | Yes | No | No | ||
2004 | The Last Ride | Yes | No | No | |
The Terminal | Yes | No | No | ||
Meet the Fockers | Yes | No | No | ||
2005 | Movin' Too Fast | Coordinator | No | Yes | 2nd unit director |
2006 | Alpha Dog | Coordinator | No | No | [22] |
10th & Wolf | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Mission: Impossible III | Yes | No | No | [23] | |
Poseidon | Yes | No | No | ||
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift | Yes | No | No | ||
World Trade Center | Yes | No | No | ||
2007 | Blades of Glory | Yes | Yes | No | Fire Extinguisher |
Slipstream | Yes | No | No | Double | |
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry | Yes | No | No | ||
2008 | Semi-Pro | Yes | No | No | |
Spy School | Coordinator | No | No | ||
Get Smart | Yes | No | No | Double | |
Adventures in Appletown | Coordinator | No | No | ||
2009 | Driver's Ed | No | No | No | 2nd unit director |
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling | Coordinator | No | No | ||
2010 | Gulliver's Travels | Yes | No | No | |
2011 | The Muppets | Yes | No | No | |
2012 | This Means War | Yes | No | No | |
Music High | Consultant | No | No | ||
Tomorrow You're Gone | Yes | Yes | No | Chaney | |
2013 | Gangster Squad | Yes | No | No | |
InAPPropriate Comedy | Yes | No | No | ||
Deep Dark Canyon | Coordinator | No | No | ||
12 Years a Slave | Yes | No | No | ||
2014 | The Judge | Yes | No | No | Double for Robert Duvall |
2015 | La Migra | Yes | No | No | Safety consultant |
2016 | Sully | Yes | No | No | |
Masterminds | 2nd unit coordinator | Yes | No | Trunk Hostage (uncredited) | |
2018 | First Timers | No | No | Yes | Short film |
2020 | Friend of the World | No | No | Executive |
Year | Title | Stunts | Actor | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1983 | The A-Team | Yes | No | Episode: "Mexican Slayride" |
1984 | Knight Rider | Yes | No | Van Driver #1 (uncredited) |
1985 | Hunter | Yes | No | Eddie Marx |
1988 | Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future | Yes | Yes | Jack [24] |
Santa Barbara | Yes | Yes | Biker (2 episodes) | |
1994-1998 | Babylon 5 | Coordinator | No | 111 episodes |
1998-1999 | Walker, Texas Ranger | Yes | Yes | Bad Guy, Mace, Joe Martin |
2000-2001 | The Fugitive | Coordinator | No | 14 episodes |
2001 | The Agency | Coordinator | No | |
2010 | Hawthorne | Coordinator | No | 4 episodes |
2010-2011 | Justified | Coordinator | No | 10 episodes |
Festival | Year | Title | Award | Result | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Taurus World Stunt Awards | 2002 | Apocalypse Now Redux | Best Fire | Nominated | shared with Steve Boyum, Joe Finnegan, Terry Leonard [12] |
Best Work with a Vehicle | Nominated | ||||
Best Water Work | Nominated | shared with Steve Boyum [12] | |||
San Diego Film Awards | 2020 | Friend of the World | Best Narrative Feature Film | Nominated | shared with Brian Patrick Butler and Luke Pensabene |
Francis Ford Coppola is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood film movement and is widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time. Coppola is the recipient of five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or, and a BAFTA Award.
Christopher Thomas Howell, also known professionally as C. Thomas Howell, is an American actor and director. He has starred in the films Soul Man, The Hitcher, Grandview U.S.A., Red Dawn, Secret Admirer, and The Outsiders. He has also appeared in Gettysburg and Gods and Generals as Thomas Chamberlain; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; The Amazing Spider-Man; Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox; and Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay.
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.
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter and film director. He was a writer for the first two Dirty Harry films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of Apocalypse Now (1979), and wrote and directed The Wind and the Lion (1975), Conan the Barbarian (1982), and Red Dawn (1984). He later served as the co-creator of the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series Rome (2005–2007).
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor, director, writer and sound designer. His work includes THX 1138, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, Ghost and The English Patient, with three Academy Award wins.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a 2004 action horror film directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil (2002), it is the second installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name. The film marks Witt's feature directorial debut; Anderson, the director of the first film, turned down the job due to other commitments, though stayed on as one of its producers. Milla Jovovich reprises her role as Alice, and is joined by Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine and Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera.
Apocalypse Now Redux is a 2001 American extended version of Francis Ford Coppola's epic 1979 war film Apocalypse Now. Coppola, along with editor and longtime collaborator Walter Murch, added 49 minutes of material that had been removed from the initial theatrical release. It is a significant re-edit of the original version.
Christian Henri Marquand was a French actor.
Jack Hill is an American film director in the exploitation film genre. Several of Hill's later films have been characterized as feminist works.
The Taurus World Stunt Awards is a yearly award ceremony held midyear that honors stunt performers in movies. It is held each year in Los Angeles. The first awards were given out in 2001. The deciding committee has been around since the year 2000. The awards were created by Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull. The awards statue was sculpted by Austrian artist Jos Pirkner, and is a figure in the form of a winged bull.
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely inspired by the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford.
Steve Boyum is a long-time Hollywood stunt performer, television director, and film director. He has appeared in over 60 films as a stunt performer. He has lived in Malibu, California since 1974.
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.
Leslie Hoffman is a former American stunt performer, stunt coordinator, and actress.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is a 2016 action horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The direct sequel to Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), it is the sixth installment in the Resident Evil film series and the final installment in the original series, which is based on the video game series of the same name. The film stars Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, Ruby Rose, Rola, and William Levy. In the film, Alice and her friends are betrayed by Albert Wesker, who gathers the entire forces of the Umbrella Corporation into one final strike against the apocalypse survivors.
Marneen Lynne Fields is an actress, musician, and former stuntwoman. She has appeared in over 150 movies and TV episodes as an actress, stuntwoman, or both. She has been noted as one of the prominent stuntwomen of the 1970s and 1980s.
Friend of the World is a 2020 American independent black-and-white film written and directed by Brian Patrick Butler in his feature film debut, starring Nick Young and Alexandra Slade. The surreal experimental film takes place post-apocalypse and tells the story of a young filmmaker (Slade) and a military general (Young) trapped in a bunker with a mysterious threat.
Megalopolis is a 2024 American epic science fiction drama film written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The film stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D. B. Sweeney, and Dustin Hoffman. Set in an alternate, 21st-century New York City, it follows visionary architect Cesar Catilina (Driver) as he clashes with the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Esposito), who opposes Catilina's plans to revitalize New Rome by building the futuristic utopia "Megalopolis". The film heavily references Roman history, particularly the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC and the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.
Jonathan Reynolds was an American writer. He practiced as an actor for a short period before becoming a writer. He wrote for David Frost and Dick Cavett before a breakthrough with two comedy plays which ran off-Broadway in 1975. His most successful play was Geniuses at Playwrights Horizons in 1982, which was inspired by his time on the set of the war movie Apocalypse Now. Reynolds wrote several screenplays, receiving praise for his writing on the 1984 romantic comedy Micki & Maude. His other film work was less well received and he was awarded the 1988 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for 1987's Leonard Part 6. Reynolds returned to writing plays in the late 1990s and received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination for his work on the 1997 play Stonewall Jackson's House. He wrote a food column for The New York Times Magazine between 2000 and 2005, publishing a selection of columns in book form in 2006. Reynolds returned to acting in 2003 leading in Dinner with Demons at the Second Stage Theater.
Douglas R. Coleman is an American stuntman, film director, second unit director, and magician. As a stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director, he has worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann, and Christopher Nolan.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)