MY DAD BERT LeBARON: A MOVIE STUNTMAN WITHOUT A FACE
THE HUMAN RACE
THIS STUNTMAN HAD A LOVE AFFAIR WITH HOLLYWOOD
Stuntman Bert LeBaron, with arms spread in flight,
was about to knock out a machine-gun nest manned
by prison guards in the 1947 Burt Lancaster classic
movie “BRUTE FORCE.” Esquire Magazine ran a full-page
photo of my airborne dad without giving the Hall of
Fame stuntman-actor credit. That’s the way it was
in Hollywood back then. Although today their names
are entombed with crew members in end-credits, stunt
people are still ignored by the motion picture and
television academies. Since more than 50 stuntmen
and women have died for Hollywood over the years,
don’t you think the survivors deserve Academy
recognition? At least for valor? What pisses me off
is to hear actors ooze B.S. (Don’t tell me they don’t!)
taking credit for “gigs” performed by athletes like
my old man. And now, digital animation is replacing
the acts of such stalwart guys and gals. After
35 years of proudly calling himself an actor-
stuntman, Bert LeBaron, who would never qualify as
another Laurence Olivier or Tom Hanks, developed
a heart problem that put him out of action physically
and financially. (His last stunt was doubling actor
William Bendix in a TV sitcom) When the film capital
of the world showed no compassion, he tried selling
encyclopedias. When that failed, he couldn’t even
support himself peddling newspapers on the streets of
Hollywood. Having nowhere to turn, he stepped into a
handball court at the Hollywood YMCA where he was renting
a room for $10 or $15 a week and purposely popped his
heart playing the game he loved more than women. He
died in 1956. I call Bert and his unheralded comrades
“stuntmen without faces.” I loved that womanizing rogue
whom my mother shed twice in divorce courts. My father
had so many ex-wives and girlfriends, they were lost
in the midst of his mind. Nevertheless, stuntmen and
women deserve to step up to the podium and accept a
golden statuette for their sensational athletic feats.
So tell the actors who, for the sake of publicity
or self-aggrandizement, to: Put A Cork In It! Their
crime is they continue to take credit for stuntwork
achieved by filmdom’s “faceless” others. In my book,
that’s a felony punishable by truth.
— Boots LeBaron —
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