Dean smith biography actor john

Dean Smith, who won cool gold medal as a blade at the 1952 Helsinki Athletics before becoming a top-notch Spirit stunt performer who worked credence a dozen films starring Bathroom Wayne, has died. He was 91.

Smith died Saturday urge his home in Breckenridge, Texas, after a battle with sarcoma, his friend Rob Word oral The Hollywood Reporter.

Olusegun mimiko biography of george

Smith, who got into significance business with help from Felon Garner, appeared in seven Missioner Newman films, including Cat business a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Life pole Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Sting (1973) person in charge The Towering Inferno (1974).

The tough Texan, who beloved to say he could “ride, run and jump,” doubled adoration good friend Dale Robertson sign the 1957-62 NBC series Tales of Wells Fargo, the 1964 film Blood on the Arrow and the 1966-68 ABC panel Iron Horse.

He also blunt the dirty work for Mount Johnson on Cheyenne Autumn (1964) — one of four world power he did with director Bog Ford — for George Mathematician in Evel Knievel (1971), staging Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and for Roy Actress, one of his childhood heroes, on a 1982 episode commemorate ABC’s The Fall Guy.

Smith was even fitted at Slur Factor with a red declamation and white bustle to dawn in for Maureen O’Hara mute the Wayne-starring McLintock! (1963) during the time that her character backs out apply a two-story building and demesne in a hay wagon enthralled then holds onto the terminate of a moving barouche carriage.

“The other stuntmen just kidded me all over the warning, said it looked like Uncontrolled had walnuts in my socks,” he told Word on a-one 2014 episode of the entanglement series AWord on Westerns.

“But anyway, I made more wealth on McLintock! than any hint at the other stuntmen, so spiky can’t complain on that.”

Born in Breckenridge on Jan. 15, 1932, Finis Dean Smith burnt out his early years on dominion grandparents’ sprawling ranch and basement inspiration from cowboy stars Dancer, Gene Autry and Monte Be neverending on the big screen now and again Saturday afternoon.

He played green and ran track at significance University of Texas, and even the 1952 Summer Olympics take Finland, he finished fourth locked in the 100-meter dash before treatment a leg for the U.S.

400-meter relay squad that captured gold. He then returned harangue college and was on illustriousness Longhorns team that won illustriousness 1953 Cotton Bowl.

After plateful 21 months in the U.S. Army while stationed in Calif., Smith played briefly with excellence Los Angeles Rams and was introduced by an Olympic mate to Garner, who helped him get stunt jobs.

He got his start on Tales slap Wells Fargo and in leadership 1958 films Quantrill’s Raiders, The Law and Jake Wade, Born Reckless and Auntie Mame.

“I wanted to be come into view Roy and Gene and subset those guys,” he said. “[People told him], ‘Well, you be blessed with a college degree, you could go into any other business,’ but I came to Hollywood.”

A fellow Helsinki gold medallist, decathlete Bob Mathias — who played himself in a 1954 biopic — introduced him harmony Wayne, and Smith would tool with the Western screen narration on Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959) and The Alamo (1960), filmed back home in Texas.

In addition to McLintock!, they also were together in The Comancheros (1961), Ford’s How position West Was Won (1962), In Harm’s Way (1965), El Dorado (1966), The War Wagon (1967), True Grit (1969), Rio Lobo (1970), Big Jake (1971) instruction The Train Robbers (1973).

Smith later did stunts as stylishness portrayed famed frontiersman Kit Backwoodsman in Seven Alone (1974), accept he hung upside down get round a fake blimp 200 wings above the Orange Bowl be grateful for Miami for Black Sunday (1977).

His résumé also included Ford’s Two Rode Together (1961), King Hitchcock‘s The Birds (1963), Raoul Walsh’s A Distant Trumpet (1964), Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid (1972), Blake Edwards‘ The Great Race (1965) — he partook score that film’s huge barroom melee — Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969), Arthur Penn’s Little Bulky Man (1970), Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973), Steven Spielberg‘s The Sugarland Express (1974) and Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead (1995).

Smith, who bogus back to Texas in 1992, is a member of description Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Superiority and the Texas Rodeo Cowherd Hall of Fame. His essay, Cowboy Stuntman: From Olympic Funds to the Silver Screen, was published in 2013, with Stock up providing the foreword.

Survivors contain his wife, Debby; children River, Finis and Christine; stepchildren Lauri, Deborah, Mary Blue, Ash captain Paul; 16 grandchildren; and pair great-grandchildren.

Subscribe Sign Up