{"id":580163,"date":"2023-06-25T22:15:04","date_gmt":"2023-06-25T19:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/dean-smith-olympic-sprinter-turned-hollywood-stunt-performer-dies-at-91\/"},"modified":"2023-06-25T22:15:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T19:15:04","slug":"dean-smith-olympic-sprinter-turned-hollywood-stunt-performer-dies-at-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/dean-smith-olympic-sprinter-turned-hollywood-stunt-performer-dies-at-91\/","title":{"rendered":"#Dean Smith, Olympic Sprinter Turned Hollywood Stunt Performer, Dies at 91"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Dean Smith, who won a gold medal as a sprinter at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics before becoming a top-notch Hollywood stunt performer who worked on a dozen films starring John Wayne, has died. He was 91.<\/p>\n

\n Smith died Saturday at his home in Breckenridge, Texas, after a battle with cancer, his friend Rob Word told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n Smith, who got into the business with help from James Garner, app<\/a>eared in seven Paul Newman films, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/em> (1958), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid<\/em> (1969), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean<\/em> (1972), The Sting<\/em> (1973) and The Towering Inferno<\/em> (1974).<\/p>\n

\n The tough Texan, who loved to say he could \u201cride, run and jump,\u201d<\/a> doubled for good friend Dale Robertson on the 1957-62 NBC series<\/a> Tales of Wells Fargo<\/em>, the 1964 film Blood on the Arrow<\/em> and the 1966-68 ABC series Iron Horse<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n He also did the dirty work for Ben Johnson on Cheyenne Autumn<\/em> (1964) \u2014 one of four features he did with director John Ford \u2014 for George Hamilton in Evel Knievel<\/em> (1971), for Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson<\/em> (1972) and for Roy Rogers, one of his childhood heroes, on a 1982 episode of ABC\u2019s The Fall Guy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n Smith was even fitted at Max Factor with a red wig and white bustle to step in for Maureen O\u2019Hara on the Wayne-starring McLintock!<\/em> (1963) when her character backs out of a two-story building and lands in a hay wagon and then holds onto the back of a moving barouche carriage.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe other stuntmen just kidded me all over the place, said it looked like I had walnuts in my socks,\u201d he told Word on a 2014 episode<\/a> of the web series A<\/em> Word on Westerns<\/em>. \u201cBut anyway, I made more money on McLintock! <\/em>than any of the other stuntmen, so you can\u2019t complain on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Born in Breckenridge on Jan. 15, 1932, Smith spent his early years on his grandparents\u2019 sprawling ranch and found inspiration from cowboy stars Rogers, Gene Autry and Monte Hale on the big screen every Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\n He played football and ran track at the University of Texas, and at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Finland, he finished fourth in the 100-meter dash before handling a leg for the U.S. 400-meter relay squad that captured gold. He then returned to college and was on the Longhorns team that won the 1953 Cotton Bowl.<\/p>\n

\n After serving 21 months in the U.S. Army while stationed in California, Smith played briefly with the Los Angeles Rams and was introduced by an Olympic teammate to Garner, who helped him get stunt jobs. He got his start on Tales of Wells Fargo<\/em> and in the 1958 films Quantrill\u2019s Raiders<\/em>, The Law and Jake Wade<\/em>, Born Reckless<\/em> and Auntie Mame<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI wanted to be like Roy and Gene and all those guys,\u201d he said. \u201c[People told him], \u2018Well, you have a college degree, you could go into any other business,\u2019 but I came to Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n A fellow Helsinki gold medalist, decathlete Bob Mathias \u2014 who played himself in a 1954 biopic \u2014 introduced him to Wayne, and Smith would work with the Western screen legend on Howard Hawks\u2019 Rio Bravo<\/em> (1959) and The Alamo<\/em> (1960), filmed back home in Texas.<\/p>\n

\n In addition to McLintock!<\/em>, they also were together in The Comancheros<\/em> (1961), Ford\u2019s How the West Was Won<\/em> (1962), In Harm\u2019s Way<\/em> (1965), El Dorado<\/em> (1966), The War Wagon<\/em> (1967), True Grit<\/em> (1969), Rio Lobo<\/em> (1970), Big Jake<\/em> (1971) and The Train Robbers<\/em> (1973).<\/p>\n

\n Smith later did stunts as he portrayed famed frontiersman Kit Carson in Seven Alone<\/em> (1974), and he hung upside down from a fake blimp 200 feet above the Orange Bowl in Miami for Black Sunday<\/em> (1977).<\/p>\n

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\"(L-R)<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

Dean Smith (in white hat) with (from left) his wife, Debbie Smith; John Wayne\u2019s granddaughter Anita LaCava; and \u2018A Word on Westerns\u2019 host Rob Word. <\/span><\/p>\n

Courtesy of Rod Word<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n His r\u00e9sum\u00e9 also included Ford\u2019s Two Rode Together<\/em> (1961), Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s The Birds<\/em> (1963), Raoul Walsh\u2019s A Distant Trumpet<\/em> (1964), Robert Aldrich\u2019s Ulzana\u2019s Raid<\/em> (1972), Blake Edwards\u2019 The Great Race<\/em> (1965) \u2014 he partook in that film\u2019s huge barroom brawl<\/a> \u2014 Bob Fosse\u2019s Sweet Charity<\/em> (1969), Arthur Penn\u2019s Little Big Man<\/em> (1970), Michael Crichton\u2019s Westworld<\/em> (1973), Steven Spielberg\u2019s The Sugarland Express<\/em> (1974) and Sam Raimi\u2019s The Quick and the Dead<\/em> (1995).<\/p>\n

\n Smith, who moved back to Texas in 1992, is a member of the Hollywood Stuntmen\u2019s Hall of Fame and the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. His memoir, Cowboy Stuntman: From Olympic Gold to the Silver Screen<\/em>, was published in 2013, with Garner providing the foreword.<\/p>\n

\n Survivors include his wife, Debbie, and son, Finis.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n