RIP Gary McLarty (1941-2014) Bob Orrison (1928-2014)

[Steam McQueen]

- Gary was the stunt co-ordinator on The Blues Brothers. You'll remember him from the mall just seconds before all hell breaks loose ...





Unfortunately Gary was killed 3 months ago in a car accident, along with veteran stuntman Bob Orrison. October 11, 2014.

For decades, Bob Orrison and Gary McLarty worked as two of Hollywood’s most active and respected stuntmen, racing cars, jumping motorcycles and crashing trucks during filming for hundreds of movies and television shows.

On Saturday in Rancho Cordova, their lives came to a shocking end. The two buddies were killed when their pickup truck was hit broadside by a Jeep on Grant Line Road, not far from Orrison’s home. Orrison was 86, McLarty 73.

Rancho Cordova police said the pair were in a Chevrolet truck making a U-turn on Grant Line Road at Raymer Way at about 1 p.m. when they were struck by a white Jeep Cherokee traveling 55 miles per hour. “It was a direct hit,” Sacramento sheriff’s spokesman Lisa Bowman said.

- www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article2710339.html

- www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-stuntmen-killed-traffic-accident-740928

Orrison and McLarty worked together on such films as The Wild Bunch (1969), The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976) and Days of Thunder (1990). Both are members of the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame.

Orrison, a native of Bakersfield, Calif., doubled for Dean Martin in 5 Card Stud (1968), piloted the car known as the General Lee in the CBS action series The Dukes of Hazzard and did stunt work on the action film Speed (1994).

McLarty, a former rodeo bronc rider, was a protege of legendary stuntman Hal Needham and worked in Hollywood for 40 years. He served as the stunt coordinator on three John Landis films: Animal House (1978), in which he drove a Harley up the frat-house stairs in a memorable scene; The Blues Brothers (1980); and, tragically, Twilight Zone: The Movie, in which actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed in a helicopter accident.

- www.imdb.com/name/nm0572255/

- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McLarty

Gary's nickname is "Whiz Kid."

Gary was a member of Stunts Unlimited.

In his youth, Gary was living at the McKinley Home for Boys in Los Angeles. When "East of Eden" (1955) starring James Dean filmed there, Gary worked as an extra.

On "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983), Gary was riding in the helicopter when it crashed killing actor Vic Morrow and two children.

In 1991, Gary shot and killed a house guest who had threatened to kill him. It was ruled a "justifiable homicide" and Gary was not charged.

In 2005, Gary testified in court that actor Robert Blake had solicited him to murder Blake's wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley.

- Rest in peace, Gary. Quite a ride.

[Steam McQueen]

I think if you added up all the cars these two guys jumped, crashed or rolled, it would be into 3 digits. If you added up all the cars jumped, crashed or rolled, from all the movies and TV shows Gary and Bob worked on in their careers it would be into 4 digits. What a crazy way to go. I guess the California sun was shining bright at 1pm that day, ol' Bob just didn't see that white Jeep. So I'll also mention rest in peace, Bob Orrison.

- www.imdb.com/name/nm0650657/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Bob didn't work on the Blues Brothers (that I know of, maybe uncredited?) but his two boys did, you'll see Brad and Mark Orrison in the credits. The IMDb gives a date of death for Brad as April 7, 2011 but no details. He would have been 53 at that time, I don't think he died on a movie set.

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Gary took part in a Bacardi campaign, 3 years ago at the age of 70, and took some British tourists for a limo ride!





An interview with Gary from that time ...

[AZBlues]

Horrible and sadly ironic way for a Hollywood stuntman to go. And I never knew he was the Miss Piggy guy in the movie.

[Steam McQueen]

- We were talking about Gary a while back in the Bluesmobile Sightings thread, and the cannon roll. Here's the relevant part of that post ...

May 11, 2014 22:43:29 GMT -5 Steam McQueen said:

As we know, Gary "Whiz Kid" McLarty was the stunt coordinator on The Blues Brothers, and he was the guy who actually did the first ever cannon roll in a movie, the John Wayne flick, McQ. I used to think it was Hal Needham because basically he invented the set up, but here's a good story about that ...

In the 1974 action film McQ, starring John Wayne, legendary stunt coordinator Ronnie Rondell and Needham stage a spectacular car rollover on the beach. In those days, a ramp was used to pitch the cars into a rollover for movie stunts. But since this shot was planned for the flat and desolate beach, they couldn't hide a ramp with bushes or shrubs; it would look too odd. So Needham invented another way to flip cars: With a device later named the McQ Cannon.

"We built a cannon 16 inches in diameter with inch-and-a-half-thick walls—because I knew what was going to happen inside that cannon—and welded it to the back floorboard behind the driver's seat with the muzzle pointed toward the ground." The cannon was loaded with a 3-foot-long telephone pole and a black-powder charge. "The idea was to throw the car in a broadside skid and hit that cannon," he says, forcing the pole down and the car to rollover. "The crew prepared for a rehearsal of the stunt on a dry lakebed outside Los Angeles with a beat-up sedan and brought along five 4-ounce powder bombs. On the static test, they loaded in one of the charges. And the explosion only lifted the car up 6 inches. So for the real run they made the cannon more potent.

"I knew if we put two bombs in and it doesn't work, we'd only have two left, so we put them all in. The lesson I learned on this one: Powder squares itself in power." The crew pushed the junker car up to 55 mph and Needham threw the car into a skid. "When they hit the fire button it blew that car 30 feet up in the air and I was flying upside down and backward across the desert. The power of the cannon almost bent that car in half. I landed upside down when the car finished rolling—and I wasn't breathing." Needham managed to crawl out the back window of the car, received mouth-to-mouth from stuntman Gary McLarty, and was carted off the to hospital. The doctor told Needham, "You have six broken ribs, a punctured lung, broken back." And Needham himself counted three teeth missing. Since Needham was in the hospital, he enlisted McLarty to perform the actual movie stunt (with a lot less explosives onboard) and he rolls the car several times, emerging from the wreckage unhurt.

- www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/hal-needhams-greatest-stunts-mcq-1974#slide-7

I love that story Until I had read it just last year I had always believed it was Hal who did the roll in the movie. So it was Gary and what a stunt! Duke in a Belvedere, Gary in an Impala ...

- Bobby Bass was also one of the first few guys using the cannon. I think with Hal and Gary, Bobby made up the first 3 guys to ever use the cannon. And from McQ, look who's in the back seat of the bad guys Impala ... it's Bobby Bass!





Obviously it was only Gary in the car for the roll. The guy beside Bobby, that's Chuck Roberson, long time stunt double for the Duke. So that's quite a pic there of those three guys, all three are gone now.

- hollywoodstuntmen.blogspot.ca/2014/07/gary-mclarty.html

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Turner Classic Movies does their own year-end thing with people from film who have passed away. Nice of them to recognize Gary in the 2014 edition ...

[Steam McQueen]

- Here's a good piece written by the stand-in/double for "Flounder" from Animal House, Dennis Cozzalio ...

McLarty also coordinated the stunts for National Lampoon’s Animal House, which is where I met him briefly during the fall of 1977. He was behind the wheel when I doubled for Stephen Furst in the backseat of that black Lincoln belonging to Flounder’s older brother Fred, decking parked cars and burning ass out of the parking lot of the Dexter Lake Club. (Back then, I needed a winter coat underneath my jacket to successfully double Flounder.) I remember being terrified at the prospect of banging into all those vehicles, but I also remember being out on a country road in Dexter, McLarty at the wheel, me and the other doubles along for the ride, doing slides around corners, hooting and hollering and laughing, exhilarated to be inside a speeding car at the hands of a master, never worried that we were anything but safe.

- sergioleoneifr.blogspot.ca/2014/12/remembering-stunt-coordinator-gary.html

Gary doubling D-Day for the stair climb ...

[Steam McQueen]

- The 1991 incident, nothing short of craziness. Cops shoot and kill a guy, Gary shoots and kills a guy. Different locations but related, crazy stuff ...

Stuntman Cleared; Ex-Convict's Slaying Called Self-Defense : Violence: Prosecutors say the shooting death is a clear case of justifiable homicide. The victim had a history of violent assaults and was a suspect in an attempted rape.

January 08, 1991|JULIO MORAN | TIMES STAFF WRITER

Murder charges will not be filed against a Hollywood stuntman who during the weekend shot and killed an ex-convict he had befriended, the district attorney's office announced Monday.

Stuntman Gary Raymond McLarty, 49, was released Monday afternoon after having been arrested Saturday in the fatal shooting of Donald Louis Deppe, 50, of North Hollywood, who authorities said had a history of violent assaults.

"It's a clear case of justifiable homicide based on self-defense," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Myron Jenkins, who made the decision not to file charges. "McLarty had reasonable fear for his life."

Police Detective Al Ferrand said he agreed with the decision. "We think it was self-defense," he said.

McLarty could not be reached for comment. His estranged wife, Karen, said the decision restored her faith in the judicial system.

"It's a relief," said Karen McLarty, who after his arrest expressed concern that her husband's story would not be believed by prosecutors. "Sometimes the truth doesn't work."

The release of McLarty, who had been held without bail at the Foothill Division jail, concluded an unusual chain of events that began Friday morning at a house on Little Tujunga Road near Sylmar where McLarty once lived.

A Sheriff's Department SWAT team approached the house at about 7 a.m. to serve an arrest warrant on Deppe, a house guest of McLarty who was accused of the attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman who was a friend of McLarty.

As deputies approached, a man ran out of the house and allegedly opened fire. Deputies shot back, fatally wounding the man, later identified as Edward Lynn Ralston, 42, an escaped convict.

Ralston's body remained in front of the house for nearly five hours because deputies believed Deppe was still in the house. The SWAT team had been sent to serve the warrant because Deppe had a history of violent assaults and deputies believed that he was armed.

After firing tear gas into the house, deputies found the house vacant. Later that night, a fire destroyed the house. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but fire officials said it may have been caused by tear gas canisters.

Meanwhile, McLarty called depties to say that he had shot and killed Deppe at McLarty's ranch in Lake View Terrace. Police officials said McLarty told them that Deppe--nicknamed the Bear because of his large frame--had threatened to kill him.

Authorities said that Deppe was angry because he knew that McLarty had told them he was staying at the Little Tujunga Canyon house, and because his friend Ralston had been killed by deputies.

Jenkins said that McLarty said he feared for his life and had obtained a gun shortly before the shooting.

"McLarty has a clear case of self-defense," Jenkins said. "I don't think a police officer would have waited, so I don't think McLarty should be held to a higher standard."

Jenkins said the case was so clear that it was taken to court a day earlier than normal to resolve.

Michael Conway, a parole administrator with the state Department of Corrections, said Ralston had been convicted of drug possession and of receiving stolen property. He had been sentenced to two years in prison and had just begun to serve the balance of his sentence in a re-entry program in September when he escaped.

- articles.latimes.com/1991-01-08/local/me-7860_1_clear-case

[Steam McQueen]

- I was thinking the crash investigators must have felt that possibly sunlight on the Jeep was a factor in Bob not seeing it. Why else would they specifically mention it was white? Do vehicles in California legally need to have daytime running lights?

It was a fairly new intersection where it happened, maybe even just opened in 2014. The new part was an extension of Raymer Way which is not visible in Bing "Birds Eye" but is visible in aerial ...







And the intersection of the crash is where Raymer meets Grant Line Rd. ...




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Gary was the stunt coordinator on Beverly Hills Cop. Lots of vehicles being hit by a big truck and that's not lost on me considering the circumstances of this thread but if you haven't seen it in awhile, the opening sequence is one of the most kick-ass opening sequences ever. I remember seeing it at the theater thinking, "Holy Shit."

[Steam McQueen]

For Star Trek fans, the pic of Bob is apparently from Season 2 Episode 25 titled, "Bread and Circuses."

[Steam McQueen]

- As mentioned above, while preparing for the John Wayne film "McQ" Hal Needham did the first and second tests ever of blasting wood, like a section of telephone pole, from under a car to make it roll over. It's quite a story. And because of that test they learned that they used too little powder in test #1 and too much powder in test #2 and Hal was going to be in the hospital for a few days . So they brought the cannon out to the beach where they were filming the chase scene and Gary McLarty performed the first ever cannon-roll in a movie.

Here's some behind the scenes footage uploaded by Jon Auty who runs the channel "Behind the Stunts" and he's a film historian type guy who loves the action movies etc. He has a book about all the James Bond stunts and stuff like that. Cool vid and even a brief interview with Gary himself, this is 5 years or so before The Blues Brothers.