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Back in Steve McQueen's Day...
September 19, 2008

Personal memoirs and insider accounts about the American filmmaking industry are published every week, many of shining--and diminishing!--Hollywood stars and directors who insist on setting the records straight on everything from on-set romances to boardroom battles. Remembering and re-assessing moments and movements in Hollywood history--revealing the truths buried beneath the myth, if you will--has been big business on the book shelf for almost as long as Hollywood as been making movies.

 

One recently issued memoir concerning a classic clutch of films caught my eye and warrants a mention for those who are looking for more than a newly produced DVD “making-of” featurette can provide. Not So Quiet On The Set (iUniverse, http://www.iuniverse.com) was penned by Hollywood journeyman Robert E. Relyea (in collaboration with his son Craig Relyea, a 25-year entertainment marketing veteran who’s held exec posts at

Universal, DreamWorks and Disney). It offers a bunch of great behind-the-scenes stories from some of the manliest Hollywood hits of the late Fifties and Sixties--some where the senior Relyea acted as assistant director (The Alamo, West Side Story, The Magnificent Seven), and others that he exec produced in partnership with star Steve McQueen (the McQueen vehicles Bullitt, The Reivers and Le Mans).

 

The highlight for me, however, revolves around another McQueen film in which he was an assistant to the producer and an unaccredited stunt pilot: 1963s’ The Great Escape. And I don’t have to tell you what famous motorcycle stunt the story concerns!

 

In Relyea’s words:

 

“[Stunt cyclist] Bud Ekins was the first to make the jump [over a barbed wire fence] in rehearsals. Despite insurance restrictions prohibiting McQueen from attempting dangerous stunts, Steve jumped it next--just to show everyone he could…Who makes the actual jump that appears in the film? Everyone involved seems to have their own version of what happened and which rider made the final cut. An Australian rider who McQueen and Ekins knew from the European motocross circuit also performed the jump…So we had three riders--McQueen, Ekins and the Australian--captured on film making the jump. My bet would be that Ekins’ jump is in the final film--but, in truth, I’m not sure it wasn’t an anonymous rider from Australia who is in the final cut performing one of the most memorable stunts in motion picture history.”

 

Well, whaddya know….!

 

Posted by Laurence Lerman on September 19, 2008 | Comments (0)