Bud Ekins, 1930-2007
October 12, 2007

Steve McQueen jumping his ’62 Triumph motorcycle over a 12-foot-high Nazi barbed-wire barrier in 1963’s The Great Escape remains the coolest motorcycle stunt ever committed to film and a singular moment that helped elevate the actor to superstar status.The thing is that it wasn’t McQueen making the 65-foot jump—it was legendary motorcyclist, stunt driver and McQueen buddy Bud Ekins. Ekins dies last Saturday at.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 77.

If you’re think back to some of the cinema’s most memorable bike and car stunts from the late Sixties and Seventies, there’s a good chance that Ekins was involved with them. The car chase in Bullitt (1968), the desert moon buggy pursuit in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the Mephistophelean road games in Race with the Devil (1974), hell, even D-Day riding his hog up the fraternity stairs in Animal House (1978)—all were the result of the devil-may-care deeds of Bud Ekins.

But it’s the motorcycle chase across the rolling German hills in The Great Escape that will forever remain Ekin’s most iconic image. He spoke about the stunt in a 1998 interview with Cycle News Magazine, reminding everyone that “I made it on the first pass” and that he was paid $1,000 for his little bit of razzle-dazzle, which was “huge money back in those days.” And when asked about the landing, Ekins simply replied, “Hard.”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on October 12, 2007 | Comments (0)