Dar Robinson

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Dar Allen Robinson (born March 26, 1947 in Los Angeles , California , † November 21, 1986 in Page , Arizona ) was an American stuntman and actor .

life and work

Robinson grew up in Los Angeles and performed his first stunt in 1973 in the prison drama Papillon , where he jumped from a 30-meter-high rock into a river for lead actor Steve McQueen . In the same year he worked as a motorcycle stunt driver in Dirty Harry II - Calahan .

In 1979 he set his first world record when he fell from a helicopter from 95 meters into an air cushion. In total, he set 21 stunt world records. For the 1981 film Sharky and his Pros , Robinson jumped 220 feet from the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta , setting a record for the tallest jump without a safety rope from a building filmed for a feature film. In the film, however, only a short excerpt of the stunt was shown and a dummy was used for the rest of the scene.

One of his most spectacular stunts in 1979 was jumping from the 553 meter high CN Tower . There he doubled Christopher Plummer in the action comedy Am Highpoint freaks out the crowd . He only opened the parachute at a height of 90 meters. Robinson repeated the jump from the CN Tower on August 12, 1980 for the documentary The World's Most Spectacular Stuntman , where he was secured by a rope. For this he received the record fee of 150,000 US dollars and is thus in the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 as the highest paid stuntman ever.

Dar Robinson was known for planning his stunts very meticulously and suffered no significant injuries during his nearly 20-year career. In 1986, while filming Million Dollar Mystery , he had an accident during a routine motorcycle stunt exercise. Robinson lost control of his motorcycle and fell off a cliff into a gully full of sharp-edged boulders. He died of serious internal injuries. He left behind his wife Linda and their son, as well as two sons from a previous marriage.

Posthumous honors

After his death, the films The Four Million Dollar Hunt , Tornado, and Lethal Weapon were dedicated to him.

His life was the subject of the 1988 documentary The Ultimate Stuntman - A Tribute to Dar Robinson .

Filmography (selection)

Stuntman

actor

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dar Robinson, Stuntman, Dies at nytimes.com, accessed June 29, 2012
  2. ↑ The Screening Room's top 10 movie stunts ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at cnn.com, accessed June 29, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / articles.cnn.com
  3. ↑ Dar Robinson Jumps Off the CN Tower 1980 ( Memento from May 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at youtube.com, accessed on June 29, 2012
  4. ↑ a b Death Cheats the King of Movie Daredevils, Dar Robinson at people.com, accessed June 29, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Robinson, Dar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robinson, Dar Allen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American stunt man and actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1986
Place of death Page , Arizona , United States