Bob Simmons

Bob Simmons (born March 31, 1923 in Fulham , London , † October 21, 1987 in London) was a British stuntman , stunt coordinator and actor . Between 1962 and 1985 he shaped the James Bond film series as a stunt specialist and double for the main actor .

Life

In his youth, Bob Simmons had to deal with offenders and street gangs on several occasions, a milieu in which his athleticism and fighting skills were of great advantage. After attending road school, he worked as a boxer . Thanks to his muscular body, he got jobs as a model in London and made his first contacts in the film business. From the early 1950s he took on smaller roles and doubled stars such as Peter Sellers or Alan Ladd if the insurance companies so required. He established himself as a stunt man and as a choreographer of film brawls.

Work as a stuntman

As director Terence Young and producer Albert R. Broccoli in 1961 the first James Bond film James Bond - 007, Dr. No , they turned to Bob Simmons, with whom they had worked in the past. The action-packed story called for an experienced stunt specialist. Simmons is also the first Bond actor to appear on screen - in the opening credits of James Bond - 007 Dr. No , he appears as 007 in the sights of the pistol barrel. Before Sean Connery signed a deal, Director Young also considered him for the Bond role.

Bob Simmons worked regularly as a stuntman for Sean Connery, whom he resembled in appearance and stature, in the early Bond films, and also doubled other actors in dangerous scenes. As a stunt choreographer, he was also responsible for developing the elaborate action scenes. At Goldfinger , all stunts in the replica Fort Knox were assigned to him. He coordinated falls and other spectacular scenes and, among other things, jumped as Kisch (played by Michael Mellinger ) from the top railing of the huge Fort Knox backdrop. When the role of enemy agent Jaques Bouvar was to be cast in Fireball , the producers decided to hire a man who could withstand the demands of hard fights and transferred the role to Bob Simmons.

With the unusually hard and aggressive stunt choreographies that he developed for the Bond films in the 1960s and that had hardly existed in this form before, Bob Simmons had a formative influence on modern action films. One of his best-known fight scenes is the fatal duel between James Bond and the well-trained killer Grant in Greetings from Moscow (1963), which takes place in the confined space of a nocturnal train compartment. Fights of this kind can later be found in Goldfinger (1964), where Bond has to fight a superhumanly strong killer in a butler outfit, in Fireball (1965), where he fights the main villain in the cramped control cabin of a driverless boat, in Diamond Fever (1971), where the agent meets a killer in an elevator car, or in Live and Let Die (1973) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), where Bond again has to fight fearsome opponents in train compartments.

further activities

Bob Simmons developed various tools and accessories to enable other stuntmen to work with as little injury as possible. For example, he designed special “bungee ropes” for Man lives only twice . The 42 m high volcanic crater backdrop could be overcome effortlessly at a falling speed of 28 km / h. Each rope was additionally covered with a rubber hose, which the stuntmen clasped so as not to burn their fingers when sliding down.

Between 1962 and 1985, Simmons was involved in twelve James Bond films as a stunt man and stunt choreographer. As the films became more and more complex, he increasingly shared the work with other stunt specialists. For example, Jim Arnett , Bob Simmons and Claude Carliz oversee the stunt teams while filming In the Face of Death (1985) . After On a Fatal Mission , Simmons got a place in the Hollywood Hall of Fame. Simmons wrote Nobody Does It Better about 40 years of work as a stuntman. He was repeatedly seen in smaller roles, for example in Goldfinger as a soldier in Fort Knox, as a KGB agent in The Spy Who Loved Me, or as Gonzales's henchman in On A Deadly Mission . The Bond producers have repeatedly stressed that Simmons 'stunt work was central to the series' success.

Bob Simmons passed away in 1987.

Web links

• Bob Simmons in the Internet Movie Database (English)