From the Washington Times: “HAL NEEDHAM was behind the wheel of a car flying 30 feet in the air when he realized he’d put too much gunpowder in the cannon he’d used to make the vehicle flip in the 1974 John Wayne film, “McQ.” Needham broke his back and punctured a lung when he landed, but still felt his Cannon Turnover invention was a success.
“I just backed the powder way down and it became a real slick way of turning a car over,” the 81-year-old said in a recent interview.
The veteran stuntman and inventor, who went on to write and direct action classics including “Smokey and the Bandit,” won the academy’s Scientific and Engineering Award in 1986 for another of his creations: The Shotmaker Elite, a camera car and crane equipped with its own generator.
“That just goes to show you that you don’t have to be the smartest person in the world to figure out what works and what doesn’t,” he said.
He quit performing stunts when he made “Smokey” in 1977. He regards the film among his proudest achievements. His last film credit was in 1999 for the TV movie “Hard Time: Hostage Hotel.”
For the past year, Needham has been traveling the country promoting his memoir, “Stuntman!: My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping, Death-Defying Hollywood Life.”
He said he was “in a little shock” when he learned he’d be receiving an honorary Oscar for his entertainment contributions: “I never figured someone like me, with my background and everything, I didn’t figure it would get to this point, but I’m happy it did.”
Still, he says stuntmen don’t need annual recognition from the Academy Awards, as some have suggested.
“Stuntmen bring a lot to the film industry, especially in action films, but if you start trying to give an Oscar for a stuntman, say he doubled a star, I think that takes away from the star’s value,” Needham said.”
You can read more about the other honorees and the ceremony by clicking here.
(Mr. Needham worked on and appeared in McQ, Rio Lobo, Chisum, The Undefeated, The Hellfighters, In Harm’s Way, The War Wagon, McLintock!, Donovan’s Reef, How The West Was Won, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.)