Daring American stuntman who often doubled for Tony Curtis and starred in the TV series The High Chaparral - guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 February 2010 17.55 GMT
Among the many unsung heroes of film history are those individuals who make actors seem more athletic and daring than they could possibly be. Although the raison d'etre of his profession is invisibility, the stuntman and stunts co-ordinator Robert Hoy, who has died of cancer aged 82, was one of the few whose name and face have emerged from anonymity.
As well as enjoying a long career as a stuntman – he continued into his 60s – Hoy, an expert horseman, appeared in more than 150 films and television series in small parts. One of his largest roles was the ranch-hand Joe Butler in 62 episodes of The High Chaparral from 1967 to 1971. With his thick black moustache, dark hair and sideboards, and invariably wearing a blue shirt, Hoy made Butler into a hard-riding, hard-fighting, hard-drinking masculine figure, willing to risk his life again and again to defend the Chaparral ranch from enemies.
Sideboards?
Risking one's life goes with the job of performing stunts, although extreme precautions are always taken to ensure safety. However, this has not entirely prevented accidents. On the set of Spartacus (1960), Kirk Douglas accidentally cracked one of Hoy's ribs when he rammed a fake sword into the stuntman's side. While hanging upside down for the 1980s TV series Magnum PI, Hoy broke his leg and ankle. "I recovered and got back to work," he recalled. "I didn't think twice about it. That's just part of the business." Hoy, a veteran of the second world war, had been rejected from active service in the Korean war because of a bad injury to his right leg: "That hurt more than the actual injury."
Hoy considered that one of the most dangerous stunts he ever did was for the Stanley Kramer film The Defiant Ones (1958), in which he doubled for Tony Curtis, while Ivan Dixon did the same for Sidney Poitier. On the run as escaped convicts, and chained together, they find themselves in the rapids of California's Kern river. "The current was moving along at about six knots," Hoy remembered. "There were many outcroppings and rocks, some of them below the water. There also were old fence posts, downed trees and whirlpools. There was no element of control. All we could do was try to stay alive, but it all looked great on film."
I remember the scene in the film, and I remember Ivan Dixon separately.
Hoy specialised in horse work and explained that "all stunts have an element of danger, but horses have minds of their own, and in the two or three seconds of doing a stunt, things can go wrong". Although he was born in New York City, he got to know horses as a child when he worked part-time on a dude ranch in the Catskill mountains. He continued to handle horses there until he joined the marines near the end of the second world war. (Hoy always wore two pins: one honouring the marines, the other the fraternity of stuntmen.)
On leaving the service, he took a job as a cowboy on a Nevada ranch, before going to Hollywood in 1950. His first film was Ambush, where he doubled for Robert Taylor on a horse, jumping fences and falling off. Hoy was lucky to have the stuntman Dave Sharpe as his mentor, who taught him how not to get killed. Hoy continued to do stunts and act. Besides being a favourite of Curtis, he was stunt double for Clint Eastwood in four movies: The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Enforcer (1976), The Gauntlet (1977) and Bronco Billy (1980).
Hoy doubled for Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back (1955), in which Murphy, the most decorated combat soldier of the second world war, played himself. He also did some of the more tricky bits of action for Murphy in Destry (1954) and Walk the Proud Land (1956).
Hoy was a lifetime member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, which he co-founded in 1961. A few days before he died, he received the Golden Boot, an award given by the Motion Picture & Television Fund to those who have made significant contributions to the western genre.
He is survived by Kiva, his wife of 22 years, and a son, Christopher.
• Robert Francis Hoy, stuntman and actor; born 3 April 1927; died 8 February 2010
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