The True Adventures of the World's Greatest Stuntman by Vic Armstrong

Author:Vic Armstrong [Armstrong, Vic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2011-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE REAL MAFIA

I hadn’t worked for the Bond people since doubling Roger Moore on Live and Let Die and so was thrilled to get an offer in 1986 to work on The Living Daylights, Timothy Dalton’s debut as 007. Sadly negotiations stalled and when Michael Cimino, director of The Deer Hunter, wanted me for his film The Sicilian I accepted. Of course, sod’s law, as soon as I said yes to Cimino the Bond people called back and said, OK let’s do a deal. But it was too late.

The Sicilian starred Christopher Lambert, a hot star after Highlander, and was based on a novel by Godfather author Mario Puzo about a Robin Hood-style bandit. I have to say that I found Cimino really quite aggressive. I had a big argument with him after the first couple of days, but then we were fine. He’s only directed two more pictures since The Sicilian, his career never really recovered from the debacle of Heaven’s Gate. After that first fight I got on really well with him, although he could be very hard on us. One of the first stunts we did was drive a jeep at speed past this church and Jordi Casares was thrown out onto a marble square. Cimino made us do it 12 or 14 times, but Jordi never complained, he just kept on hitting the marble-covered ground at speed. In the end Cimino (I guess having been testing us) had to concede, ‘Fucking hell, this guy’s great!’ From that day on we could do no wrong.

Later, we shot a scene where Chris Lambert holds up a steam train as it comes out of a tunnel. I actually achieved every schoolboy’s dream and got to drive the steam engine. The insurance company would not let the real drivers be on the train as it went through the tunnel, because we were going to blast a fireball inside the tunnel and the train had to race through it. I will never forget the look of trepidation on the driver and engineer’s faces as I opened up the steam valves and took off in their beloved engine!

As we were setting it up Cimino approached me. ‘Vic, come with me.’ We walked about 100 yards into the tunnel and he just sort of stood there, lit a cigarette and looked around, so after a few minutes I said, ‘Did you want something Mike?’ ‘Oh, no, no, there’s just an asshole out there I don’t want to see.’ And it was the producer. Cimino wouldn’t talk to him so we stayed in this tunnel for half an hour until the producer got bored and left again. It was bizarre.

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