JACK WILLIAMS
Information from IMDb
Date of Birth
15 April 1921,
Butte, Montana, USA
Date of Death
10 April 2007,
Sylmar, California, USA (natural causes)
Spouse
Clare (? - 10 April 2007) (his death)
Trivia
Doubled for Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston.
Along with Flynn, Williams doubled for or worked with many other Western icons
over six decades, including John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry,
Ronald Reagan, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Fess Parker, Richard Widmark,
Robert Taylor, Yul Brynner, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, Glenn Ford,
Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood,
William Holden, and Kirk Douglas.
Williams even doubled for actresses including Olivia de Havilland,
Julie Adams, Greer Garson, Sophia Loren, Lucille Ball,
Claudia Cardinale, and Angie Dickinson.
Williams rode a falling horse named Coco that died at the age of 33
and is buried near his Adobe-style home.
Williams was best known for having trained his horse to fall dramatically
on cue at a given spot as if it had taken a bullet or arrow.
He is one of the four Western film and television legends
whose names on the Walk of Western Stars in Newhall.
He joins fellow inductees Powers Boothe, Graham Greene,
and Harry Carey Jr. in receiving the honor. (As of 2005).
Charter member of the Stuntmen's Assn. of Motion Pictures
and an inductee of the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.
Recipient of the Golden Boot Award from the Motion Picture & Television Fund for his work in westerns.(1999).
His father George Williams was a cowboy who also found work
as a movie stuntman, and his mother was a rodeo champion called Paris.
Jack Williams born 15 April 1921, Butte, Montana, died 10 April 2007,
Sylmar, California, of natural causes was an American stunt performer
specialising in horse stunts and Western films and television shows.
Mini- Biography
Jack's father, George Williams, was a Montana cowboy and his mother Paris Williams
was a world-champion trick rider on the rodeo circuit and a movie stuntwoman.
The Williams family moved to Burbank, California during Jack's childhood years.
Jack performed his first motion picture stunt on a horse at age 4, being tossed from one rider
to another in The Flaming Forest a 1926 silent film. Attending the University of Southern California Jack
was a polo player and returned to motion picture stuntwork in 1936 for Daniel Boone and The Charge of the Light Brigade
World War II interrupted his Hollywood career when he served as an officer in the United States Coast Guard
that included service as a navigator on a Landing Ship, Tank in the Invasion of Okinawa.
Jack returned to Hollywood after the war where for six decades he doubled for or worked with many
Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan, James Stewart, Gary Cooper,
Fess Parker, Audie Murphy, Richard Widmark, Robert Taylor, Yul Brynner, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen,
Lee Marvin, Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood, William Holden and Kirk Douglas.
Williams also doubled for actresses including Olivia de Havilland, Julie Adams, Greer Garson,
Sophia Loren, Lucille Ball, Claudia Cardinale and Angie Dickinson.
Amongst the films he provided stunts for were The Last Outpost, Bugles in the Afternoon,
Bend of the River, The Far Country, Yellowstone Kelly, Rio Bravo, The Alamo,
The Magnificent Seven, Merrill's Marauders, How the West Was Won, Cheyenne Autumn,
Major Dundee, Cat Ballou, The Professionals, Alvarez Kelly, The Sons of Katie Elder, The War Wagon
and many more up to the 1999 film Wild Wild West.
On television Williams worked on The Roy Rogers Show, Maverick, Rawhide, Bonanza, Daniel Boone,
Laredo and The High Chaparral.
Jack owed his success to his horse Coco. "Coco bought the ranch," he said, referring to the horse
he rode in many of his most famous scenes. Williams was best known for having trained his horse
to fall dramatically on cue at a given spot as if it had taken a bullet or arrow.
A horse named Coco
Williams was inspired by his father, George Williams, a Montana cowboy
who could train a horse to fall on cue. Jack recalled,
"There was probably no feat I could have imagined that was as fascinating as that.
So I took the technique and perfected it."
"He was the top falling-horse stuntman in the business," said stuntman Bob Hoy,
who first worked with Williams in 1950. "He had a great horse called Coco, and they were inseparable.
The horse had an instinct. A lot of horses will fight you when you get to the spot
where they'll make the fall and won't go there. But Coco went there.
She was just so great."
Said stuntman Joe Canutt: "You can get great falls a lot of times out of horses,
but when you're attacking the Alamo, for example, and you've got bombs and cannons going off ...
some of them don't work at all. That mare [Coco] consistently got spectacular falls."
But beyond doing the falling-horse stunt, Hoy said, "Jack drove stagecoaches,
he wrecked wagons, he could transfer from the horse to the train -- he could do anything pertaining to horse work."
Coco died at age 33 and was buried on Williams' California ranch.
Filmography
Stunts
1999 Wild Wild West (stunts)
1991/I Diplomatic Immunity (stunts)
1989 W.B., Blue and the Bean (video) (stunts)
1987 Innerspace (stunts)
1985 Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous (stunts)
1981 Under the Rainbow (stunts)
1980 The Mountain Men (stunts)
1978 F.I.S.T (stunts)
1975 The Master Gunfighter (stunts)
1974 Call Harry Crown (stunts - uncredited)
1973 Soylent Green (stunts - uncredited)
1971 The Omega Man (stunts - uncredited)
1970 Rio Lobo (stunts - uncredited)
1970 The Ballad of Cable Hogue (stunts - uncredited)
1970 Beneath the Planet of the Apes (stunts - uncredited)
1970 A Man Called Horse (stunts - uncredited)
1969 The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (stunts - uncredited)
1969 Paint Your Wagon (stunts - uncredited)
1969 The Wild Bunch (stunts - uncredited)
1969 Mackenna's Gold (stunts - uncredited)
1968 Head (stunts - uncredited)
1968 The Scalphunters (stunts - uncredited)
1968 Day of the Evil Gun (stunts - uncredited)
1968 Will Penny (stunts - uncredited)
1967 Dundee and the Culhane (TV series) (stunts)
1967 The War Wagon (stunts - uncredited)
1967 Killer on a Horse (stunts - uncredited)
1967 Camelot (stunts - uncredited)
1966 The Professionals (stunts - uncredited)
1966 Alvarez Kelly (stunts - uncredited)
1966 Bonanza (TV series) (stunts - 1 episode)– A Time to Step Down (1966) (stunts - uncredited)
1966 The Monroes (TV series) (stunts)
1966 Smoky (stunts - uncredited)
1966 Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (stunts - uncredited)
1966 7 Women (stunts - uncredited)
1965 The War Lord (stunts - uncredited)
1965 Laredo (TV series) (stunts)
1965 The Sons of Katie Elder (stunts - uncredited)
1965 Cat Ballou (stunts - uncredited)
1965 Major Dundee (stunts - uncredited)
1964 Cheyenne Autumn (stunts - uncredited)
1964 The Fall of the Roman Empire (stunt double: Christopher Plummer - uncredited, stunts - uncredited)
1962 How the West Was Won (stunts - uncredited)
1962 The Spiral Road (stunts - uncredited)
1962 Hero's Island (stunt supervisor)
1962 Hatari! (stunts - uncredited)
1962 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (stunts - uncredited)
1962 Merrill's Marauders (stunts - uncredited)
1961 The Comancheros (stunts - uncredited)
1961 El Cid (stunts - uncredited)
1961 Gold of the Seven Saints (stunts - uncredited)
1960 The Alamo (stunts - uncredited)
1960 The Magnificent Seven (stunts - uncredited)
1960 Spartacus (stunts - uncredited)
1959 Yellowstone Kelly (stunts - uncredited)
1959 Laramie (TV series) (stunts)
1959 Rio Bravo (stunts - uncredited)
1959 Westbound (stunts - uncredited)
1958 The Old Man and the Sea (stunts - uncredited)
1958 Man of the West (stunts - uncredited)
1958 Ride a Crooked Trail (stunts - uncredited)
1958 The Law and Jake Wade (stunts - uncredited)
1958 The Left Handed Gun (stunts - uncredited)
1958 Fort Dobbs (stunts - uncredited)
1957 Joe Dakota (stunts - uncredited)
1957 Night Passage (stunts - uncredited)
1957 The Wings of Eagles (stunts - uncredited)
1956 The Tomahawk and the Cross (stunts - uncredited)
1956 The Burning Hills (stunts - uncredited)
1956 Backlash (stunts - uncredited)
1956 The Conqueror (stunts - uncredited)
1955 Strange Lady in Town (stunts - uncredited)
1954 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (stunt double: Kirk Douglas - uncredited, stunts - uncredited)
1954 The Far Country (stunts - uncredited)
1954 Drums Across the River (stunts - uncredited)
1954 Taza, Son of Cochise (stunts - uncredited)
1954 Border River (stunts - uncredited)
1953 Tumbleweed (stunts - uncredited)
1953 The Man from the Alamo (stunts - uncredited)
1953 The Desert Song (stunts - uncredited)
1953 Column South (stunts - uncredited)
1953 The Naked Spur (stunts - uncredited)
1952 The Lion and the Horse (stunts - uncredited)
1952 Bugles in the Afternoon (stunts - uncredited)
1952 Where the River Bends (stunts - uncredited)
1951 Distant Drums (stunts - uncredited)
1951 The Golden Horde (stunts - uncredited)
1951 Whistling Hills (stunts - uncredited)
1951 The Last Outpost (stunts - uncredited)
1950 Tripoli (stunts - uncredited)
1948 3 Godfathers (stunts - uncredited)
1948 Red River (stunts - uncredited)
1948 Fort Apache (stunts - uncredited)
1942 In Old California (stunts - uncredited)
1941 They Died with Their Boots On (stunts - uncredited)
1940 Santa Fe Trail (stunts - uncredited)
1940 Virginia City (stunts - uncredited)
1939 Gone with the Wind (stunts - uncredited)
1939 Dodge City (stunts - uncredited)
1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood (stunts - uncredited)
1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade (stunts - uncredited)
1936 Daniel Boone (stunts - uncredited)
Actor
2004 Big Chuck, Little Chuck...Jack Williams
1974 Mrs. Sundance (TV movie)...Davis
1970 The High Chaparral (TV series)– Too Late the Epitaph (1970) … Luther, Stagecoach Driver
1970 Bonanza (TV series)– Caution, Easter Bunny Crossing (1970) … Stage Driver
1968-1969 Lancer (TV series)
– The Knot (1969) … Deputy
– The High Riders (1968)
1968 The Scalphunters...Scalphunter
1967 Iron Horse (TV series)– Wild Track (1967) … Bates
1967 The Guns of Will Sonnett (TV series)– And a Killing Rode in Town (1967) … Matt Claymore
1967 Dundee and the Culhane (TV series)– The Dead Man's Brief (1967)
1966 The Monroes (TV series)– Ordeal by Hope (1966) … Corporal
1966 Smoky...Cowboy
1966 Daniel Boone (TV series)
Larson / Ruffian
– The High Cumberland: Part 2 (1966) … Larson
– The High Cumberland: Part 1 (1966) … Larson
– Fifty Rifles (1966) … Ruffian
1966 Billy the Kid vs. Dracula...Duffy
1965-1966 Laredo (TV series)
Eusebio / Stubbs
– Limit of the Law Larkin (1966) … Eusebio
– Three's Company (1965) … Stubbs
1966 Daniel Boone: Frontier Trail Rider...Larson
1965 The Sons of Katie Elder...Andy Sharp (uncredited)
1964 Cheyenne Autumn...Trooper (uncredited)
1962 Hatari!...Man (uncredited)
1962 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance...Henchman (uncredited)
1962 Lawman (TV series)– Change of Venue (1962) … Clay
1961 Perry Mason (TV series)– The Case of the Missing Melody (1961) … First Gambler
1961 Gold of the Seven Saints...Ames (as Jack C Williams)
1960 The Alamo...Bowie's Man (uncredited)
1960 Spartacus...Soldier (uncredited)
1960 Bat Masterson (TV series)– The Disappearance of Bat Masterson (1960) … Henchman
1959 Rawhide (TV series)– Incident of the Power and the Plow (1959) … Bannion (uncredited)
1959 Westbound...Henchman (uncredited)
1958 Maverick (TV series)– The Thirty-Ninth Star (1958) … Second Thug (uncredited)
1958 Man of the West...Alcutt (uncredited)
1957 Band of Angels...Runaway (uncredited)
1956 The Burning Hills...Farrell (uncredited)
1956 Backlash...Castro (uncredited)
1955 Strange Lady in Town...Rebstock (uncredited)
1955 Dragnet (TV series)– The Big Key (1955)
1954 The Far Country...Shep (uncredited)
1953 Bomba and the Safari Drums...Native
1952 The Lion and the Horse...Steve Collier
1952 Bomba and the African Treasure...Drummer (uncredited)
1952 Talk About a Stranger...Truck Driver (voice) (uncredited)
1951 I'll See You in My Dreams...Dancer (uncredited)
1951 Tarzan and the Jungle Queen...Guard (uncredited)
1946 It's Great to Be Young...'Ivory' Timothy
1945 Give Me the Stars...Syd
1944 He Snoops to Conquer (uncredited)
1943 Hit Parade of 1943...The Harlem Sandman
1933 Tooth Will Out (short)
1933 The Dreamers (short)
