Latest in Stunts

Ernie F. Orsatti, best known for his unforgettable fall through a glass skylight in the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure, has died. He was 80 and passed Sept. 12 in La Quinta, Calif. from a hemorrhagic stroke, his son, Noon Orsatti, confirmed. Ernie Orsatti was born in Beverly Hills on Feb. 13, 1940, to opera singer…

New details have emerged in last month's stunt car crash on the set of LA's Finest that seriously injured co-showrunner Brandon Sonnier, who had to have his leg amputated below the knee. As previously reported, he and producing partner Brandon Margolis had been watching the scene unfold on video village monitors on…

SAG-AFTRA leaders today weighed in on “paint downs” and "wigging" in the stunt industry, in which stuntmen double for actors of another race or gender — practices the union frowns upon. Speaking about "some of the things that have come up in the past," SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said in a podcast that "We…

Mike Wilks is lucky to be alive. The special effects technician on Audience Network’s Mr. Mercedes was nearly electrocuted March 2 on the show's set in South Carolina and remains hospitalized after having four toes amputated and undergoing multiple surgeries to repair his hands and what's left of his feet. The…

OSHA has slapped the producers of CBS’ MacGyver with a "serious citation" for an accident on its Atlanta set in August that seriously injured stunt coordinator Justin Sundquist. Its proposed penalty, however, is only $9,472. Sundquist was injured when he fell off the back of a moving vehicle while performing a stunt…

Disabled stuntwoman Leslie Hoffman has won a major legal battle in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has reversed a lower court's ruling and ordered a trial of her lawsuit that claimed that the SAG Pension Plan wrongfully terminated her occupational disability pension. In a ruling handed down today, the…

David White, SAG-AFTRA's national executive director, met Tuesday night with some 80 stunt performers to hear their concerns about safety, pensions and contract issues. Stuntwoman Jane Austin, who's the union's national secretary-treasurer and president of its Los Angeles local, also attended the meeting, which was…

UPDATED with more details: SAG-AFTRA is cracking down on producers who risk safety and who try to cheat stunt performers out of their residuals by signing them to stunt coordinator flat deals that don't pay residuals. "The union is pursuing claims on this issue and will continue to challenge any miscategorization of…

Hollywood has a new hero – legendary stuntman Jack Gill, who stood on his roof with a fire hose, surrounded by flames, battling to save his home in Agoura Hills, just across the road from the Paramount Ranch, where its famed Western Town film set burned to the ground in the deadly California wildfires inferno. And…

Kitty O’Neil, a deaf stuntwoman whose credits include the 1970s series Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman, has died of pneumonia at age 72. Her life story was told in a 1979 TV movie called Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story starring Stockard Channing – with O’Neil herself handling stunts. O’Neil died Nov. 2 in…

In a move to improve safety on the set, SAG-AFTRA says it will create a Stunt Coordinator Minimum General Standards Eligibility Process Guideline. The program, which was overwhelmingly approved today by the union's national board of directors, is set to launch in 2020. According to the union, it will permit…

There had been bad blood between Justin Sundquist and Jeff Cadiente before they landed plum stunt coordinating assignments within weeks of each other on two CBS reboots from executive producer Peter Lenkov, the network's most prolific writer-producer. All three men had been involved in a lawsuit stemming from a 2016 ac…