Hal
Needham is a legend among stunt people. He started out as a forester and
logger. In the army he performed numerous parachute shows in his spare
time. Hal's first stunt job was doing wing walking and parachute cutaways
for the 1957 film The Spirit of St. Louis. He then spent nine months
looking for a second stunt job. Hal promoted himself on the original 1950's
series of the TV show You Asked For It jumping out of a plane
to bulldog a man off a horse. Before long he was doing stuntwork and coordination
for a large number of films and TV shows. Hal became a close friend of
the star Burt Reynolds and worked on many of Burt's movies. Eventually
Hal moved onto directing. His first film was Smokey and the Bandit (1977),
based on his own story. It was a huge success. He followed it with a great,
fun movie about stuntmen called Hooper
(1978). Burt Reynolds and Sally Field starred in both movies. Other movies
directed by Hal were either not as succesful, or simply not that great
(e.g. Megaforce and
The Cannonball Run).
Photo on this page copyright by Hal Needham.