Sept 2019 - My Life as a Stunt Performer
Members of the Horndean & District U3A met for their regular monthly meeting on Friday 6th September and thoroughly enjoyed listening to Denise Ryan talking about her life as a stunt performer!
Denise talked about her background and career over the past 38 years. As a child she was passionate about swimming and belonged to a swimming club, diving club, water polo club, sub aqua club. She would train four evenings a week and at weekends and before school in the mornings. It paid off because she was the fourth finalist in the high diving championship and a member of the synchronized swimming team. She became a swimming instructor after leaving school and also became a trained draftswoman. She was part of a semi professional group who did synchronized swimming and their first show was in a circus in Berlin. One of the acts was an escapologist Trevor Bayliss (the man who invented the clockwork radio). Denise volunteered to join him when he was going to escape from a VW Beetle in a 10ft deep tank of water. They escaped successfully and this was the first time she had done anything scary or dangerous in front of a huge audience.
Following this Denise was invited to do a full time professional job as a choreographer, a diver and a swimmer in Jersey where she did a summer season. Then she moved on to Bournemouth where there was an aqua show where she appeared for 13 years choreographing and performing in the show from May till September. In the winter she did swimming training or free lance drafting work. During this time she did a couple of other swimming jobs on a Muppet film and Tomorrows World. Another program was the Hollywood Special which was a turning point in her career. Anne Margaret a US film star was taking off and mimicking famous stars and they wanted a stunt artist to dive in and do some swimming routines instead of her. Denise had three days filming in a London Hotel where she felt like a film star herself. The director suggested that with her skills she could get onto the stunt register. When she applied she found that the rules had changed and she had to be versatile with a list of qualifications in various categories. Basically Denise only had aqua skills so it took her a further two years to learn to fence, karate and gymnastics with appropriate qualifications. She joined the register in 1982.
At that time there were just 4 women on the register and about 65 men. Nowadays there are 450 performers of which 150 are women. There was also a requirement for a 6 year apprenticeship. During the first part, one is on probation with a supervisor; every job recorded and signed off by the director or producer. After three years one moves on to the intermediate level where they can work alone and unsupervised but every job must be signed off. Denise produced a copy of a booklet showing the full attributes of the stunt performers - looks, vital statistics, skills and credits etc.
She appeared in Mid Summer Murders, Two Ronnies, Bergerac where she had drowned, Sherlock & Me where she was set on fire, which sounded absolutely frightening and she admitted prior to the shoot she was terrified. Denise went into great detail about the precautions taken on her makeup and clothes for the shoot. There were 6 firemen ready on the set in case of an emergency. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner where she was swinging thru the trees on a rope, dodging flaming arrows, Who Dares Wins where she was shot, Heart to Heart where she had to fall off a horse. Denise has also incurred injuries during her career as a stunt artist - she has fractured two fingers, two ribs at two different times and two toes.
In her early days she worked on many feature films, Indian Jones, Aliens, Superman, Pink Panther and many many more and then she found a niche for herself in television drama and became a coordinator. She is informed of the skills needed and then goes about finding the right person for the job from the register. Our stunt performer rules are strict and unique to the UK.
As a coordinator, prior to the filming Denise has to attend a huge production meeting and the biggest part of her job is to do a risk assessment on all the aspects of the action to be done, the crew and the entire set up. She is now retiring.....doesn't want to get up at 4 am in the morning to drive many hours to go on sets. Although in the last few years she has had jobs doubling for older ladies - Barbara Locks on Coronation Street, Patricia Routledge on Hetty Wainright Investigates, Linda Russet on Call the Midwife, Brenda Blethyn on Vera, recently Diana Rigg - Last Night in Soho. However she is not asked to do really dangerous stunts doubling for older women. She showed lots of stunning photographs of her work over the years and answered several questions from the members. A stunning talk which covered much much more than this write up and an inspiration to everyone.
Diane Stoner
Speaker Coordinator