James Bond’s stuntman, Remy Julienne, dies after contracting COVID-19

0
47

 

By Adesoba Toluwalope

French stunt, performer and Coordinator, Assistant director, Remy Julienne, 90, has died of Covid-19 complications.

Born April 17, 1930 in Cenoy France, Julienne died on Thursday, January 21, 2021.

He is survived by three children and a grandson.

He was a veteran of more than 1,400 films and TV commercials as an actor or stunt coordinator. Notable large film projects in which he arranged stunts cars include ‘The italian Job’ and six James Bond films.

He began a school in France to provide drivers and mechanics with the specialized skills.

In November 2005, Julienne was contracted by French TV station M6 to Consult on a French-Language remake of the 1970s Series Starsky and Hutch.

His career suffered a setback in 1999, when a stunt went wrong during the filming of Taxi 2, written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by Gerard Krawczy causing the death of a Cameraman Alain Dultartre.

Julienne had accused the production company of taking short cuts but Besson denied the allegations.

Julienne had been in intensive care in a hospital in his home town of Montargis in central France since early January.

He died in the evening of Thursday, January 21 from COVID-19 after battling it for two weeks.

“What was bound to happen has happened. He left us early in the evening (Thursday). It was predictable, he was on a respirator,” a relative told news report.

A French motocross champion, he began his film career in 1964 when he doubled for French actor Jean Marais in the film “Fantomas”, in which he was required to ride a motorbike.

“They needed someone who was very controlled,” he said of this experience. “It ended up being me. It was the start of a huge adventure.”

His career saw him fly over Venice dangling from a rope-ladder suspended from a helicopter, being hit in the face with a pumpkin while riding a motorbike and countless car crashes.

He doubled for some of the world’s most famous actors, including Sean Connery and Roger Moore, as well top French names including Yves Montand, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He worked on six James Bond movies in total, including “GoldenEye” and “For Your Eyes Only”, in which he drove a heavily modified yellow Citroen 2CV during a memorable car chase.

Julienne won praise from some of the biggest names in cinema for his precision and creativity as an actor and a stunt director.

“He has an absolutely incredible scientific understanding. He’s a real scientist, the Einstein of stuntmen,” French director Claude Lelouch told a documentary for France Televisions marking Julienne’s 50 years in the business.

A believer in real action rather than special effects, Julienne worked constantly to minimise the risks he took during his shoots, but he badly injured himself early in his career while filming on a Colombian production in Germany.

Missing his timing to exit from a car before it crashed into a ravine, he ended up with a crushed ankle that left him in bed for six weeks.

Once recovered, he would go on to earn fame from his work for the car chase scenes in the “The Italian Job” with Michael Caine.

“Fear is necessary before and after, but never during,” he once said of his time on film sets.

He was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in 2007 and handed an 18-month suspended jail sentence, which was later reduced on appeal to six months and an order to pay damages of 60,000 euros ($73,000) to the victim’s family.

Julienne also helped police with crime reconstructions.

In 2000, he mounted a reconstruction of the death of a British student, Isabel Peake, to try to establish how the young woman was pushed from a Paris-bound train.

Julienne said the work “was very much like cinema work, only here we are fortunate enough to be using dummies, which takes a certain amount of pressure off us”.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here