Hollywood stuntman-turned-writer/director Hal Needham has performed on 4500 TV shows and in 310 feature films, launching his body (and automobiles, trucks, and speedboats) stunning distances into the firmament, usually amidst fireworks and gunshots and fireballs aimed at his person. Not surprisingly, the man has broken 56 bones and his back (twice). If you're an American male, you've seen him wreck a whole bunch of stuff, which, in a circuitous way, makes you an American male.
Needham is certainly an American male, and here's proof: After attending a NASCAR race, he picked up a hooker at a hotel bar, who slipped him a Mickey, then robbed him of his jewelry. Four months later, attending a NASCAR race at the same track, he picked up another hooker at the same hotel, who slipped him a Mickey, then robbed him of his jewelry.
Needham's 307-page bio is mostly a relentless, self-congratulatory compendium of "Hey, watch this!" moments in which he proves he can do what his colleagues all insisted was impossible, simultaneously demonstrating emphatically—over and over—that the movies' producers and directors are all pretty much nitwits, regularly outsmarted by "Ol' Hal."
Okay, fine. What do we care about the testosteronal zeitgeist of American moviemaking? Our intellectual curiosity extends to issues far more complex—to the exigencies of the Human Condition itself. Which is why we ask, "Dude, what about Burt Reynolds and Brock Yates in The Cannonball Run, the most glorious cinematic creation in human history? Huh?"
On that topic, Needham reveals that Reynolds, who'd just finished Smokey and the Bandit (written and directed by Needham), claimed he was done with car chases and would never again drive more than 35 mph in front of a camera. But when he was offered $5 million for 14 days of shooting, Reynolds replied: "I know all about you and that crazy Brock Yates and your loony race across the country. I've told people, and I'm telling you now, I've always thought it would make a helluva movie." In the end, Cannonball was shot in 32 days for $15 million with Needham directing. It made so much money that Cannonball Run II ensued, making its premiere at—where else?—the Cannes Film Festival.
Light reading at its lightest.
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Stuntman! My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping, Bone-Breaking, Death-Defying Hollywood Life by Hal Needham; Little, Brown and Company; 307 pages; $25.99
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Source: http://blog.caranddriver.com/hal-needhams-stuntman-book-review/
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