Paul Mantz is undoubtedly the most famous stunt flier in Hollywood history. Mantz earned more than $10 million during his career. Shortly after washing out of Army Flight School in 1927 for buzzing a railroad car, Mantz moved to California and started his own charter air service. He originally found it difficult to break into movies because he was not a member of AMPP. To get union officials to notice him, he set a new world record of 46 consecutive outside loops in July 1930. Soon after, he became a union member. Although Mantz performed many stunts, he specialized in flying through buildings. In 1932, he guided a Stearman plane through a 45-foot-wide aircraft hangar for the film Air Mail. Notably, in a different facet of his aviation career, Mantz won the Bendix Trophy Race three times between 1946 and 1948.
By the late 1950s, although Mantz was still Hollywood's leading individual stunt pilot, he decided to join forces with another outstanding stunt flier named Frank Tallman. Together, the two men formed Tallmantz Aviation in 1961, a new stunt flying operation. Tallman did some of his most outstanding individual stunt work for the 1963 movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World. Some of his stunts included taxing through a plate glass window and flying a plane though an aircraft hanger. The most elaborate trick he performed for the film was flying an airplane through a billboard.
Mantz and Tallman's collaboration did not last long. In 1965, the two men were working on the movie Flight of the Phoenix when Tallman, who was supposed to fly a landing sequence in the Arizona desert, shattered his kneecap during a fall at home, and Mantz took his place. On July 8, Mantz was performing the landing when one of his aircraft's wheels hit a small, sun-baked, mound of sand and caused him to lose control. The aircraft "nosed in" killing Mantz instantly. Tallman, heartbroken by the accident, blamed himself for Mantz's death.
A few days after Mantz's crash, Tallman faced his own individual tragedy when doctors amputated his leg because of a massive infection that had resulted from his broken kneecap. Despite the loss of his leg and his close friend, Tallman retaught himself how to fly using only one leg and returned to stunting. In subsequent years he worked on such films as The Blue Max, Catch 22, The Great Waldo Pepper, and Capricorn One. On April 15, 1978, Tallman, age 58, lost his life during a routine flight when he failed to clear a ridge near Palm Springs, California, due to poor visibility.
Many other Hollywood aviators have established their own unique stunts over the years. Some have specialized in parachute stunts. Others, like Jim Gavin, have become experts at performing helicopter tricks. And still others have worked with such unique devices as "rocketbelts." Undoubtedly, there will be many more stunt pilots who will go even farther than these performers, and each will owe a debt to their predecessors. Thanks to the pioneering aviators of the movie industry, future stunt fliers will have a strong union, strict safety guidelines, and guaranteed wage scales that will help them succeed in the movie business and movie goers will continue to be treated to many more aerial thrills.
--David H. Onkst
Sources and further reading:
Dwiggins, Don. Hollywood Pilot: The Biography of Paul Mantz. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967.
Farmer, James H. Broken Wings: Hollywood's Air Crashes. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1984.
________. Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, Inc., 1984.
Glines, Carroll V. Roscoe Turner: Aviation's Master Showman. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995
Grace, Dick. Crash Pilot. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1956.
________. I Am Still Alive!. New York: Rand McNally and Company, 1931.
________. Squadron of Death: The True Adventures of A Movie Plane-Crasher. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. 1929.
Greenwood, Jim and Maxine. Stunt Flying in the Movies. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, Inc., 1982.
Kessler, Lauren. The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes. New York: Random House, 2000.
O'Neil, Paul. Barnstormers and Speed Kings. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1981.
Ronnie, Art. Locklear: the Man Who Walked on Wings. South Brunswick, UK: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1973
Schultz, Barbara Hunter. Pancho: The Biography of Florence Lowe Barnes. Lancaster, Cal.: Little Buttes Publishing Co., 1996.
Skogsberg, Bertil. Wings on the Screen: A Pictorial History of Air Movies. San Diego: A.S. Barnes & Company, Inc., 1981.
Wynne, H. Hugh. The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots, and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1987.
McClain, Stan. "A History of Hollywood's Aerial Cinematography."
http://www.stan-mcclain.com/airhist.htm
"Dick Grace," 486th Bomb Group.
http://www.486th.org/Photos/crew/DGrace.htm
"Paul Mantz: King of the Hollywood Pilots."
http://www.cineramaadventure.com/mantz.htm
"The Pilots."
http://www.rocketmaninc.com/pilots.htm
"Tallmantz Aviation Collection." Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
http://www.Oscars.org/mhl/sc/tallmantz_173.html
TC
