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Stunt Arranger George Leech 90Th Birthday
By: Anders Frejdh
Published:
2011-12-06
2011-12-06
With this dedicated page, we would like to send our personal wishes to Mr. Leech on this special day.
"Dear George, happy birthday and warm regards from Sweden."
About George Leech: (thanks to Bondstars)
George Leech first entered the film world after the second world war when, in 1947, he was James Mason's stand-in for Carol Reed's Odd Man Out.
From the late 1950s, he became a "bit part actor" in films such as Port Afrique (1956), And the Same to You (1960) and the wonderful The Guns of Navarone (1961). Keeping in excellent shape, George found a niche for himself as a stunt performer and in 1962 made his first appearance in a Bond film - the first Bond film - Dr. No (1962) in which he played Joseph Wiseman's stunt double.
A couple of years later he was at it again with Goldfinger (1964) - watch carefully and you'll see him in Q-Branch wearing a bullet proof overall, being fired at by a machine gun!
He got a slightly bigger role in Thunderball (1965) when cast as one of Largo's Disco Volante crew, and he performed other stunt parts too in that along with You Only Live Twice (1967), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
TV and film assignments continued with Man in a Suitcase (1967), The Prisoner (1967) and If All the Women in the World (1966).
In 1969 he graduated to become stunt arranger in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and quickly followed up with credits on Kelly's Heroes, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Eagle Has Landed, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Revenge Of The Pink Panther, The Wild Geese, Superman, North Sea Hijack, The Sea Wolves, For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985).
George is one of very few talented stuntmen who actually played James Bond, and not just once, he doubled for three of the actors as 007; Sean Connery in Goldfinger, George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me.
In 2006, George Leech was inducted into the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall Of Fame.
An impressive CV to say the least!
Editor's note:
George is father of stuntwoman Wendy Leech and father in law of Vic Armstrong.
Photo above:
Carole Bouquet and George Leech in a scene set in Greece from For Your Eyes Only. © 1981 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved.
For more information about George Leech' film career, check out his profile on IMDB:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0498543/
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