Bob Hoy
Robert Hoy –
Actor/Stuntman/Director
Robert Hoy appeared as Joe on
The High Chaparral
TV series. He has doubled for Charles
Bronson, Tony Curtis, Robert Forster, Ross Martin, Tyrone Power,
David Janssen, Telly Savalas, Charles McGraw, Jay Silverheels and Abby
Lane. His acting roles in many films include:
Bite the Bullet, The
Outlaw Josey Wales, The Lone Ranger, Gambler II, Nevada Smith, Bronco
Billy, The Enforcer, The Great Race, and TV shows such as
Wanted Dead or Alive, Walker Texas Ranger, JAG, Dallas
(recurring role),
The Wild Wild West, Magnum P.I. (five
episodes), The Young Riders,
and Zorro. He was the 2nd
Unit Director and Stunt Coordinator in Spain on the TV series
Zorro
and on the pilot of The Three Musketeers.
The films in
which lead actors and others were doubled for stunts are too numerous
to mention but include the following: Operation Petticoat, The
Defiant Ones, Spartacus, Tobruk, They Call Me Bruce, Saskatchewan,
River of No Return, To Hell and Back, Drumbeat, Wings of the Hawk,
and Revenge of the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
Bob is also a
founding member of The Stuntmens Association (lifetime membership), a
member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, Directors
Guild of America, AFTRA, and the Screen Actors Guild. |
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Taking the
Falls
By Jack Lewis
Leatherneck
Magazine of the Marines
July, 2002
At one time
65 percent of the Hollywood stuntmen came from the ranks of the
Marine Veterans!
A Marine who
served in WWII, Bob Hoy is still active as a stunt coordinator
and second-unit director. He had just turned 18 when he enlisted
in late 1944. He was at Camp Pendleton, Calif., awaiting
assignment to a unit for the planned invasion of Japan, when the
war ended. He had enlisted "for the duration plus six months"
and soon found himself in the Far East, involved in transporting
Japanese prisoners of war back to their home areas in Okinawa
and Japan proper.
A native of
New York, where he enlisted, Hoy had worked part-time on a dude
ranch in the state's Catskill Mountains from the time he was 7
until he enlisted. Discharged in San Diego in November 1946, he
took a job as a cowboy on a Nevada ranch. His first stunt work
was for a film titled "Ambush" made in 1949. He was called upon
to jump horses over high fences and to do saddle falls.
After that,
his training became an on-the-job matter, but the novice
stuntman was lucky. The late Dave Sharpe, considered by some to
be the best in the business over the years, took Hoy under his
wing. The veteran helped him to learn the ins and outs of not
getting killed on the job.
"All stunts
have an element of danger," Hoy said, "but horses have minds of
their own, and in the two or three seconds of doing a stunt,
things can go wrong."
In spite of
this, he has specialized in horse work, although he has also
been called upon to double in fight scenes, do car work and
handle high falls. Former Marines for whom he has doubled
include the late actors Tyrone Power and Lee Marvin.
In a film
made in 1958, "The Defiant Ones," Hoy doubled for Tony Curtis,
while Ivan Dixon did the same for actor Sidney Poitier. For the
sequence, the two were chained together, trying to escape from
the law in the dangerous rapids of California's Kern River.
"The current
was moving along at about 6 knots," Hoy recalled. "There were
many outcroppings and rocks, some of them below the water. There
also were old fence posts, downed trees, and whirlpools. We were
just passengers; there was no element of control. All we could
do was try to stay alive, but it all looked great on film." He
considers that the most dangerous stunt he has done in his
decades of film work.
With credits as a
second-unit director, Bob Hoy joined the Directors Guild of
American in 1990 and directed a number of "Zorro" television
episodes in Spain. He has also moved into acting in his later
years and has had running parts on a number of series, including
"Walker: Texas Ranger." He also combined acting with stunts on
such Marine-oriented television series as "JAG" and "Pensacola:
Wings of Gold."
With stunt
credits on more than 30 television series and twice that many
features, there is no doubt that Hoy has earned his life
membership in the Stuntmen's Association.
Looking back
over the years, Hoy considers Marine Corps boot camp at Parris
Island, S.C., to be much more demanding than most of the movie
stunts he has performed.
"It was a
time of transformation form boy to man," he said. "It instilled
in us a feeling of self-confidence that has been valuable
throughout later life."
Discharged
after WW II, Robert F. Hoy shipped over in the Marine Corps
Reserve. When the Korean hostilities broke out in 1950, he
volunteered for active duty, but a bad injury to his right leg
caused by a stunt gone wrong precluded further service
"That hurt
more than the actual injury," he recalled these many years
later. "My best memories of those days are of the comradeship of
Marines then and now, the respect and pride on our Corps and
having been a Marine!"
Reprinted
with generous permission of the author and Leatherneck Magazine
of the Marines.
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Abilene
Reporter News
One Burleson meets actor who portrayed hero ancestor
By Ken
Ellsworth
October 21, 2006
Don Burleson, an Abilene businessman, finally met
the man he's wanted to meet since 1986, the actor who played the
part of Texas Revolution hero Edward Burleson in the 1986
television movie ''Gone for Texas.''
Don Burleson is Edward Burleson's cousin five times
removed. Edward Burleson was the first person to be honored with a
burial in what was to become the Texas State Cemetery. The man who
played Col. Burleson in the movie is Robert Hoy, a movie actor and
stuntman since 1949. Hoy was in town for the weekend to support
the Dean Smith Celebrity Rodeo at the Taylor County Fairgrounds.
Hoy and Smith, a famed stuntman in western movies, participated in
dozens of movies together.
Don Burleson met Hoy on Friday following a stuntman
forum held at the Expo Center.
''It was a pleasure,'' Burleson said of meeting
Hoy, who still looks like he can ride and act. ''I had been
wanting to shake his hand and talk with him for a long time.''
Hoy said it was his pleasure, too, to meet Burleson
and Burleson's granddaughter, Samantha Burleson, 6. Samantha
seemed a little overwhelmed by the crowd of actors and stunt
performers, all of whom sported the usual western wear of Stetsons
and boots. Some of those included holsters and pistols with their
outfits.
Hoy's own movie career began in 1949 with the movie
''Ambushed'' and his last movie credit is listed as a television
film named ''Detective'' made in 2005. During that span, Hoy
appeared in 136 movies, according to http://www.imdb.com, an
Internet movie database.
According the Handbook of Texas, Edward Burleson
(1798-1851), originally from North Carolina, came to Texas in
1830, applied for land and was elected lieutenant colonel of the
Austin Municipality militia in 1832. He was a lieutenant colonel
in Gen. Stephen F. Austin's volunteer army and later became its
general. Burleson was a colonel under Sam Houston at the 1836
battle of San Jacinto, which won Texas' freedom from Mexico.
He was also an American Indian fighter and in 1837
became brigadier general of the militia established by the First
Congress of the Republic of Texas. He was elected a senator to the
Third Texas Congress, and in 1844 ran for president of the
Republic, but lost to Anson Jones, again according to the Handbook
of Texas.
Copyright
2006, Abilene Reporter News. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.reporternews.com/
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