Loren Janes | Hollywood stuntman, 85

Loren Janes, 85, who in film after film, leaped from speeding trains, jumped from towering cliffs, and roared through city streets in gravity-defying car chases, died June 24. He had Alzheimer's disease.

A lifelong Los Angeles resident, he outlived many of the actors he was hired to double in scenes deemed too risky for a celebrity.

That's him flying headlong into a saguaro cactus in How the West Was Won. That's him tumbling down a staircase alongside a drunken John Wayne in McLintock! And that's him - not Steve McQueen - fishtailing down Tyler Street in San Francisco at 90 mph in Bullitt.

When a script called for Esther Williams to leap from an 80-foot cliff in Jupiter's Darling, Mr. Janes pulled on a wig, swimming attire, and jumped into the ocean. He did the same for McQueen, a temperamental actor who liked to do his own stunt work and seemed put out when the director told him he wanted Mr. Janes to do the dirty work in an escape scene in Wanted Dead or Alive.

"So I ran and dove through the window, turned a complete somersault, landed on my feet, ran, hit the corner of that wooden walkway, and vaulted over two horses, cleared them totally, lit on the third horse, which was Steve's, in the saddle and grabbed it and off and around the corner."

McQueen was so impressed, Mr. Janes told National Public Radio in 2001, that he agreeably deferred stunt work to Mr. Janes thereafter. The two went on to work together for 21 years.

Mr. Janes joined the Marines during the Korean War. He made the U.S. Olympic team in 1956 and again in 1964, both times competing in the pentathlon. He was still teaching when he heard that MGM was looking for a stuntman to fill in for Williams during the cliff-jumping scene and took the assignment. Within six months, he'd done stunt work on seven movies.

- Los Angeles Times