The Guardian (11/Jul/2001) - Obituary: Russell Saunders

(c) The Guardian (11/Jul/2001)

Russell Saunders

Stuntman who modelled for Dalí's healthy Christ

Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross, which hangs in the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, in Glasgow, shows the young and strong body of the crucified Christ hovering over a landscape. There are no nails, no crown of thorns, nor other signs of physical torment. "My principal preoccupation was that my Christ would be as beautiful as the God that he is," Dali said. Appropriately, his model was a 32-year-old Hollywood stuntman, Russell Saunders, who has now died aged 82.

Saunders, whose sculptured build caught the Spanish surrealist's eye, had no idea who Dali was when, in 1950, he was asked to pose for one of the most famous of 20th-century paintings. Clad only in bathing trunks, he was tied to a cross and hung from the studio ceiling at 20-minute intervals for full-day sessions, for which he was paid $450 a week. It was the climax of the long career of a man who did stunts for Gene Kelly, Richard Widmark, Alan Ladd and Steve McQueen, among many others.

The youngest of eight children, Saunders was born on a farm outside Winnipeg. His first recorded stunt was jumping from a barn roof while holding two chickens in each hand, convinced that he would fly. Later, he went to a summer camp specialising in acrobatics and, at the age of 20, became Canadian diving champion.

After being rejected by the Royal Canadian Air Force because of colour-blindness, he moved to Los Angeles, and soon headed for Muscle Beach, Santa Monica, where great acrobats went to practise and show off. He quickly became a star, somersaulting over 14 people at a time.

With his qualifications, it was inevitable that Saunders would enter the films, and, in 1940, he appeared - for one of the few times as himself - as part of a troupe of acrobats in The Great Profile. His career took off in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), when he stood in for Robert Cummings, who, pursued by both police and fifth columnists, appeared to jump out of a car, spring from a 60-foot bridge, and swim 100 yards while handcuffed.

During the second world war, Saunders volunteered as a US army paratrooper, but was later assigned to an armed forces aquacade in England. Later, he resumed his stunt work, notably doubling for Gene Kelly in three MGM movies.

The athletic Kelly did most of his own leaping about as the flamboyant strolling player Serafin in The Pirate (1948), and as the swashbuckling D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1948) - though he left the more dangerous stunts to Saunders. In the latter, the stunt man jumped from rooftops and descended into a window by clinging to the threads of a ripped flag.

Nonetheless, Kelly, who was not prepared to give credit where credit was due, declared: "I'm not particularly brave, but being a dancer, the public knew the way my body moved, and if someone else was to double for me, the illusion would be spoiled." Nonetheless, in Singin' In The Rain (1952), Saunders doubled for Kelly.

In 1953, he stood in for Alan Ladd in the bar-room brawl in Shane, and continued to do stunt work until almost 70 - especially in disaster movies such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno and Earthquake (both 1974) and The Hindenburg (1975).