Richard Graydon

Richard Graydon (12 May 1922 – 22 December 2014) was a British stunt performer and stunt coordinator best known for his work in the James Bond film series.

Richard Graydon
Born(1922-05-12)12 May 1922
Died22 December 2014(2014-12-22) (aged 92)
OccupationStunt performer, stunt coordinator, stunt double,
actor
Years active1952 – 1998

Early life

He was educated at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire and was an amateur jockey and a dancer. He was rejected for service in the RAF in World War II due to a childhood eye injury.

Career

His acting, dancing and horse riding skills were used to good effect in the 1952 film The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men and he then developed a career as a stunt performer. His stunts for James Bond films included toboganning down the Cresta Run in On Her Majesty's Secret Service doubling for George Lazenby and later for Roger Moore in a cable car fight scene 1,000 ft above ground on Sugarloaf Mountain, Brazil in Moonraker. Graydon was shorter than Moore at 5 ft 8in but it was necessary to maintain the height difference with the stuntman doubling for 7 ft 2in Richard Kiel who played Jaws. In the scene he had to fall and then hold on to the roof of the cable car with his hands and did not have his safety harness on. His left hand slipped off the roof but he held on one-handed until he could regain his grip. He became known for his ability to hang onto things high above the ground and was selected for stunts that required that skill.

He married in 1970 and died in December 2014 aged 92.[1]

Selective stunt filmography
YearTitleRole
1968The Charge of the Light Brigadestunt coordinator
1973Don't Look Nowstunt coordinator
1976The Man Who Fell to Earthstunt coordinator
1985Ladyhawkestunt coordinator
1989Batmanstunts
1998Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrelsstunts

Selective actor filmography
YearTitleRoleNotes
1952The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie MenMerrie Man #10
1953Grand National NightChandler
1965ThunderballLargo henchmanUncredited
1967You Only Live TwiceRussian Cosmonaut #2
1968The Charge of the Light BrigadeLord Bingham
1969On Her Majesty's Secret ServiceDraco's DriverUncredited
1971The Last ValleyYuriUncredited
1974Dead CertJockeyUncredited
1977The DuellistsCossack / Hussar
1979Love and BulletsAntonio
1979MoonrakerSpace FighterUncredited
1980North Sea HijackRasmussen
1981Eye of the NeedleHome Guard Private
1983OctopussyFrancisco the Fearless
1985Déjà VuCaptain Wilson
1990Wings of Fame
1990The Fool
1997Shooting FishRacehorse Trainer(final film role)
gollark: blittle?
gollark: PotatOS has a semi-independent VFS/sandbox library, but I had to add a *lot* of patches for sandbox escapes and stuff to PotatoBIOS, so it's hard to use it separately.
gollark: Unless it doesn't.
gollark: Anyway, many of the bugs in potatOS come from stuff like the SPUDNET daemon not being subject to sandboxing, so people can fake events and stuff going to that in increasingly convoluted ways to make it execute code when it shouldn't.
gollark: It was used to provide sandboxed copies of potatOS for testing and stuff.

References
  1. "Richard Graydon - obituary". The Telegraph. 29 December 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.



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