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TERRY LEONARD: BLONDES AND HARD GROUND, PART 2
When last we left Terry Leonard, he was recovering from nearly being dragged to death under a Nazi truck in the deserts of Tunisia while shooting Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Leonard’s next adventure would be with his dear old friend John Milius on the director’s perhaps most famous film, CONAN THE BARBARIAN where he would face not only more hard ground, but a memorable blonde, too. Conan was supposed to get started before Raiders in 1980 in Yugoslavia, but a little thing called the Soviet Empire got in the way of that.
We were going to go to Yugoslavia, and [Josip Broz] Tito, the dictator of Yugoslavia, is on his deathbed and is plugged into the wall. He dies. Now there’s Russian troops on the Yugoslavian border and no money man in the world is going to let a movie go to Yugoslavia. So they cancel Conan.
With Leonard drawn and quartered between two demanding stuntman jobs—Spielberg’s Raiders and Milius’s Conan—things got a little hairy with him ducking out of his Raiders responsibilities after passing the torch to fellow stuntman and good friend Glenn Randall, Jr. Leonard would step back onto Raiders to do the famous truck sequence that we covered in part one only to return to Conan the following year when the production finally got up and running in non-Soviet-occupied Spain.
We ask whether CONAN THE BARBARIAN ranks up for them in terms of memories, friends, and 8x10s the way a film like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK does.
Has to be. It’s Milius. And it was Sandahl [Bergman, the gorgeous (blonde) actress who played Valeria, Conan’s love interest and partner in Hyborian crime]. What an adventure, to be in Spain for six months and to work with all those people. See, to me the movie business isn’t the movie business. It’s getting paid to laugh. And good lord knows that I haven’t laughed sometimes. They’ve hauled me off, and I’ve heard the sirens, laying in the back of some rig taking me to the hospital. It’s funny, I told my boys, who are both in the business now, doing really good. When they wanted to get in the film business, I’m trying to talk them out of it, cause I see the hand writing on the wall. I’ve seen CG, I’ve seen wire work, I don’t see the stunts that I got to do as a stuntman, and I don’t see the stunts that the guys before me did as stuntmen, which, I just can’t believe what they did. The horse stuff, sliding horses into the water off of a thirty foot cliff. Stuff that I would do in a heartbeat, but, they just did it every day. There were television series with fifteen westerns on, guys were going from one studio to the next, packing a bag, go fall a horse there, wreck a wagon there. It was the glory days of motion picture stuntmen. And I’m watching it get diminished now to numbers. Two to three thousand kids trying to do it. Some of them have no business being in the business, but you can make some good business, and you do have fun. I don’t deny anybody any of that. But I’m seeing the direction the film business is going in. And, is there going to be a film business for my sons in 10 years? Definitely not like I had it. And I certainly wouldn’t want them to go through the injuries I’ve been through, or risk their life like I did, so I’m trying to talk them out of it. And they got a little testy with me. “All you say is negative stuff, but look – you got this house, and you’re driving that car, you got these horses.” I said yeah boys, but there’s a price to pay. Let me show you. So we go in the den. And I finally get them in there and point out stuff that’s happened. I said, “This stunt I blew my ear drum open, had to have surgery. This one I broke my back. This one I got knocked down on. This one I shattered my collarbone and dislocated my shoulder. This one I tore my knee up and they had to send me home to get a doctor’s clearance, I took the doctor by the neck and choked him and said, you’re gonna let me go back on this movie cause I’m doubling the second lead, I’m playing a part on it.” It was Rio Lobo, with John Wayne. So, I’m telling them, trying to be humorous and telling them about this stuff that went on. And they finally looked at me after telling them all this **** that went on, and they said, “Dad, did you ever do any one of these right?” (Laughs) I said, “Boys, I’ll help ya.” And they’re in the business and doing really good, and I’m really proud of them. Everybody likes them. I told them, “Don’t be a phony, be a good person, have a lot of humor, don’t kiss anybody’s ass but don’t take any **** from anybody. Don’t get contested when you don’t. Be your own man. You’re gonna make way more money because they like you, for a real reason, then you’re ever gonna make by being the most talented stunt men in the business.” Some of the most talented stuntmen in the business hardly made a dime, because nobody wanted them around.
On what Leonard did for CONAN THE BARBARIAN:
I coordinated and directed second unit. I directed Arnold a couple of times. I did a fall down a tunnel, like a silo [a well]. [I also] did some Running Ws and did some toe tappers, which is a version of running Ws where you cable a horse.
We ask the obvious. “What’s a running W?”
It’s where you cable a horse down [to make the horse appear to fall, as if shot or otherwise wounded, and throw the rider]. The thing the humane society screams about. Yakima Canutt [John Wayne’s most famous stunt double] did 314 of them, never hurt a horse. I’ve done dozens and dozens of them, and never hurt a horse. The humane society doesn’t like them. They killed a horse back in the ‘40s with a running W. Shouldn’t have happened, but like any accident it shouldn’t have happened. ****, they killed three of them making LUCK, with Michael Mann. I don’t think they shut the show down because they hurt horses, I mean they hurt a lot of horses down there every day, training. They’re running two year old and three year old, their knees aren’t closed, their legs aren’t developed, but it had to happen on either a TV show or a movie. Well, I don’t know much pressure they got because of the animal rights people. Part of it I think maybe had something to do with it, maybe it was an excuse to shut the show down, I don’t know. When you’re dealing with livestock, some of them are gonna get hurt. When you’re doing stunts with people some of them are going to get hurt. I guard my reputation as never having hurt an animal on a movie set, with all the stuff I’ve done. I got paid to make **** look bad. On Conan the Barbarian, I took a horse off a hill. The end of the movie, the final fight, and… the princess, is strapped on the top of the hill in chains on this wooden yardarm. And in the end I take this horse down, and he goes end over end over end over end, through a bunch of pongee sticks. And those pongee sticks are looking up like this into the hill. And I go through them. I’m going ahead of the horse. They’re made out of rubber. You don’t want to get them in your eye, cause they have sharp ends on them. But I somersault this horse of this hill, and it looks like it’s going on forever. Somebody called in, the humane people, going “What about that horse?” They’re angry, that this horse went end over end down that hill, through these pongee sticks. So they got a hold of Milius. Wrong, wrong guy to get a hold of. I’m paraphrasing now, cause I wasn’t there, but John said “Well, did you see a man – when the horse fell down, did you see a man go through the pongee sticks first?” “Well, yes.” “Do you think we would sacrifice a man going through live pongee sticks that were made out of bamboo, meant to kill people like they did in Vietnam?” “Well, no.” “Then what do you think happened to the horse? The horse went through the same rubber pongee sticks.” “Did you see the horse get up? “Yes.” “Did you see the man get up?” “No.” “What do you think happened to the man, you think he died?”
I’m paraphrasing. He lit into them. I mean they’re so stupid. I mean I’m all for taking care of animals and treating them properly, and not abusing them. We monitor their temperature; we don’t run them when we don’t need to. When they start to sweat and overheat like a car radiator we swap them out, we cool them off, get another horse in there. I’m way ahead of the humane department, or any animal rights people. I directed the opening sequence of THE HORSE WHISPERER, where the truck hits the horse. People go “Ahhh!!!!!” when this horse gets hit. Give me a break. Do you think I really hit a horse with an 18 wheeler with cargo on a trailer? I mean, the fact that they get upset with me tells me I’m doing my job. But don’t bag on me and make me look like a bad guy because I’m hurting animals. There’s no way. ********.
We ask Leonard if he owns horses himself.
I’ve got some of the best horses buried out in the ******** yard on my ranch. That’s how much I think of them. I got a horse out there that’s eating $18.95 a bale of hay right now, and he’ll never be ridden again. Old Roney. His knees are so bad, every day I go out and look at him. When he starts showing me pain that he can’t take, and I’m not gonna junk him every day cause that’ll kill him through his kidneys. That horse starts showing me pain, where he can’t do what he does, where he runs in off the pasture, I turn him loose. When it rains or it snows I put all the horses in the barn, he’ll run 150 yards full speed. The day that he walks, or can’t do that, he’s gonna get put down, because of the pain. And he’ll get put down on my ranch. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for every animal. And to these people who got on me about being inhumane, of course they’ve never said it, because I’ll take them to court, but...
We ask Leonard whether it was good to be reunited with Harrison Ford again on COWBOYS & ALIENS.
Oh god yeah. I rodeo’d Jackson Hole on the fourth of July, and when I was rodeoing hard, before these hip surgeries. After Raiders, [Harrison] bought a place up there. I’d call him on the phone and he’d come down to the rodeo grounds on his motorcycle with his helmet on, nobody knew who he was. I’d park my trailer way out in the back so people aren’t running over to him for an autograph and ****. And yeah, we had a good time. Crotchety son of a *****. “What do you want me to do now Leonard?” I said, “Well I don’t know, can you do it?” Just messing around. I did FIREWALL with him, and I’ll tell you what, if you don’t keep your eye on him, he’ll get you in trouble. Cause he wants to do everything, and rightly so. He did all that stuff on FIREWALL, down the stairs, and over a balcony, I said ****, Harrison, come on man.
It’s like when we did the first Jackie Chan movie. They sent me over to Hong Kong because they were afraid that Jackie was going to take the stunts away from Brett Ratner. They were afraid he was gonna come over here and play Hong Kong. They can get away with that over there. Jackie breaks a leg, they shut down for six months. Can’t do that over here. So they sent me over to Hong Kong for five days to hang out with Jackie, so that Jackie would get to like me. And I could tell him, you know Jackie, you’re not doing this stunt, right? Costs them a lot of money to do that. So I didn’t hang out with Jackie for the first two and a half days. I hung out with one of his buddies, Ken Lone, who is the all-Asian full contact Karate champion, some kind of, kind of a forerunner of MMA. Mixed Martial Arts. He’s driving a Porsche, I’m riding with him, everybody else is riding with Jackie, and finally we started hanging out and we got to be friends. It worked out pretty good. And the quote I’m gonna make—we’re getting ready to 170 ft descender off of the top of the LA sports arena—and Jackie wanted to do it. And I said, “Naw Jackie, you ain’t doing it.” And he messed with me. This is going on for a week and a half, or two, whatever. He said (JC Impression), “Ah, Terry, I want to do it!” I said, “No Jackie, you ain’t doing it. And finally, I think I’m going to have a confrontation with him. Not a confrontation, but you know, you gotta quit jacking around and say, “Okay Jackie, this is the deal, you’re not doing it.” Which that came to, but with no anxiety or animosity. Just two old duffers they’re trying to convince each other he shouldn’t do it. So he finally said, “Ah, Terry, I think this is a better idea. We are both getting a little older.” (laughs) I put my arm around him and gave him a hug. I thought I was a stunt guy until I met Jackie Chan. Wow. What an athlete. We’re over in Bourneil, doing a movie with Milius called Farewell to the King – no, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. Farewell to the King was another one we did in Morocco with Sean Connery. Nick Nolte. And we’re in a town called Kuching. And there’s nothing to do at night. I don’t want to go to the gin mills and stuff. I’m swimming a lot of laps and all that, and Terry Jackson, who I had over there doubling Nick Nolte, he said come on, we’re going to go see this Jackie Chan movie. I hadn’t heard of Jackie Chan. We went to go see this Jackie Chan movie in this theater and I went, you gotta be kidding me. Cause I don’t see the cuts, I don’t see it put together. I see a camera on Jackie Chan the whole time, and I know enough about film to know that this isn’t bull****. He’s doing it. And we go to see a couple of Jackie Chan movies and I said you gotta be kidding me Terry. Then he starts telling me, because he’s a big Jackie Chan fan. I’m a big Rodeo cowboy fan, I don’t know nothing about Jackie Chan. If I’m not working on a movie, I’m rodeoing. So he tells me all about Jackie Chan, and then we go to see some of the movies in that little river town called Kuching. And I went, “Oh my god.” The stuff he’s done, I’m in awe of Jackie Chan. In awe. Wow. And tough stuff, not just flip flops and gymnastics and roundoffs and backflips. I’m talking about ****. And he gets hurt, and he’s wearing a hat like all of us. If you dance with the devil, you’re gonna get burned. If you tease the dog on the chain, one day you’re gonna go by there and the distance between that dog and you… you’re gonna make a mistake, and that dog is gonna get you.
But despite the dogs of fate trying to get at him all the time, does Leonard stil love it?
Oh man, if I didn’t have these hips? If I could be a stuntman, doing the stunts I’ve done throughout my career, doing that at my age. And I feel if I didn’t have these hip problems, I probably could. I couldn’t run as fast, or jump as far, but I mean, the rest of me is pretty damn good, in spite of all the injuries I’ve had. But my hips are prohibitive. I can’t run, I can’t jump. Getting on a horse is pretty funny. I can still ride them, but getting on and getting off is… I laugh. And on a camera car, I tell Lee Nashville, I said, “Lee, I used to jump over your camera cars, and jump off of them from the top platform. Now I can’t even get on the damn thing.” They all laugh, ya know. It’s better to have done it, then to never have done it at all. The thing that introduced me the most to my lack of invincibility—when you’re twenty-five years old, twenty-four, you think there ain’t nothing in the world that’s gonna whip you. Mohammed Ali, come on. You just don’t even think about it. When I got hurt in Canada, it was the greatest lesson I’ve ever had and the most depressed I’ve ever been. Cause it was the end of my athletic career. From 7th grade on, Olympic trials, college, a little bit of pro, high school, everything I’ve done was being an athlete. And then it came to an end. I sat and looked at the wall for two days, and said I can’t believe that it’s over. I got in the movie business. I got introduced to Yakima Canutt, he was the second unit director on A MAN CALLED HORSE, I was the stunt coordinator, doubled Richard Harris, and played the part of Striking Bear, who kills his wife.
As mentioned earlier, Yakima Canutt was John Wayne’s stuntman through the majority of his career, and probably one of the most famous stuntmen to have ever lived. The fact that Leonard’s career overlapped with his is, as they say in the business, “a big deal.”
We did RIO LOBO, we did BREAKHEART PASS, and for four months I hung around him like a puppy dog. When I decided that this was what I was gonna do for a living, I saw the brilliance in this man, so I never left his side. I was like a sponge. A lot of guys would go and play hearts, and I like to play hearts too, and they’ll hang out in the dressing room and play Hearts and play Pitch and goof around, all that stuff. I was always down with the camera crews. Not the A camera, where all the politics are, but the B, C and D cameras that were laid out on an action sequence way down the road with the long lenses and everything. I’d go hang out with the camera operators, while everybody’s out playing cards and all that. I saw, the lesson I learned playing ball was that I can get hurt. Believe or not, Ladies and Gentleman, Terry Leonard can get hurt! And I thought, what happens now? I’m 30 years old. You’re 30, you think, what are you gonna do if you get hurt? Then I got around Yak and I thought, “That’s what I want to do. Cause I would see stuff to my eye that looked spectacular, and I’d go to dailies, nobody got invited to dailies back then, only the special people. I got invited to dailies, and I’d go to dailies. Not that I didn’t go to bars too and have my share of fun, but I made it… I’m kind of patting myself on the back now, and I don’t mean to. I’m just trying to exemplify the lesson that I learned, which was that I could get hurt, and it could end. This business that I love so much, it could end. How are you gonna keep your hand in the game? You’re just a… stunt guy, packing a sack. Going around the world playing cowboys and Indians and having a good time. What if it ends, what am I gonna do? Nobody’s gonna take this face and make me an actor for chrissake, I could turn a funeral up an alley. So I said, that’s what I wanna do. I went to dailies and I said, “Why doesn’t this look that good on film?” I was standing right there and it looked terrific. So then I started going to these cameramen, these operators, from the B and C cameras that are scattered over, and look. Most of that stuff is long lens stuff, so you’re on a 10 to 1 or something, and they’d let me play with it, and I’d go, “Oh man, what about this size for that stunt?” And they’d say, “Oh yeah, that’s the size I would use, but the director wants this.” And I said, “Oh ****, that’s the answer!” Through this little piece of ground glass, is where the world comes together. You leave Los Angeles in a big giant airplane, ya got 1000 people working on a movie, it all comes down to this. Forget about all that other stuff. We can see it. This is where it’s at. It’s like when they went to Africa and they let the first African look through a camera. “How you get so many people in this little box?” You know…that was a classic line. It’s all about that. So then I started trying to learn. You could go to USC film school, I’m not going to USC film school, I’m working every day. So I’d go pester those Joe Valentine, the names are just… I’d go pester them, I’d sit with them and say let me play with that. They’d say, “Yeah, come on.” They’re down there for hours, they’re sending water to them. No one’s doing anything. They’re sitting there on apple boxes waiting for that one shot. So I’d go down there and talk to them. “When you change shutter speed, what does that do? When you change lens size…” I just started playing around. And then I doubled Dick Boone on BIG JAKE, and I’d worked with him on…I’ll think of it in a minute. He ended up doing – I doubled him in BIG JAKE, and then he starred in a thing called HEC RAMSEY, at Universal, a [TV] series. And I doubled him on that, and was the stunt coordinator. But it was an alternating hour show. There were three other shows they alternated with. So we’d go to a work for a couple of weeks, and then we’re down. And one day he called me into his dressing room, and he said, “Hey Terry, what do you want to do with you career?” I went, “****, I want to keep doing stunts.” He said, “No really, what do you want to do with your career?” He had started Hal Needham on HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL. I said Dick, “I’d really like to direct second units. I had no aspirations of being a director, I wanted to direct the action.” He said, “Okay, I’ll help you.” Well I thought that was just a lot of Hollywood bull**** like I’ve heard from… I mean I could write a book on the crap I’ve heard. On the people who have looked me in the eye and were so sincere, but you learn real quick to just take that with a grin, and a dose of salt. And say, “You bet. Thanks.” (laughs) So I figured it was gonna be the same way with old Boone.
This is [19]72. Harold Jack Bloom was the producer, and Dick called me in to his dressing room one day. He always had a tie on. And I had doubled him on a couple other pictures, and we got to be pretty ******** good friends. So he calls Harold Jack Bloom in. “Harold, get up here!” Twice he told him that. He said, “We want to get Terry in the director’s guild, how do we do that?” Of course, that’s a big move. Harold Jack Bloom was squirming, and Dick Boone was growling, and they said, “Well, he’s gotta get a job number 1, he has to get an assignment, then we have to send his entry fee to the DGA, and get three directors to sign his ticket. Then he’s in.” To get in the DGA back then, I think it was $2,000. So the first season goes by, and I’m not in the director’s guild. Second season, what happened. They didn’t call me… “Harold, get up here!” (DB impression) You hear the electric cart cruise up outside, that all the ADs and production managers use, those little grey carts…he comes up to the door, knocks, “Come in! Leonard’s not in the guild, how do we get him in? (DB impression) I said, “God damnit, he’s real.” Forget the totty… So from Universal Studios that day went the letter to the guild. My first assignment was BIRDS OF PREY, I got three directors, Dick took it down to Harry Morgan, and Boone was a director, he signed it, and then Dick—I’ll think of his name in a minute—he signed it. It went to the guild, and Boone said to Universal, “You’re gonna pay this entry fee for him.” So the next week I get a stunt, and I pay the studio back, it was a $2,000 stunt. And they said, “You’re in.” I directed one day, one day prep, one day of BIRDS OF PREY, out there at Moorpark college, and from then on – I’d only been in the business six years! And I’m already wanting to direct. Because I saw the future, and I knew I was gonna get screwed up some day. And thank god with all these hip surgeries now, I’d be completely out of the business, except for getting a day here and a day there driving cars. So…every time I got a stunt coordinating job, I was pushing for it. I directed so many 2nd units where I was doing the stunts, I was setting the cameras, all that stuff. ROMANCING THE STONE, got killed going off the waterfall, laid all that stuff out with the stunt coordinator, 2nd unit director on ROMANCING THE STONE. USED CARS, I’m cannoning end over end, but I’m setting the cameras and then getting strapped in the car. I’m doing it all. They don’t let you do that anymore. 2nd units are too big a deal. It’s too pompous.
On having been the guy doing the stunts and whether it gave him a unique perspective when he was standing behind the camera.
Oh yeah. It didn’t make me a better director. Just because you’ve played the game doesn’t mean you’re gonna be a better coach, but it sure helps. So that was the deal. I’d promote myself, I’d say, “Guys,” I’d get hired as the stunt coordinator and/or the double, and I’d say, “Now listen, if you guys ever break to a second unit, I would like to be considered. I’m not asking for the job, I’m asking to be considered.” [and then they’d say] “Oh yeah Terry – you bet!” So I started building my resume. All the sudden, that’s what I do for a living now! But I think for the Canadian Football League, because it introduced me to a mindset that I would have never had. I’d have gone down the road laughing and scratching, doing stunts until I got so fouled up that I couldn’t do anything anymore, and I’d be out of the business.
[Second Unit directing is] the next best thing to doing it. And like I said, if I could carry on my career in the movie business doing the kind of stunts I did when I was younger, that would make me the happiest. That would be my top choice. My second top choice, since I can’t do that stuff anymore, my next top choice is to direct it. To keep my hands in it and be creative. I love going in there and creating sequences like I did on GANGSTER SQUAD. We had the studio heads… and I said, “This is what I think we might be able to do.” At the end of the presentation I get a round of applause from everybody that’s standing around there looking at it. I’m going, “Whoa, wait a minute, how many days do I have to do this?” Now I’m back in reality, you know? We’re gonna do this, and he’s gonna flip there, and he’s gonna come around here and throw a 180, and I’m going through this whole thing and I’m like, “Yeah!” And they’re going “Yeahhhh!!” like this, right? Then I back up and I go, to Tadross, who produced it, my old friend Mike. “How do I get this done in seven days? And then we got rained out, and then we had the actors for a night, but we put enough stuff together to get a chase. I wish I had had another four days. So to answer your question, that’s the next best thing. I see a lot of young kids coming in, I get to work with them, guys who I don’t know but they ‘re coming highly recommended like I did when I first got my break. I’ll never forget the night I fell a horse “Cocaine”, which was Chuck Roberson’s falling horse back in the day when stuntmen were known for their horses in the Western era. Cocaine was the most famous falling horse, got four Patsy awards from the American Humane Association, I’m doubling the second lead Jorge Rivero, in a John Wayne movie, and it’s 10 o’clock at night and I’m falling the horse. And here comes John Wayne’s Pontiac, with the roof made up – it’s dark green, George Coleman’s driving, and Wayne’s in the car. He’s got that roof that was big enough – he’s so big, if he put his hat on, it would go right into the roof, so they put the car up like that. I think Barris Customs built the car. It’s a Pontiac Station wagon. It comes rolling in and Roberson goes, “Hey Duke, what are you doing here? And he goes, (JW impression) “I came to see the kid fall the Coke.” That’s like going to the super bowl, and you try to kick a field goal to win the game. I’m falling the most famous horse in the movie business, on a John Wayne movie, if I miss that horse I’m never gonna get a job again in the movie business as a horseman. Our own version of pressure. It’s not to win a million dollar Super Bowl, it’s 110 people on that movie set with Wayne watching, and I gotta lay this horse down at a full gallop. It’s my career. And I missed him, he was in the wrong lead as I came through, and I didn’t want to take him. I knew I’d get… I just knew. When you’re falling a horse you gotta get him in this lead, you can’t get him in that lead. And he started off and he didn’t get in the correct lead, and I ran him through the spot, cameras are rolling, and I don’t fall him. The whole set went quiet. “Can he do it?!” You know? What great moments, you know….
We stop to marvel at how many film legends Leonard has worked with.
I’ve been blessed. I’ve been really blessed. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. You think of all the guys that could have done that stunt under the truck in Raiders, and became famous for that one stunt, which wasn’t that tough to do. Like I said, the toughest thing in the world was getting that ******** Arab (horse) to the truck.
We thank Terry Leonard for his taking the time to talk to us and tell us all these wonderful stories. He responds:
Aw, ****. If it ain’t true, it ought to be.
Click here to see TERRY LEONARD: BLONDES AND HARD GROUND, PART 1
http://www.therpf.com/f45/prop-store-first-look-terry-leonard-blondes-159311/
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