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 Q:
So they did use lots of body-makeup? |
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 A:
Well, she was bare from the bosoms up and her lower back up, which had
to be blended in with body makeup, but all in all being her double was
an experience for me that was a life-changing experience. |
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Q:
How so? |
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A:
Because I pushed myself beyond the levels that I could do. I really
don’t like high work, I never really trained to be a high-fall girl, I
was staying closer to the ground, and I had enough talent in cars and
horses and fights and fire, but I realized that I really could conquer
that fear and go do it. And I was sort of proud of my self. For most
people the fear of heights is the strongest fear in the human body. |
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Q:
Lynda mentioned in one show that they actually used a man for a stunt,
jumping over
something very high? |
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A:
Yes, it was a like a tall water fountain, all made of concrete and
stone, yes, they did use a man. But they put a bandage over his
moustache. It’s amazing, you know, you put that costume on somebody and
you put the action together and the stunt is so amazing you almost you
don’t even think about who’s in the costume. Because there wasn’t a girl
in town that did what he could do. |
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Q:
Did he do many stunts? |
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A:
He did them a couple of times, it wasn’t something they did very often,
and they preferred to bring in trained women, but he came from a circus
background, like an acrobat, and he was pretty amazing. I thought I
would never forget his name…shame on me. |
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Q:
Was it difficult in matching Lynda’s style of movement, such as her
running? She had a very unusual run, with her hands kind of
flat-paddling the air. |
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A:
You know, I had to become Lynda, I was not important in that sequence.
Jeannie wasn’t just stunt doubling for Lynda, I had to become Lynda
because you don’t want to have the audience see a change, so you really
have to blend, and watching her was pretty…it was easy, just watch what
she did, and run like her, mimic her, and it was not a hard task for me.
But she was just very female, and looked very feminine, she didn’t have
that…I think what made her such a hit was she was so beautiful and
feminine with all these awesome abilities. I don’t know if it hindered
her career, I’m not sure, because I know a lot of people think of Lynda
AS “Wonder Woman.” And we don’t realize, you know, we’re all getting
older, and we never think when we’re doing that kind of show that we’re
ever going to get to a point where we’ll be too old to do that anymore.
Because Lynda is still extremely beautiful, but they’re looking for a 22
year-old today. |
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Q:
Do you remember the stunt where she grabs onto the helicopter and is
lifted up? Was that really her? |
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A:
Well, she did do a little of it. Lynda is very gutsy and very athletic
and a lot of her fight work she did herself, and we’d go in and block
the fight out, and actually fine tune it, and she would just come in and
amaze everybody. She could spin and kick and throw punches…you know, the
only reason they wouldn’t really let her do a lot was the danger factor
of losing their star. Otherwise, I think she probably would have done
it. You had to kind of put her on a leash, because she…she enjoyed it, I
think. |
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Q:
I remember her saying that the best times she had on the show was doing
the stunts and fights. Did she have to be taught by you to do them? |
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A:
Yes, of course like anybody, even myself, you had to have a mentor to
lead you and guide you through, and I think the stunt coordinator…there
were several different stunt coordinators, but the one that did most of
the shows was Ron Stein. They became really close because she learned a
lot of fight work from him, and I think she practised quite a bit at Bob
Yurka’s house, the gentlemen who helped me conquer my fears in high
work. She’s got a very quick mind, she learns things really quick, so
sometimes she’d learn a fight routine quicker than me. She was
like…maybe because it’s kind of, it’s my job and I’m kind of harder on
myself, so she could of just come in and do it. So she was confined…they
didn’t let her do the stunts because of her star value, otherwise, who
knows, maybe she would have been a stuntwoman? |
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Q:
Do you remember if any of the stuntwomen ever had problems with the
costume? I’m referring to the story of one woman who….to put it
delicately, fell out of her top? |
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A:
Yeah, it was me! Well, it also happened to Beth Neufer once, and it
happened to me three times. The costume itself would get a little
uncomfortable, because it…from under the breasts, all the way down and
past the waistline it would be like the old stays, or corsets. What
would happen was that they couldn’t do that support in the breast area,
and I remember I had to run out of the room, hit a mini-tramp so I could
go over the edge and tackle the bad lady, and wrestle her down the hill.
Well, I hit the mini-tramp and I’m up in the air and committed and the
costume just kind of like…folded down. So here I am, my boobs showing,
and I know that if I grab for the costume and tuck them back in I’m
going to kill myself, but in my mind I’m thinking “oh my God, my boobs
are showing, oh my God, what shall I do,” and when I hit Donna Garrett,
who was the stunt girl I was fighting with, she and I are trying to put
my costume back on, and rolling down the hill fighting. And Donna and I
still to this day crack up about that! |
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Q:
That was the episode “Wonder Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther”. And you
see where Lynda was used in the close-ups. |
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A:
That’s it! And if your’re smart, you’ll shoot a master shot, then cut in
with the actress. When I did “Romancing the Stone, I did the mud slide
scene, and then they had a little tie-in of Kathleen Turner’s face. |
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Q:
One aspect of the stunts involved the boots, where as they did not use
them with high heels when doing leaps and jumps. Can you recall other
differences in costumes when doing the stunt? |
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A:
Well, I had different wrist bands sometimes, a lot of times I would wear
the metal, the gold kind of wrist bands, and then we had the flexible
kind also, actually I have a pair of them here that I kept. Some were
metal, and they were material painted gold, but they could velcro them
on the back underneath, like on the inside of your wrist. And those were
like for quick pieces, because, sometimes you could actually slice your
wrists open. So we were hoping that episode after episode we were hoping
that people would be looking at the stunts and not what we had on, but
people got wise after a while. I think that someone like you that’s into
the archival stuff, someone who looks at the episodes over and over
again and you can star to see what is and what isn’t. |
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Q:
Was the costume uncomfortable to wear? |
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A:
Sometimes, but it was mostly comfortable. You know we didn’t have a
zipper up the back, we had little hooks and eyes all the way down, and
when I had to go to the little girls’s room, I’d always have to bring
somebody along with me to re-hook me, and that was only the real pain
about the costume. And you didn’t want to eat a great big meal at lunch,
because then you’re….., well, you know. It kept you skinny. And Lynda a
lot of times was able to go in and take her costume off, and put a robe
on, and sometimes I could too, but I usually opted not to, I’d just
leave it on and wear a robe over it. I mean, we had more than one
costume. And I wish that I had kept mine, I wish I could find it, I know
it’s hanging over there in the Warner Brothers lot, but I left the set
for the last time and never thought about getting it. Since they were
made for our bodies, no one else could get into it. I’m sure Lynda has
hers! Not to change the subject, the tv series “Spiderman” was shot
about the same time as “Wonder Woman”, and one of my best friends was
the main stunt man. I remember when I heard he was working on 5th and
Spring and I’m working on 5th and Main and I ran over there and we stood
together and we had somebody take a bunch of pictures of us. Now he kept
his costume, he was smart enough, and somebody has offered him $25,000
for, but he gave it to a museum, because he felt that nobody should put
a price on a costume that is a piece of tv memorabilia.
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Q:
How was Lynda to work with? |
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A:
I got along with her…well, she was just great! She and I liked each
other, and we had a great time together. She became a Christian
(Born-Again) the second season, and I was already was a Christian, and
that just kind of made us even more friendly. You know, we really had to
become one to pull off some of the stuff. And she was such a sweetheart.
My son Curtis would go to school and he would tell everyone that his
Mommy did “Wonder Woman” and of course everyone would say “yeah, sure,
right” and they wouldn’t believe him. So he brought a picture of me in
the “Wonder Woman” costume, but that still didn’t win them over because
now I had a black wig on, so Lynda was kind enough to invite his class
to the set. And that was all her doing…brought them to the set, let them
see me get transformed from Jeannie into Lynda, and now Curtis wasn’t a
liar anymore. Now he was a hero! And the class got to touch the costume
and watch the stunts, and that was all Lynda’s doing, because she had a
kind heart. And I could have been intimidated by her beauty, because I
had the body, but I didn’t have the beautiful face like hers, so I could
have been intimidated, but I chose not to be, I chose just to be
thrilled to be picked as her stunt-double! |
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Q: Which of course isn’t a bad thing to have on your
resume. |
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A: Oh, definitely, and you know, it’s so funny
because I have done a hundred million tougher stunts through my life,
but it’s the “Wonder Woman” that most people want to see, because she’s
the only real superhero we’ve ever really had…you know, her costume is
so much more beautiful than Xena’s, just the whole concept of the beauty
of her in her costume…they’ve never been really able to reproduce that
in any other female superhero! You’d think they’d make a movie, wouldn’t
you? |
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Q: Yes, and I know that Lynda has in the past said that
she is ready to pass on the lasso, or the bracelets, as long as it is
done well. But they would really have to go with an unknown actress,
like it was done with Lynda back in 1975. |
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A: You’re absolutely right, and I think that if
they ever come to that they should hold an open casting call and bring
girls in, and I believe Lynda should be part of the picking! |
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Q: What a great idea! I think that she should also play a
role in the film, even in a cameo. |
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A: Well I think that they would totally miss it if
they didn’t do that with her. |
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Q: Have you kept in touch with Lynda since the series
finished? |
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A: Oh yes, I’ve worked with her several times
since, where she’s requested me to come in and double her on several of
her films. The last thing I did with her was called “Lightning in a
Bottle.” |
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Q: Really? |
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A: Yes, I did her stunts on that, and it was funny,
they tried to pull a fast one a couple of times and Lynda said “no,
Jeannie’s my double and that’s how it’s going to be” and that was the
end of it. |
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Q: Did you do the car stunt, where she hits another car
while driving drunk? |
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A: Yes, I did the car, I did some car stuff for
her, let me think, what else did I do for her? I don’t even remember all
the stuff I did for her, because my father was dying at the time we were
shooting that movie. My dad was dying of cancer, and I’m sort of, my
mind was sort of not in the movie. I don’t remember everything I did,
but I know I did the car work for her. |
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Q: How do you compare yourself with the stuntwomen of
today? |
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A: Well, there’s so much more for a stuntwoman to
get to do in this day and age, more women action films, there’s just so
much more available for stuntwomen. When I was younger, starting out,
men used to double women all the time, it was a common thing they did,
until actresses decided they just didn’t want these old hairy-legged
guys doubling for them anymore when they knew there were some women out
there who could actually do the stuff. Well, you know everybody was
programmed for men to do this, and a lot of men did do it, not because
they were mean, they were trying to protect us girls. They didn’t want
to see us get hurt, they would almost feel guilty like a dad or a
brother. And it’s just kind of that they’re finally learning to trust
women more and more. I think one of the reasons I was so adamant about
“yes, I can do it or no, I can’t do it” was because I wanted them to
trust me. Forty years ago we still battled guys still putting women’s
clothes on, but not so much anymore. |
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Q: How about where the computer animated actors are seen
doing stunts? |
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A: It is scary. The stunt awards were on a couple
of nights ago, I’m on the committee to put that together and we’ve been
submitted all these films, and it’s really hard to find five or six
pieces of film to put out there for the community to vote on that don’t
have some kind of CGI. It’s hard! |
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Q: Yes, you have to say that this is a person actually
risking their life, not some computer animated figure you are watching. |
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A: You know, it’s funny, but Michael Bay, (director
of “Pearl Harbor”) whether people like him or they don’t like him,
there’s a lot of mixed emotions about Michael, he likes to use real
people. He thinks that the thrill of watching a real person conquer an
awesome stunt is much more thrilling to an audience. And you know there
are a few directors who are trying to hang on to the old way of doing
it. I don’t know if it’s so much cost effective to do the CGI, I think
it’s not as expensive as it used to be. But it still looks like it if
fake, and anybody that’s got an educated eye can see it. |
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Q: It is really sad that this has happened. |
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A: Yes, and you know, there are times when I think
this is really necessary when it comes down to somebody’s life being in
jeopardy, but that isn’t that often. And we’re all pretty educated, and
these guys know how to build these cars and put people in them to keep
them safe. I mean, when they build these NASCAR cars and they survive
200 miles an hour crashes! I just don’t know why, maybe it is because
that they can just get more fantasy into their movies, I guess, like
“Spiderman.” |
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Q: You are such a fascinating person to talk to, I want
to thank you so much for letting me interview you! |
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A: Well, you know what it is, I think it’s because
I’ve walked the walk, I’ve lived the life, I’m still living the life,
I’m still working as much as I possibly can, and I’m still out there. I
worked on “2 Fast 2 Furious” for two and a half months, in all those car
chases. They brought in all of these young guys, and they brought about
ten of us old duffers so that we could…just our experience, we could
help pull off some of this stuff, to keep these kids too cocky and
getting hurt, and not one person got hurt on that entire show! Because
Terry Leonard was smart enough to bring in…I guess long in the tooth is
a good name for all of us! And thanks for including me in your archives! |
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Special
Thanks to JEANNIE
EPPER. |
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