Stuntmen look for Oscar respect

LOS ANGELES - They jump from skyscrapers, crash cars and set themselves on fire for movies, but when it comes to Oscars, Hollywood's stuntmen can't get any respect.

Four groups representing film stuntmen plan to press the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a new Academy Award category next year honoring the highly dangerous work that fills so many modern movies.

The effort to create a category for stunt coordinator - the men and women who dream up, then execute the flashy film work - is being pressed by 20-year industry veteran Jack Gill, a former president of one of the groups, Stunts Unlimited.

Joining it are the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, the International Stunt Association and Brand X, all of which represent hundreds of people who create and perform film stunts.

"I can't tell you why they refuse us a category," said Gill, who has been asking the Motion Picture Academy for a stunt category for 15 years. "At the most, I thought it would take five," he said.

The Academy Awards are the US film industry's top honors given out each year by the Motion Picture Academy.

While there is an Oscar category for special effects, called "visual effects," and awards for technology advances, the Motion Picture Academy has never had an Oscar category for the men and women who risk their lives for Hollywood action.

Conrad Palmisano, president of the Stuntmen's Association, said for years there was a tradition among stuntmen to remain in the background, but for decades stunt work has been among the most memorable scenes in movies.

Imagine 2003's Oscar-winning "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" without its hand-to-hand combat or 1969's Oscar-nominated "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" without Butch and Sundance jumping off a cliff into raging river.

"For what we do, why shouldn't we be acknowledged for the work," said Palmisano.

Jon Pavlik, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Academy, acknowledged the work done by the stunt groups, but said the group's Board of Governors is reluctant to add new categories for several reasons, including that each new honor might diminish the importance of the current awards.

The board is very, very, reluctant to add new categories," he said. "You just got to keep trying. and sometimes you will ultimately succeed, and sometimes you won't."

He said the earliest the issue might come up would be at the board's next meeting in May. In the past, Gill said he has raised the issue a few months before the Academy Awards ceremony. This year's Oscar telecast takes place on Feb. 27.

The most recent addition in the 77-year-old award show was a best animated feature Oscar for 2002, and it took Hollywood's animators decades to get that approved.

Only one stunt man has been recognized for his work in the movies, and that was Yakima Canutt, who was given an honorary Oscar in 1967 for creating such scenes as the legendary chariot race in "Ben Hur."

- REUTERS