The great Whitey Hughes, one of Hollywood's top stunt guys for umpty-ump years, died yesterday at the age of 88. He was mostly a "Western guy"
but he did everything else too, including horror/sci-fi: He played one of the Nazi storm troopers in SHE DEMONS, stunted in several of the PLANET OF THE APES
movies, and even doubled women (he stunted for Sandra Knight as the she-monster in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, doubled June Kenney judo-flipping a baddie into
an acid vat in BLOODLUST!, etc.). The crown in his career was stunt-coordinating THE WILD WILD WEST for several years; he also DID a lot of the out-of-control
WWW stunts and fights. I last talked to him about three weeks ago, asking for the loan of a good head shot from the Old Days for my next book of interviews; he
said, "Don't return it -- I've gotta start getting rid of some of this stuff, I ain't gonna live forever!" A great stuntman and a
wonderfully nice guy.
