Last modified on Fri 28 May 2021 12.58 EDT
Roy Scammell, who has died aged 88 following a short illness, was one of Britain’s leading film and television stuntmen – for more than three decades he was considered the best high-fall man in the business.
He stood in for some of cinema’s most famous names during action sequences, including Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas and Deborah Kerr. Even though Steve McQueen did many of his own stunts, he still needed Scammell on hand for key moments in 1963’s The Great Escape (including parts of the famous motorcycle chase) and Papillon (1973).
As part of the TV stunt team Havoc, Scammell worked on Doctor Who several times, including doubling for the leading actor Caroline John for a dangerous sequence dangling over a raging weir in the episode The Ambassadors of Death (1970), and performed the highest fall hitherto attempted on the small screen from the top of a 50ft gasometer in another 1970 episode, Inferno. From 1971 he was also the regu
Legendary stuntman Roy Scammell, who lived in St Albans.
- Credit: Matt Adams
An iconic stuntman who appeared in the likes of Alien, Flash Gordon, Doctor Who and A Clockwork Orange has died at the age of 88.
Bricket Wood resident Roy Scammell, who also enjoyed a career as a dancer, ice skater and actor, was born in Kingsbury on July 28 1932 and died on May 15 2021 at Luton and Dunstable Hospital following a short illness.
He left school at the age of 13 and pursued a passion for skating, landing a semi-pro title for the Wembley Lions. In between games he worked on an act jumping over 16 barrels on the ice, landing an audition on the Tom Arnold Ice Show.