Movies Interesting Facts LOS ANGELES – Jenny Epper, a phenomenal stunt performer who performed stunts for many of the most important women in 1970s and ’80s film and television action, including star Linda Carter on TV’s “Wonder Woman,” has died. She was 83 years old.
Family spokeswoman Amanda Micheli told The Associated Press that Epper died of natural causes on Sunday at his home in Simi Valley, California.
Considered one of the greatest of her craft – in 2007 Entertainment Weekly called her “the greatest stuntwoman of all time” – Epper came from a family dynasty of stunt performers, including her parents, John and Frances Epper. Both were involved. Her 70-year career as a stuntwoman and stunt coordinator began when she was 9 years old.
“That’s really all I know besides being a mother or a grandmother,” Epper said in the 2004 documentary, “Double Dare,” directed by Micheli.
His siblings, Tony, Margo, Gary, Andy and Stephanie all also worked in stunts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported Epper’s death, Steven Spielberg called him “the Flying Valentines of film”.
His children Urlin, Richard and Kurtis and his grandson Christopher followed him into the stunt business.
She initially found it difficult to get much stunt work as a woman, but the late 1970s saw a huge increase in opportunities as women got more action-oriented roles.
Her breakthrough role – and the one with which she will always be most associated – was in “Wonder Woman”. Epper crashed windows, kicked doors and deflected bullets while doubling Carter in the series, which ran for three seasons on ABC from 1976 to 1979.
In the same era, she played Lindsay Wagner on “Bionic Woman” and Kate Jackson on the original “Charlie’s Angels.”
In the 1980s, Epper famously scored a landslide for Kathleen Turner in “Romancing the Stone” and battled for Linda Evans with Joan Collins in TV’s “Dynasty.”
Epper also appeared in more highbrow fare, stunt driving for Shirley MacLaine in the 1984 Best Picture Oscar winner “Terms of Endearment,” when she threw Jack Nicholson out of a Corvette.
And she has been a frequent presence in films directed or produced by Steven Spielberg, including 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1982’s “Poltergeist” and 2002’s “Minority Report.”
Spielberg said in “Double Dare”, “He certainly deserves to be one of the great stunt coordinators.”
Most recently, his work appeared in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” and ”The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
In 2007, she became the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
She was the last survivor of her stunt-artist siblings. His son Curtis also died before him.
Her survivors include husband Tim, children Yurleen and Richard, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
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