Bill Hickman

William "Bill" Hickman (25 January 1921 – 24 February 1986). Stunt driver/actor from the 1950s through to the late 1970s. Hickman played a major role in terms of development and execution in three of the greatest movie car chase sequences of all time.

Early History and James Dean

Bill Hickman spent most of his career as a stunt driver, and was involved in the now legendary car chase scenes from "Bullitt", "The French Connection" and "The Seven-Ups". Bill spent some of his earlier days as driver and friend to James Dean, driving Dean's Ford station wagon towing his famed 550 spyder nicknamed “Little Bastard”, and often helping and advising him with his driving technique, he was driving the Ford station wagon and trailer following Dean on the day of his fatal accident and was first on the scene.

A rare personal quote from Bill on his friendship with Dean: "In those final days, racing was what he cared about most. I had been teaching him things like how to put a car in a four-wheel drift, but he had plenty of skill of his own. If he had lived he might have become a champion driver. We had a running joke, I'd call him Little Bastard and he'd call me Big Bastard. I never stop thinking of those memories." In another interview with James Dean expert Warren Beath, Hickman is quoted as saying "We were about two or three minutes behind him. I pulled him out of the car, and he was in my arms when he died, his head fell over. I heard the air coming out of his lungs the last time. Didn’t sleep for five or six nights after that, just the sound of the air coming out of his lungs."

tuntman Work in Bullitt

Although he had many small acting (mainly driving) parts throughout the 50’s and 60’s, it was the landmark car chase alongside Steve McQueen in the 1968 film "Bullitt" which he is usually remembered. Bill was to do all his own driving; portraying one of two hit men, he drove a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T through the streets of San Francisco. The chase climaxes with Hickman's Charger careening off into a gas station and erupting in a massive fireball. Prior to the filming of the chase sequence, Hickman and McQueen did endless days of high speed, close quarter driving in practice for the actual chase. Comments and film of Bill talking about his work are few and far between, although in the featurette "Bullitt: Steve McQueen’s Commitment To Reality" he can be seen discussing the chase with McQueen.

The French Connection

Another of the memorable moments in Hickman's career was when he was asked to perform a high-risk car chase scene by William Friedkin for his 1971 film "The French Connection". As with "Bullitt", "The French Connection" (also produced by Bullitt's producer, Philip D'Antoni) is famed for its car chase sequence, what differs from the usual car chase is that Gene Hackman’s character is chasing an elevated train from the street below (the scene was filmed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, with most of the action taking place on 86th Street), this chase involved real traffic and at one point Bill hits a car driven by a fellow stunt driver who missed his point, this scene was kept in the film by Friedkin as it added reality to the whole sequence, however the scene where the woman steps out into the street with a baby carriage was staged even though years of debate thought it to be a real incident with the women being unaware of the filming process, the fact she was captured from multiple angles including a close up of her facial reaction to seeing Bill’s car bearing down on her lends itself to being a staged event, although a very realistic one (This of course has as much to do with the Academy Award winning editing in that scene, done by Jerry Greenberg, as the driving by Hickman). Hickman also had a small role in the film as federal agent Mulderig, who played an antagonist of sorts to Gene Hackman's character.

The Seven Ups

Bill performed yet another memorable chase sequence for the little known 1973 film "The Seven-Ups" (in which again Hickman worked with Philip D'Antoni, who had also produced "Bullitt" and "The French Connection") in which he drove the car being chased by the star of that film, Roy Scheider, who is heavily doubled by Hickman's good friend and fellow stuntman, Jerry Summers. The chase itself leans heavily on the Bullitt chase, with the two cars bouncing down the gradients of uptown New York (a la San Francisco's steep hills) with Hickman's 1973 Pontiac Grandville pursued at wheel-breaking speed by Scheider's Pontiac Ventura. Even the engines sound alike - Scheider's Pontiac and McQueen's Mustang. But the reason why these chases work so well (and why Bill himself was so highly-regarded) is down to their gritty realism and danger of each tire-busting slide, accompanied by close camera angles and camera-cars moving at high speed, parallel to the action car, added to which an almost complete lack of dialogue. In the accompanying behind-the-scenes featurette of the 2006 DVD, Hickman can be seen co-ordinating the chase from the street where we also see another example of how memorable (and dangerous) these sequences were: on cue, a stuntman in parked car opens his door, only for Hickman's vehicle to take it completely off its hinges, where (from the behind-the-scenes footage) we see the door fly off at such a force it could so easily have killed the close-quarter camera team set-up only yards away (it missed them only by chance). The end of the chase was Bill's own idea, a 'homage' to the death of Jayne Mansfield, where one of the cars smashes into the back of an eighteen-wheel truck, peeling off its roof like a tin of sardines.

Later Work

Bill continued to do stunt work in films as the 1970's wound down, "The Hindenburg" and "Capricorn One" notably. He co-ordinated the motorcycle chase in "Electra Glide In Blue," starring Robert Blake and also appeared as a driver in the 1969 Disney film "The Love Bug" (which later aired on NBC as part of "The Wonderful World of Disney" in 1979) and as the driver for George C. Scott in the movie Patton.

Death

Bill Hickman died of cancer in 1986 at the age of 65. His legacy leaves behind some unforgettable films with some of the best examples of car control ever to be seen on screen.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0382707/ Bill Hickman @ The Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/jamesdeanindeath_Hickman.html Bill Hickman interview]