Frank Maher (stuntman)

Frank Maher (18 June 1929–13 July 2007) was a British stuntman, most famous for his roles as a stuntman or stunt coordinator in a vast range of British TV shows in particular the TV series "Dangerman" ("Secret Agent" in the US) in which he frequently acted as a stunt double for the series star Patrick McGoohan.

Early career

He was born in London on 18 June 1929. He was a gold medal winning boxer at school. Before his career as a stuntman/actor he served in World War II in the parachute regiment of the British Army. He lied about his age to join the regiment which meant that he was only 15 when he took part in the battle of Arnhem (part of Operation Market Garden).

His first stunt role was as a Roman Centurion in the Film "Caesar And Cleopatra" (1945) starring Stewart Granger. His other movie stunt roles included work on the "The Crimson Pirate" (1952) doubling for Burt Lancaster and as a riding double in the "The Devil’s Disciple" (1959).

His later movie stunt roles included work on The Italian Job in 1969

TV stuntman

As a stuntman on "The Avengers", he played opposite both Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg. After working on "Man in a Suitcase", he became stunt coordinator on "Department S" and "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)".

Following his earlier work on "Dangerman", he worked with Patrick McGoohan again in 1966/7 in the TV series "The Prisoner" when once more he doubled as McGoohan. He had a particularly large role in the Prisoner episode "The Schizoid Man", which required a doppelganger of McGoohan’s Number Six character to have a lot of screen time alongside the ‘real’ Number Six.

He also appeared as “Third Gunman” in "The Prisoner" western/cowboy style episode "Living in Harmony". He claimed to have suggested the idea of having a western/cowboy style episode of the "The Prisoner" to Patrick McGoohan.

Maher also served as a stuntman / stunt coordinator / stunt arranger on a number of other TV programmes, including: "Blake's 7", "The Persuaders!", "The Champions", "Robin Hood", "The Saint", "Doctor Who" and "Space 1999".

When he worked on "The Saint" (1962-69), he replaced Les Crawford as Roger Moore's double. Roger Moore nicknamed him "Mrs Maher" because of his very careful planning of each stunt sequence.

He also worked as the fight arranger in the first of the BBC Northern Ireland Billy Plays 'Too Late to Talk to Billy' in 1982 in which Billy was played by Kenneth Branagh.

Author and writer

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he wrote a number of thriller style novels including "The Capricorn Run" (also known as "The Hook") in 1979, "Wipe Out" in 1980 and "Sahara Strike" in 1980.

He also wrote action sequences for films including Die Hard.

Family

He married four times. His first marriage being to actress Dilys Laye. He had one son and one daughter.

Death

He died on 13 July 2007 at St Mary's Hospital in Newport on the Isle of Wight after a long battle with emphysema.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0536842/ his imdb listing]
* [http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/interviewsmaher.htm Interview with Frank Maher on the Unmutual web pages]