LOS ANGELES — Jeannie Epper, a groundbreaking performer who did stunts for a lot of of an important ladies of movie and tv motion of the Seventies and ’80s, together with star Lynda Carter on TV’s “Surprise Lady,” has died.
She was 83.
Epper died of pure causes Sunday at her residence in Simi Valley, California, household spokesperson Amanda Micheli instructed The Related Press.
Thought-about one of many best at her craft — Leisure Weekly in 2007 known as her “the best stuntwoman who ever lived” — Epper got here from a household dynasty of stunt performers that included each her mother and father, John and Frances Epper. Her 70-year profession as a stuntwoman and stunt coordinator started when she was 9.
“It’s all I actually know, outdoors of being a mother or a grandma,” Epper mentioned in a 2004 documentary, “Double Dare,” directed by Micheli.
Her siblings, Tony, Margo, Gary, Andy and Stephanie, all additionally labored in stunts. Steven Spielberg known as them “The Flying Wallendas of Movie,” in line with The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported Epper’s dying.
Her youngsters Eurlyne, Richard and Kurtis, and her grandson Christopher adopted her into the stunt enterprise.
She discovered it tough to get a lot stunt work as a lady early on however noticed a significant surge in alternative as ladies obtained extra action-oriented roles within the late Seventies.
Her breakthrough position — and the one she would all the time be most related to — was on “Surprise Lady.” Epper crashed by means of home windows, kicked down doorways and deflected bullets whereas doubling Carter on the sequence that ran for 3 seasons from 1976 to 1979 on ABC and CBS.
“I’ve quite a bit to say about Jeannie Epper. Most of all, I liked her,” Carter said on X. I all the time felt that we understood and appreciated each other. In any case, it was the 70s. We have been united in the best way that girls needed to be so as to thrive in a person’s world, by means of mutual respect, mind and collaboration.
“Jeannie was a vanguard who paved the best way for all different stuntwomen who got here after. Simply as Diana was Surprise Lady, Jeannie Epper was additionally a Surprise Lady. She is so stunning to me. Jeannie, I’ll miss you.”
In the identical period, she doubled Lindsay Wagner on “Bionic Lady” and Kate Jackson on the unique “Charlie’s Angels.”
Within the Nineteen Eighties, Epper took a well-known tumble down a mudslide for Kathleen Turner in “Romancing the Stone” and fought for Linda Evans in her tangles with Joan Collins on TV’s “Dynasty.”
Epper additionally appeared in additional intellectual fare, doing the stunt driving for Shirley MacLaine when she threw Jack Nicholson from a Corvette within the 1984 finest image Oscar winner “Phrases of Endearment.”
And he or she was a continuing presence on movies directed or produced by Spielberg, together with 1977’s “Shut Encounters of the Third Form,” 1982’s “Poltergeist” and 2002’s “Minority Report.”
“She definitely qualifies to be one of many nice stunt coordinators,” Spielberg mentioned in “Double Dare.”
Extra just lately, her work appeared in “The Quick and the Livid: Tokyo Drift,” “Kill Invoice: Vol. 2” and ”The Superb Spider-Man 2.”
In 2007, she grew to become the primary lady to obtain a lifetime achievement award on the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
She was the final survivor amongst her stunt-performer siblings. Son Kurtis additionally died earlier than her.
Her survivors embody husband Tim, children Eurlyne and Richard, 5 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.