Cancer gets all the great ones, and last Friday it took legendary director and stuntman Hal Needham from us. 

Needham cut his teeth doubling as the highest paid stuntman in the world for actors like Burt Reynolds, Christopher George, and Richard Boone. In the process of a long career jumping cars and flying off buildings, Needham broke 56 bones, punctured a lung, lost a few teeth, and broke his back twice before moving on to the other side of the camera as a director.

There, he’d make his debut as the man behind Smokey and the Bandit before continuing on with Hooper and The Cannonball Run and the BMX film Rad among others. 

As a director, he completely revolutionized how stunts were approached in the film industry. According to IMDb, Needham invented and introduced to the film industry the air ram, air bag, the car cannon turnover, the nitrogen ratchet, the jerk-off ratchet, rocket power and The Shotmaker Camera Car to make stunts safer and yet more spectacular at the same time. He was also the first director to ever show outtakes during the credit roll of his movies.

He also put his money into NASCAR in 1981 as owner of the Skoal-Bandit race team, initially with Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett and subsequently Harry Gant at the wheel, introducing telemetry to the world of stock car racing. By 1989, when he finally sold off his NASCAR interests, the team had run 250 races, won 9, earned 68 top-five finishes, 11 top-tens, and 13 pole-positions.

Perhaps his love of the big stunt came from his prior career as a U.S. Army paratrooper, perhaps not. One thing is for certain – Hal Needham was one of a kind, and now he’s gone.