WONDER WOMAN
Born in Glendale, California, Jeannie was one of six children.
Her parents were Frances and John Epper. Her father was born in Switzerland and had been a cavalryman in the Swiss Army. He spoke five languages fluently and came from a wealthy family.
One of his ancestors was a Lieutenant in Napoleon’s army.
John emigrated to the USA in 1926 because he wanted to experience ‘The Wild West’. He began working for a riding academy. Pretty soon, he had taken it over.
Hollywood stars used to come out to his ranch to ride horses as relaxation.
John spotted an opportunity to provide horses for the Hollywood film industry.
One day, he took a horse to a film set. A stuntman was supposed to leap from a car onto the horse but got nervous and couldn’t perform the stunt. John did it instead.
As a skilled rider, he increasingly did stunts for films, particularly as the craze for westerns had begun. His wife, Frances, also did some stunt work.
John was the stunt double at various times for Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan and Errol Flynn. He worked on the film ‘Spartacus’ (starring Kirk Douglas).
His children grew up on an isolated ranch with dirt tracks surrounding it. Jeannie admitted she was a tomboy, climbing trees and riding horses.
A railroad line ran past their ranch. The children would ride alongside the trains and leap from their horses onto the locomotives.
They would also rent cars from Hertz to practice their driving skills. The vehicles were returned so badly damaged that all the local car hire firms refused to rent to the Epper family anymore.
Jeannie’s brother, Andy, said, “We were a wild group. We all rode horses by the time we were five. We were a happy group. And we’d fight anybody who came across us. That was our reputation.”
Jeannie made her first film appearance when she was nine years old. Her father taught her the stunt. She had to ride a horse bareback, down a mountainside. Consequently, Jeannie became one of the first professional child stunt doubles.
Her brother, Gary, worked on ‘Rin Tin Tin’, and sister Stephanie was in ‘My Friend Flika’. The three other siblings – Andy, Tony and Margo all worked as stunt doubles, although Margo gave it up fairly quickly.
In the Hitchcock film ‘Psycho’, during the famous shower scene, it is one of her brother’s hands that holds the knife that killed Janet Leigh.
Jeannie herself, got a bit part in ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’.
“We were tough like our brothers. I wasn’t tough off screen. I was girly. I’m of slight build, really feminine, and I didn’t look like what you thought a stunt person would look like. But I was feisty – like a Chihuahua.”
Jeannie was horrified when her parents sent her to a Swiss finishing school. She absolutely hated it.
When Jeannie returned to the USA, she immediately got married to Wes Fuller. She was just sixteen.
The marriage did not last long. They were divorced. Jeannie was to marry three more times; to Richard Spaethe (divorced), to Lee Sanders (divorced) and finally to Tim Kimack.
Jeannie was to have three children: Richard, Kurtis and Eurlyne.
She did her first adult stunt when she was eighteen. It was a fall from a running horse – known as a ‘saddle fall’ in the trade. It was an extremely dangerous manoeuvre.
Her next stunt saw her hit by a fast-moving car in ’77 Sunset Strip’.
Despite her background and reputation, Jeannie found it hard to get work in the film industry. Stunt work was regarded as a male profession. Even stunt doubles for actresses were usually done by men (clothed in a dress). This was known as ‘Wigging’. Jeannie was at the forefront of trying to end this practice.
In 1968, Jeannie was a founder member of the Stuntwoman’s Association of Motion Pictures (STAMP). She would eventually become it’s President – in 1999.
Her worst injury came whilst working on the TV programme, ‘Lancer’, a Bonanza-style western.
Jeannie stood in for a young actress and had to clutch a doll whilst standing in a burning log cabin. The director told her, “Whatever you do, don’t let go of the doll.”
Even before the stunt began, Jeannie sensed something wasn’t quite right. As soon as the cabin was set alight, it went up like a torch and she was trapped inside. Fire was everywhere, logs were collapsing all around her. She was nearly killed.
“When I woke up in the hospital, all my hair was burned off…but I still had that little doll in my hands. You should have seen that doll too. It was all fried up. We both were.”
After that incident, Jeannie would never do any stunt if she felt things weren’t right. “Being off a quarter of an inch could mean life or death. I had to go by what I thought was right and wrong. So, they’d either change it (the stunt) or get somebody else.” She said she had never been replaced, so directors clearly listened to her.
Jeannie’s second serious injury came in the film ‘Foxy Brown’ in 1974. She received a serious head wound after being hit over the head with a picture frame, by the actress Pam Grier, in a bar room brawl. “The cameraman loved it. I had blond hair, the blood was running down and they kept the cameras right on me.”
In the 1970s, she did stunts for ‘The Towering Inferno’ and ‘The Poseidon Adventure’.
She was known for her lifestyle – partying, dancing and heavy drinking. However, everything changed when Jeannie was 33. “I woke up one day, and my life became too much for me.”
She became a born-again Christian, who was deeply religious. Jeannie prayed before every stunt. “As far as I’m concerned, whenever I do a stunt, it’s 150% going to work out. But I’m a Christian and I have a tendency to pray about it, get focused and then say, ‘God, it belongs to you now.”
Jeannie’s big break came in 1975, when she became Lynda Carter’s stunt double in the TV series ‘Wonder Woman’. It was a massive world-wide hit – and she became extremely close friends with Carter.
Jeannie kept this job until the show finished in 1979.
It led to other significant roles. She was Lindsay Wagner’s double in ‘The Bionic Woman’ and Kate Jackson’s in ‘Charlie’s Angels’
Steven Spielberg hired her for ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. He was so impressed with Jeannie’s work she became his first choice for every film he made after that.
Jeannie also worked on the TV series ‘Dynasty’. In one notable episode, there is a fight between Alexis (Joan Collins) and Krystle (Linda Evans). In reality, it was Jeannie in the fight, dressed as the latter.
Jeannie’s work was so high profile that it ended the process of ‘wigging’. Jeannie decided to use her expertise to train other stunt women.
She didn’t just teach others stunt techniques, but how to avoid sexual harassment – how to keep yourself safe. Jeannie had suffered sexism and unwanted advances but felt her family’s reputation shielded her from the worst excesses. “I had three brothers that would kill them – and I’m the type that would push them through the wall.”
She taught her girls how to avoid predatory behaviour. “It’s important to not let them believe they had a chance.”
Jeannie was Kathleen Turner’s double in the 1984 film, ‘Romancing the Stone’. In one famous scene, she went down a mountainside in a mud slide.
To get it exactly right, the director (Robert Zemeckis) had it filmed time and time again. He was amazed that despite being drenched and freezing, Jeannie never complained once.
This performance won Jeannie the 1985 Annual Stuntman Award for the ‘Most Spectacular Stunt in a Feature Film’. She was the first woman ever to win it.
Additionally, Jeannie was given honorary membership of the ‘Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures’ – the only woman at this point in time, to achieve this accolade.
Jeannie was Shirley MacLaine’s double in ‘Terms of Endearment’. Her most notable stunt came when she threw Jack Nicholson out of a Corvette and into the ocean whilst driving at top speed. The film won an Oscar.
Jeannie kept appearing in films such as ‘Robocop’, ‘Fast and Furious’ and the remake of ‘The Italian Job’, ‘Minority Report’ ,’Catch Me If you Can’ and ‘Kill Bill Volume 2’. She even appeared in the TV programme ‘The Princess Diaries’.
In 2000, Jeannie donated a kidney to her close friend, actor Ken Howard, who was seriously ill. It saved his life.
Howard later said, “It’s very humbling when somebody gives you a part of themselves to keep you alive. Thankful doesn’t seem to quite express it.”
In 2004, Amanda Micheli made a documentary about stunt women, called ‘Double Dare’. Jeannie featured prominently. Micheli called her, “A glass-ceiling smasher.”
In 2007, Jeannie was given a lifetime achievement award at the Taurus World Stunt Awards – the stunt equivalent of Oscars.
When she stood on stage, to her surprise, she was unexpectedly joined by over a hundred women who she had trained as stuntwomen. Katie Rowe, who succeeded Jeannie as President of SWAMP, said, “Her DNA is in all of us stuntwomen. All of us working today owe a debt of gratitude to her.”
In her acceptance speech, Jeannie described her job as, “Kicking down doors, falling off ledges, crashing through windows, dodging bullets and getting hit over the head with a rubber shovel.”
She added, “When I get home from work, I’m glad if I’ve just got whiplash or concussion – it could have been much worse. I’ve never been scared, but I’ve always had respect for the stunt.”
Jeannie always said working with water and fire made her most nervous. Both were unpredictable and you were not in control.
That same year, Jeannie was called ‘The Greatest Stuntwoman ever’ by Entertainment Weekly.
She kept working long into her seventies – long after all her siblings had retired. Jeannie said, “My neighbours think I’m nuts.”
As she aged, Jeannie desperately needed a knee replacement but refused to have an operation as it would affect her ability to work.
Her final major role was in ‘Hot Pursuit’ in 2015, but she kept on performing, finally finishing with ‘The Rookie’ in 2019. By the time Jeannie retired she had appeared in over 150 movies.
All three of Jeannie’s children became stunt performers, as did her grandson, Christopher. However, her son, Kurtis, predeceased her.
Jeannie hated the fact that many modern films used computer generated stunts. “I just think people would rather watch real stunts and real risk in a movie. I still think we have that thirst from gladiator days. If you know it’s all going to be safe, who’s going to hold their breath watching a stunt.”
She was once asked what she was frightened of. “I hate snakes. I hate spiders. I’m scared to get on the freeway. It’s not so much that I can’t drive – it’s the other people.”
Jeannie retired to Simi Valley in California. Reflecting on her career, she pointed out fifteen members of the Epper family – from different generations – had been stunt performers. “No Epper ever died. Injured, yes – but died, no.”
Jeannie’s health declined suddenly, and she died at home.
Her friend and fellow stuntman, Andy Armstrong, said, “She was as tough as old nails, and she was tougher than most men you’ll ever meet.”
The President of SWAMP, Katie Rowe, said, “She was a great, fun spirit and a really lovely person – always willing to give advice and support others. She was as tough as nails, but as kind as could be.”
Lynda Carter was devastated by her death. “Jeannie was a vanguard who paved the way for all other stunt women who came after. Just as Diana was Wonder Woman, Jeannie Epper was Wonder Woman too.”
Lynda added, “I have a lot to say about Jeannie. Most of all, I loved her. I always felt that we understood and appreciated one another. She is so beautiful to me. Jeannie, I will miss you.”
RIP – Risky, Intrepid Performances
