Her first stunt was riding a horse bareback down a cliff when she was 9. She went on to soar on the hit TV series “Wonder Woman” and in many other places.
Jeannie Epper had at least 100 screen roles, maybe even 150 — no one is quite sure. But because she was a stunt double, galloping on horseback, crashing cars and kicking down doors for the stars of films and television shows, hers was not a household name.
In her heyday, however, Ms. Epper was ubiquitous. She hurtled through the air most weeks as Lynda Carter’s stunt double on the hit television series “Wonder Woman” and mimed Ms. Carter’s leggy lope. She tumbled through a scrum of mud and rocks as Kathleen Turner’s double in the 1984 comedy-adventure film “Romancing the Stone,” which also starred Michael Douglas. She threw punches for Linda Evans in one of her many ballyhooed cat fights with Joan Collins on the frothy long-running 1980s nighttime soap opera “Dynasty.”
And, in what she often said was her favorite stunt — or gag, to use the industry term — Ms. Epper skidded a Corvette into a 180-degree turn as Shirley MacLaine’s character in “Terms of Endearment” (1983), neatly hurling Jack Nicholson’s double into the Gulf of Mexico.
Ms. Epper, whose bruising career spanned 70 years, died on Sunday at her home in Simi Valley, Calif. She was 83.
Her daughter, Eurlyne Epper, confirmed the death. She said her mother had been ill for some time and caught an infection during a recent hospital visit.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
