One of the world’s biggest stuntmen, Remy Julienne, who worked on six James Bond films, as well as the 1969 classic ‘The Italian Job’, died of Covid-19 at 90, friends and family said on Friday.
A veteran with more than 1,400 films and TV commercials as an actor or stunt coordinator, Julienne has been in intensive care at a hospital in his hometown of Montargis in central France since early January.
“What was going to happen happened. He left us early in the evening (Thursday). It was predictable, he was on a respirator, ‘a relative told AFP.
Veteran stuntman Remy Julienne, in the photo, died of Covid at the age of 90. The legend worked on six James Bond films and has been involved in more than 1,400 films and TV commercials since 1960
One of his most memorable stunts – which made his name in the industry – was this jump and an alley between two buildings at Italian Job
He also organized this incredible feat in the 1981 James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only
Julienne was born in Cepoy, near Montargis, in 1930.
French motocross champion, he started his film career in 1964, when he doubled for French actor Jean Marais in the film ‘Fantomas’, in which he was forced to drive a motorcycle.
‘They needed someone who was very controlled,’ he said of that experience. ‘It ended up being me. It was the beginning of a great adventure. ‘
His career saw him fly over Venice hanging from a rope ladder suspended from a helicopter, being hit in the face by a pumpkin while riding a motorcycle and countless car accidents.
He doubled for some of the most famous actors in the world, including Sean Connery and Roger Moore, as well as French names like Yves Montand, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
He worked on six James Bond films in total, including ‘GoldenEye’ and ‘For Your Eyes Only’, in which he drove a heavily modified yellow Citroen 2CV during a memorable car chase.
Both as an actor and as a director of stunt sequences, which became the focus of his later career, Julienne won praise from some of the biggest names in cinema for his accuracy and creativity.
Remy Julienne, pictured here with Roger Moore at Walt Disney Studios in Paris in March 2002
In License to Kill, 1989, he organized this maneuver involving the destruction of a tanker truck. Julienne was known to believe that acrobatics should be real and not dominated by CGI
“He has absolutely incredible scientific knowledge. He’s a real scientist, the Einstein of the stuntmen, ‘said French director Claude Lelouch in a documentary for France Televisions that marks Julienne’s 50th birthday in the business.
Believing in real action and not special effects, Julienne constantly worked to minimize the risks he took while shooting, but he was seriously injured early in his career while shooting a Colombian production in Germany.
Wasting time to get out of a car before he hit a ravine, he ended up with a crushed ankle that left him in bed for six weeks.
Once recovered, he would gain fame with his work in the car chase scenes in ‘The Italian Job’ with Michael Caine.
“Fear is necessary before and after, but never during,” he once said of his time on film sets.
The lowest point in his career came during the filming of the French film ‘Taxi 2’ in 1999, which he supervised, when a cameraman was killed by a car that lost its landing point after a jump.
Discussing her dangerous work, Julienne once admitted that fear was well before and after a feat, but never during
He was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in 2007 and handed a suspended prison sentence of 18 months, which was later reduced in appeal to six months and a € 60,000 compensation order to the victim’s family.
Julienne also assisted the police in reconstructing the crime.
In 2000, he set up a reconstruction of the death of a British student, Isabel Peake, to try to establish how the young woman was pushed from a train bound for Paris.
Julienne said that the work “was very similar to a film work, only here we are lucky to use dolls, which takes some pressure off us”.