Dinny powell biography of martin

Some of the world's most famous people may owe their success to others we never hear about. For example, stunt people make actors look good, yet rarely if ever get end-of-film credits. The BBC World Service spoke to one of the film industry's best kept secrets - the Powell family.

The Powell Family | Stuntmen | London and New York

The Powell family has been performing stunts for Bond films for more than 40 years.

Remember the tank crashing through the streets of Moscow in GoldenEye or the barrel-rolling speedboat in The World is Not Enough or the opening car chase in Quantum of Solace? They were all stunts performed by a member of the Powell family.

It all started with Dennis "Dinny" Powell, now in his mid-70s, who literally fell into the stunt business at the age of 13.

Instead of going to school, he started hanging around a small London studio doing small jobs. "I had to fall into the river and that sort of thing," he says.

But before very long he was doubling for two of the most popular James Bonds - Sean Connery and Roger Moore - and worked on subsequent Bond films as stunt adviser.

When he started there was no formal training for stunt work.

"We did it by the seat of our pants, we learnt as we went along."

Today, everything is much bigger and faster, more hi-tech - and more carefully planned.

Death-defying

Dinny's nephew Gary is a stuntman working with the latest generation of Bonds - such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

"If you go back to when Dinny was doing it… they didn't have the technology or the safety equipment that we have today," he says.

"When they were hanging off the buildings... they were genuinely hanging off the building, whereas now we'll have cables on us or airbags underneath or that sort of thing."

But Gary says he still has to take risks.

"Chances are, most of the time when we go to work we could get a serious injury," he says.

When it works though, the scenes can be spectacular.

Gary's favourite stunt is the now famous tank scene in GoldenEye - performed with an actual Russian tank careering through Moscow, and considered one of the Bond franchise's best chase scenes.

"I was lucky enough to drive that which was good fun, smashing up all the cars and driving through buildings," says Gary.

And Dinny's favourite stunt?

"Getting out the way of the tank that Gary was driving in the film," he says with a laugh.