Gary McLarty

Gary McLarty (January 16, 1941 – October 11, 2014) was an American stunt performer and stunt coordinator for film and television. His abilities earned him the nickname “Whiz Kid” in Hollywood. McLarty performed stunts in over 150 films between 1966 and 2004, among them The Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, The Longest Yard, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Heat, and Collateral.

He was in the helicopter, as a stunt coordinator, when actor Vic Morrow and two children died in an accident on a “Twilight Zone” movie set. In the subsequent trial, McLarty testified that, prior to the accident, he had warned director John Landis that the stunt was too dangerous. In 1991 McLarty shot and killed his roommate. McLarty was cleared of all charges when the Deputy District Attorney determined that it was a clear case of justifiable homicide. On the Friday before as part of a bizarre series of events another man had been fatally shot by Sheriff’s deputies at McLarty’s Lake View Terrace ranch. McLarty’s house also caught on fire and burned down during the same incident. McLarty semi-retired from stunt work in 2004. The following year, he testified at the murder trial of actor Robert Blake, testifying that Blake offered him $10,000 to murder Blake’s wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley; McLarty declined. Bakley was fatally shot in Blake’s car outside a restaurant in May 2001. Blake was thought by most to be the actual murderer, but was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial.

McLarty died on October 11, 2014 when a pickup truck driven by fellow stuntman Bob Orrison making a U-turn was broadsided by a Jeep Cherokee in Rancho Cordova, California, USA. Both stuntmen were killed instantly. The two persons in the Jeep Cherokee were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.