A champion athlete and trackman in his native northern Australia, Perkins always wanted to get into films; as a teenager he virtually ran away from home, taking a job as a deck hand on a Norwegian freighter. He eventually landed in Hollywood in the late '20s, during the era of part-silent, part- talkie movies, and (because his accent was mistaken for English) he played young Englishmen in some of ...
show all A champion athlete and trackman in his native northern Australia, Perkins always wanted to get into films; as a teenager he virtually ran away from home, taking a job as a deck hand on a Norwegian freighter. He eventually landed in Hollywood in the late '20s, during the era of part-silent, part- talkie movies, and (because his accent was mistaken for English) he played young Englishmen in some of his first films. He soon drifted into stuntwork, regularly doubling cowboy star William Boyd, putting a red toupee over his own blond hair to double Red Skelton, etc. Some of his most notable stunt jobs were in the sci-fi/horror field: He doubled star Bruce Cabot throughout "King Kong" (1933), stood in for Spencer Tracy as Mr. Hyde in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1941) and replaced Bela Lugosi as the Monster in the climactic battle sequence of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943). In addition to his feature films, Perkins turned up regularly in serials and on TV On many occasions, he also worked with special effects and rigging departments and helped set up large action scenes. By the 1960s, he was doing more acting than stunts; he ^Óofficially^Ô retired in 1972, although he took a number of subsequent jobs.
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