Bud Ekins

Oct 12 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

MOST movie stars’ names shine in the lights, but the neon sign outside the whitewashed, single-storey building in north Hollywood had burned out.

Even so, you could still see that it said Bud and that was enough for film aficionados. For this man was the ghost-rider who made others looks brave.

He did that most famously for Steve McQueen, but Bud recognised that the young fella had the devil in him, too, and so they became firm friends.

However, few knew that it was Bud Ekins who made the most famous motorbike jump in cinema history in The Great Escape, when his 650cc Triumph Trophy soared 12ft into the air and flew 65ft for freedom, before being caught in barbed wire on the German/Swiss border.

The 400lb machine had been radically changed in appearance to look like a German BMW.

McQueen admitted this on the Johnny Carson chat-show on American television, but it was not credited to Ekins in the 1963 film.

Ekins was four inches taller than McQueen, who played Captain (the Cooler King) Hilts, and had his hair bleached blond for the scene in the film, which is certain to be featured again on the box at Christmas.

Elkins was an established desert, scramble and speed trials’ rider when McQueen met him at his motorcycle dealership with the sign outside.

A mutual interest in speed drew the men together and they would both ride Triumph Trophies at the USA International Six Day trials’ team in East Germany.

Ekins was the finer rider of the two, but he had a genuine admiration for McQueen, who did many of his own stunts in films including the car-chase thriller Bullitt (1966) and The Great Escape.

From then on, Ekins was much in demand as a stuntman and his films include Towering Inferno (1974, again with McQueen, who died in 1980), Hell’s Angels (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Electra Glide in Blue (1973) and Race with the Devil (1975).

Ekins was born in Hollywood and in some ways wanted to play the adventures of the big screen in real life, leading to some juvenile scrapes, but his interest in motorbikes and speed opened his career.

In later life, Ekins, a widower with two children, took bit parts in films and appeared on chat shows.

Bud Ekins, stuntman; born May 11, 1930, died October 6, 2007.