Hal Needham

Stuntman turned cult car-movie director, with modesty to match

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ONCE THE HIGHEST-paid stuntman in the world, a NASCAR team patron, a would-be Land Speed Record breaker, and a man for whom there was no such thing as pre-commitment jitters, Hal Needham would come up with an idea and then get things done. Much like the time he decided to become a film director. His output would be derided by highfalutin critics but, if your formative years were the late 1970s and early '80s and you loved car chases, his movies were the best things ever.

Becoming a populist Hollywood polymath was a long way removed from his start in life.

Needham was born in Tennessee in March 1931, and his mother left his birth father the moment he arrived. He said in later years that he 'never had a dad' and spoke to him only a few times in several decades. He later learned that Howard Needham had become a down-and-out; a booze-hound who had burned through money and relationships.

Young Hal and his siblings were raised in part by his stepfather, Corbett, a sometime sharecropper and full-time hustler.

The desire to make something of himself burned brightly, but an education was something other people had. Needham served in the Korean War, during which he proved a natural parachutist, even if one jump ended with his main 'chute not opening, and his reserve only partially opening 100ft from impact. The fall didn't even break his skin.