JUSTMAN WAS BORN AND RAISED IN NEW YORK CITY. HIS FATHER WAS A BUSINESSMAN, WHO ALSO INVESTED IN THE MOVIE BUSINESS, BEING YOUNG JUSTMAN' S FIRST CONNECTION TO FILMMAKING. HE ENLISTED IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY DURING WORLD WAR II. HE SERVED TWO YEARS AND WAS DISCHARGED AS A RADIOMAN THIRD CLASS. HE THEN ATTENDED THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN LOS ANGELES BEFORE ENTERING A CAREER IN FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTION.
EARLY IN HIS CAREER, JUSTMAN SERVED AS A PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ON SUCH FILMS AS 1951'S THE SCARF (FEATURING CELIA LOVSKY), NEW MEXICO (FEATURING JEFF COREY AND JOHN HOYT), M (FEATURING NORMAN LLOYD AND WILLIAM SCHALLERT), AND HE RAN ALL THE WAY (ALSO WITH NORMAN LLOYD), 1952'S JAPANESE WAR BRIDE (WITH GEORGE D. WALLACE), RED PLANET MARS, AND ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD (WITH LEONARD MUDIE), AND 1953'S THE MOON IS BLUE AND THE MOONLIGHTER. HE THEN MOVED ON TO BECOME A TELEVISION PRODUCER AND AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR BOTH FILM AND TELEVISION PROJECTS.
AS AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, JUSTMAN WORKED WITH DIRECTOR ROBERT ALDRICH
ON SEVERAL PROJECTS. THEY FIRST WORKED TOGETHER ON THE 1952 53 NBC SERIES THE DOCTOR, AFTER WHICH THEY COLLABORATED ON SUCH FILMS AS KISS ME DEADLY (1955) AND ATTACK (1956, FEATURING WILLIAM SMITHERS). JUSTMAN S OTHER ASSISTANT DIRECTORIAL FILM PROJECTS INCLUDE THE CLASSICS THE BIG COMBO (1955, FEATURING JOHN HOYT AND WHIT BISSELL), BLOOD ALLEY (STARRING PAUL FIX), WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956, WITH CELIA LOVSKY), GREEN MANSIONS (1959, STARRING NEHEMIAH PERSOFF), AND 1962'S MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (FEATURING ANTOINETTE BOWER, TORIN THATCHER AND STUNTS BY PAUL BAXLEY).
JUSTMAN WAS ALSO AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON TELEVISION SHOWS SUCH AS I MARRIED JOAN, LETTER TO LORETTA, LASSIE, THE THIN MAN, ONE STEP BEYOND, AND THE OUTER LIMITS. HE SERVED AS A PRODUCTION MANAGER ON THE LATTER SERIES IN 1964 AND APPEARED IN THE EPISODE A FEASIBILITY STUDY (DIRECTED BY BYRON HASKIN, WRITTEN BY JOSEPH STEFANO, AND STARRING DAVID OPATOSHU) THAT SAME YEAR. IN ADDITION, JUSTMAN WAS BOTH AN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON THE CLASSIC SERIES THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. HE WORKED ON THIS SERIES FROM 1953 THROUGH ITS CANCELLATION IN 1958, AND WAS AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON THE SHOW DURING ITS 1954 55 SEASON.
JUSTMAN HAD A LONG PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION WITHWRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER LESLIE STEVENS(THE CREATOR OF THE OUTER LIMITS). HE NEARLY WORKED AS ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON STEVENS ESPERANTO LANGUAGE HORROR MOVIE, INCUBUS, WHICH STARRED WILLIAM SHATNER. HOWEVER, JUSTMAN S COMMITMENT TO THE CAGE MADE THIS ASSIGNMENT IMPOSSIBLE(INSIDE STAR TREK:THE REAL STORY, PP 30 31).
LATER CAREER
ROBERT "BOB" HARRIS JUSTMAN (13 JULY 1926 28 MAY 2008; AGE 81) WAS ONE OF THE PIONEERS BEHIND THE STAR TREK PHENOMENON AS A PRODUCER AND, INITIALLY, AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES. HE LATER HAD A HAND IN CREATING STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION AS THAT SHOW S SUPERVISING PRODUCER.
STAR TREK IN 1964, JUSTMAN WAS HIRED BY GENE RODDENBERRY AS ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON THE CAGE", THE FIRST PILOT EPISODE OF RODDENBERRY S STAR TREK. HOWEVER, JUSTMAN REJECTED THE OFFER, FEARING HE DOESN T HAVE ENOUGH POST PRODUCTION KNOWLEDGE WHICH SUCH A SHOW MIGHT DEMAND. HE RECOMMENDED BYRON HASKIN FOR THE JOB, WHICH HE EVENTUALLY GOT. (INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, PP 29 31)
HOWEVER, A FEW WEEKS LATER, HERB SOLOW (NOT KNOWING ABOUT RODDENBERRY S PREVIOUS OFFER) CONTACTED JUSTMAN TO HIRE HIM AS THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR THE SAME PROJECT (AFTER HE WAS RECOMMENDED BY VARIOUS DIRECTOR FRIENDS OF SOLOW, INCLUDING JAMES GOLDSTONE). LESLIE STEVENS AGREED TO LOAN HIM FOR THE JOB, AS THE PRE PRODUCTION OF INCUBUS WENT OVERDUE. JUSTMAN WAS EAGER TO ACCEPT THE JOB. (INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, PP 31 33)
WHEN NBC REJECTED THE CAGE BUT ALLOWED RODDENBERRY TO MAKE A SECOND ATTEMPT AT A PILOT, JUSTMAN WAS BROUGHT BACK AS BOTH ASSOCIATE PRODUCER (REPLACING HASKIN, WHO OFTEN HAD TENSE ARGUMENTS WITH RODDENBERRY) AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE". NBC ACCEPTED THIS PILOT AND PICKED UP THE SERIES, AND JUSTMAN WAS BROUGHT ABOARD AS AN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON THE SHOW. (INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, P 69)
JUSTMAN WAS CREATOR GENE RODDENBERRY S RIGHT HAND MAN ON STAR TREK, MANAGING THE SERIES ALONG WITH GENE L. COON AND HERBERT F. SOLOW. AT FIRST, JUSTMAN SHARED ASSOCIATE PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITIES WITH JOHN D.F. BLACK, BUT BLACK LEFT THE SERIES AFTER THE FIRST SEASON EPISODE MIRI". WHILE RODDENBERRY, BLACK, AND D.C. FONTANA FOCUSED ON THE SCRIPTS, JUSTMAN WAS THE PRODUCER ON THE SET. HE HANDLED MUCH OF THE HIRING AND FIRING OF THE PRODUCTION STAFF, AS WELL AS VARIOUS OTHER FUNCTIONS INCLUDING BUDGET, SET DRESSING, AND PROPS.
JUSTMAN WAS STAR TREK’S CO PRODUCER FOR THE FIRST FIFTEEN EPISODES OF ITS THIRD SEASON, AFTER WHICH HE RESIGNED, BELIEVING THE SERIES HAD DECLINED IN PRODUCTION AND SCRIPT QUALITY. HE ALSO FELT THE SHOW WAS RECEIVING POOR TREATMENT BY NBC, WHICH SLASHED ITS BUDGET DURING THE THIRD SEASON.
“I WAS TIRED FROM THREE SEASONS OF EXHAUSTING WORK. THE THRILL WAS GONE. (...) I DESPAIRED ABOUT THE SHOW S LOSS OF QUALITY. (...) MY NEVER ENDING BATTLE TO CUT COSTS WITHOUT COMPROMISING QUALITY HAD FAILED. THE STAR TREK I KNEW, AND WAS PROUD TO BE A PART OF, WAS NO MORE. BY THE MIDPOINT OF THE PRODUCTION SEASON, I DREADED COMING TO WORK EVERY DAY. IT FELT LIKE BEING IN PRISON AND I WANTED OUT. (...) I WAS JUST PLAIN BURNT OUT. I NEEDED TO LEAVE STAR TREK." (INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, PP 407 408)
BESIDES HIS PRODUCING JOB, JUSTMAN ALSO APPEARED IN THREE VOICE OVER CAMEO ROLES IN THE SERIES FIRST SEASON. TWICE, AS A SECURITY GUARD (IN THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING AND SPACE SEED") AND ONCE AS AN ENGINEER (IN MUDD'S WOMEN"), TALKING TO KIRK THROUGH THE INTERCOM.
OTHER PROJECTSTHE TWO STAR TREK PILOTS WERE JUSTMAN”S LAST PROJECTS AS AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR; HE THEREAFTER BEGAN TO FOCUS ON PRODUCING. HE WAS BRIEFLY AN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, WHICH, LIKE STAR TREK, WAS PRODUCED BY DESILU.
FROM LATE 1968 TO 1970, WORKING UNDER HERBERT SOLOW AT MGM, JUSTMAN PRODUCED THE SHORT LIVED NBC ADVENTURE SERIES THEN CAME BRONSON. DIRECTORS ON THE SERIES INCLUDED JUD TAYLOR, MARVIN CHOMSKY, RALPH SENENSKY, ROBERT BUTLER, LOU ANTONIO, RUSS MAYBERRY, COREY ALLEN, AND MICHAEL O'HERLIHY. WRITERS INCLUDED DON INGALLS, D.C. FONTANA, RIK VOLLAERTS, MEYER DOLINSKY, AND ROBERT SABAROFF.
HE AGAIN WORKED WITH SOLOW ON ANOTHER SHORT LIVED NBC SERIES, MAN FROM ATLANTIS, IN 1977. DIRECTORS INCLUDED MARC DANIELS AND MICHAEL O'HERLIHY, WHILE JOHN D.F. BLACK, JERRY SOHL, STEPHEN KANDEL, PETER ALLAN FIELDS, AND SHIMON WINCELBERG WERE AMONG THE WRITERS OF THE SERIES.
DURING THE 1972 73 TV SEASON, JUSTMAN EXECUTIVE PRODUCED ASSIGNMENT: MUNICH, THE PILOT FOR WHAT BECAME THE SHORT LIVED ABC SERIES ASSIGNMENT VIENNA. ALSO DURING THIS TIME, JUSTMAN RETURNED TO WORK WITH LESLIE STEVENS, AND PRODUCED STEVENS ADVENTURE SERIES FOR NBC, SEARCH, WHICH LASTED FOR ONE SEASON. DIRECTORS OF THIS SERIES INCLUDED JOSEPH PEVNEY, MARC DANIELS, RALPH SENENSKY, AND RUSS MAYBERRY.
JUSTMAN REUNITED WITH STAR TREK CREATOR GENE RODDENBERRY IN 1974 TO PRODUCE THE SCIENCE FICTION PILOT, PLANET EARTH. MARC DANIELS DIRECTED THIS PILOT, WHICH STARRED SUCH STAR TREK ALUMNI AS MAJEL BARRETT, TED CASSIDY, DIANA MULDAUR, AND PATRICIA SMITH. HOWEVER, THE PILOT WAS NOT PICKED UP AS A SERIES.
IN 1977, JUSTMAN WAS ASKED BY RODDENBERRY TO HELP WITH THE PRODUCTION OF STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. HOWEVER, RODDENBERRY SOON CHANGED HIS MIND AND NEVER RETURNED ANY OF JUSTMAN S CALLS WHEN HE REPORTED FOR WORK. JUSTMAN CLAIMED THAT IF HE HAD BEEN THERE, SOME OF THE MISTAKES IN THE MAKING OF THE FILM COULD VE BEEN AVOIDED. (INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, P 432)
IN 1979, JUSTMAN WAS PRODUCER AND EXECUTIVE IN CHARGE OF PRODUCTION ON GIDEON S TRUMPET, A TWO HOUR HALLMARK HALL OF FAME TV MOVIE FEATURING DAVID CLENNON, JERRY HARDIN, RICHARD LINEBACK, MICHAEL CAVANAUGH, AND SEAMON GLASS.
JUSTMAN THEN PRODUCED THE NBC DRAMA SERIES MCCLAIN”S LAW AND THE ABC SERIES MACGRUDER AND LOUD. HE ALSO PRODUCED THE 1983 TV MOVIE EMERGENCY ROOM, WHICH STARRED A PRE TNG LEVAR BURTON AND A POST TOS GARY LOCKWOOD. JUSTMAN”S LAST NON TREK PRODUCTION WAS THE 1986 TV MOVIE DARK MANSIONS, FEATURING BYRON MORROW.
RETURN TO TREK
NEARLY TWO DECADES AFTER LEAVING THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK, JUSTMAN RETURNED TO THE FRANCHISE AS SUPERVISING PRODUCER ON STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION FOR EIGHTEEN EPISODES OF ITS FIRST SEASON. JUSTMAN WAS ONE OF THE DRIVING FORCES IN THE FORMATION OF THIS SERIES, INFLUENCING THE CREATION OF THE CHARACTERS AND THE CASTING. IT WAS JUSTMAN WHO DISCOVERED AND PUSHED FOR THE CASTING OF PATRICK STEWART FOR THE ROLE OF CAPTAIN JEAN-LUC PICARD. RICK BERMAN RECALLED, "RODDENBERRY WAS VERY AGAINST THE IDEA OF A BALD BRITISH ACTOR PLAYING THE NEXT CAPT. KIRK, BUT BOB WAS VERY PERSISTENT, AND PATRICK BECAME CAPT. PICARD. [3] JUSTMAN ALSO BROUGHT LEVAR BURTON TO THE SERIES, HAVING BEEN WORKING TOGETHER WITH HIM ON A MEDICAL SHOW PILOT TITLED THE SHUTTLECRAFT JUSTMAN AS SEEN IN TNG: "GAMBIT, PART II EMERGENCY ROOM. AS THE FIRST SEASON WAS WINDING DOWN, HOWEVER, JUSTMAN DECIDED TO RETIRE. FOR THE LAST EIGHT EPISODES OF THE SEASON, HE WAS CREDITED AS A CONSULTING PRODUCER. HE LEFT THE SERIES AFTER THE FIRST SEASON AND EFFECTIVELY RETIRED FROM HIS NEARLY FORTY YEAR LONG CAREER IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. DESPITE LEAVING TNG EARLY, JUSTMAN S LEGACY CAN BE SEEN LATER IN THE SERIES: EXECUTIVE PRODUCER RICK BERMAN NAMED THE SHUTTLECRAFT JUSTMAN IN HONOR OF THE FORMER PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR. THE JUSTMAN WAS FIRST SEEN IN THE SIXTH SEASON EPISODE SUSPICIONS AND APPEARED AGAIN IN SEASON SEVEN S GAMBIT, PART II". IN 1996, JUSTMAN AND HERBERT SOLOW WROTE AND PUBLISHED INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY, A BOOK WHICH CHRONICLES THEIR WORK ON THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK SERIES. MOST RECENTLY, JUSTMAN WAS A TECHNICAL CONSULTANT FOR CBS DIGITAL FOR THE REMASTERING ON THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK EPISODES. IN THOSE YEARS, JUSTMAN AUTHORED A SHORT SERIES OF ARTICLES FOR THE STAR TREK: THE MAGAZINE, EXPLAINING FOR ITS READERSHIP SOME OF HIS REFLECTIONS ON THE STAR TREK FRANCHISE. HE SOLD OFF A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF HIS PERSONAL STAR TREK POSSESSIONS IN THE PROFILES IN HISTORY S THE BOB JUSTMAN STAR TREK AUCTION OF 27 JUNE 2002. DEATH EDIT JUSTMAN DIED AT HIS HOME IN LOS ANGELES DUE TO COMPLICATIONS FROM PARKINSON S DISEASE. HE WAS 81 YEARS OLD. HE IS SURVIVED BY HIS WIFE OF 51 YEARS, JACQUELINE, AND THEIR THREE CHILDREN: A DAUGHTER, JENNIFER, AND TWO SONS, JONATHAN AND WILLIAM. ALSO SURVIVING JUSTMAN IS HIS BROTHER, ANTHONY; HIS SISTERS, ESTELLE OSBORNE AND JILL
ROACH; AND FIVE GRANDCHILDREN.
PRODUCING CREDITS
STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES ("WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE" -ASSIGNMENT: EARTH")
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES ("SPECTRE OF THE GUN" -LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD")
CO PRODUCER STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION ("ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT" -WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS")
SUPERVISING PRODUCER STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION ("COMING OF AGE" -THE NEUTRAL ZONE") CONSULTING PRODUCER
STUNT PRODUCER AND TECHNICAL ADVISOR -THEN CAME BRONSON
Bud Ekins was one America’s pioneering off-road motorcyclists. His racing career spanned two distinct eras of American off-road racing – the days of desert and mountain endurance runs, to the modern era of scrambles and motocross. Ekins was one of the first Americans to compete in the World Championship Motocross Grand Prix circuit in Europe during the 1950s. He also earned gold medals in the International Six Day Trial (now International Six Day Enduro).
After his racing career, Ekins went on to become one of Hollywood’s leading stuntmen. His most famous stunt was the climactic motorcycle jump scene in the 1963 movie, "The Great Escape," starring another famous motorcyclist, Steve McQueen. Ekins went on to be one of the country’s leading collectors of vintage and rare motorcycles. At one time, his collection numbered over 150 motorcycles and was considered to be the most valuable in the country.
Ekins was born in Hollywood, California, on May 11, 1930. He grew up in a working-class family. Ekins was a mischievous teenager, to say the least, and had to spend nearly two years in reform school after he and a group of buddies were caught joyriding in a stolen car. At first, Ekins dabbled in hot-rodding cars, but after he rode his cousin’s 1934 Harley-Davidson, he became hooked on motorcycles.
Working at his dad’s welding shop, Ekins bought a used 1940 Triumph and rode it all over the hills around his family’s Hollywood Hills home. Early 1950s Los Angeles was motorcycling heaven, and Ekins took full advantage of the freedom and by riding every day, he got to know just about every fire road, sand wash, mountain dirt road and desert trail in the area. As a result of all his daily riding, he became quite an excellent motorcyclist and started entering local off-road races.
In 1949, one of the first big events he entered was the legendary Big Bear Endurance Run, which started in the desert and went up the challenging trails and dirt roads into the scenic San Bernardino mountain range. Ekins rode a good race on his old Triumph and finished well enough that he decided he needed a newer and better bike. He bought a 1950 Matchless and immediately started winning races on his new bike.
Ekins took a job working as a mechanic at a motorcycle shop in his early 20s and it was then that he began his lifelong hobby of motorcycle collecting. The first old bike he bought was a 1928 Henderson Four. A customer came into the shop and wanted to trade in the bike. The owner of the shop wasn’t interested, but Ekins offered to pay his boss $35 for the bike if he took it in for trade. "That meant he wouldn’t have to pay me my $35 salary that week, so he happily agreed to the arrangement," Ekins remembers.
By the mid-1950s, Ekins was the top scrambles and desert rider in Southern California. He won the district’s number one plate seven times. Ekins remembers two riders who came along later in his racing career who were particularly hard to beat: Eddie Mulder and J.D. Williams.
Ekins explained in a 1985 Motorcyclist interview that he had to outsmart younger riders like Mulder and Williams to win. In an early-1960s Southern California hare scrambles race, Ekins was battling Mulder and on the final lap nearly crashed in a big hole that was forming just before the finish line as they started the last lap. As the two came around racing side by side for the checkered flag on the next lap, Ekins just moved his line ever so slightly, forcing an unsuspecting Mulder into the big hole. The result was that Mulder took a big tumble and Ekins the victory.
"Eddie knew I did it on purpose," Ekins laughed. "I told him years later."
For being so successful for Matchless here in the United States, Ekins was offered a chance to race a factory Matchless in world championship motocross events in Europe. In 1952, Ekins went to Europe, and despite often riding on muddy circuits that were much rougher than he was accustomed to, he managed to earn his senior license and turned in some respectable finishes against the best motocross racers in the world. He returned to compete in international motocross several more times through the mid-1950s.
His European racing experiences sharpened Ekins’ skills considerably and he began winning domestic races with seeming ease. In 1955, Ekins was victorious in the Catalina Grand Prix, one of the most prestigious races in the country. Riding a Johnson Motors Triumph, Ekins sliced almost 10 minutes off the old record for the race. He also won the Big Bear Run three times during the 1950s, including the 1959 victory in which he completed the 153-mile course over half an hour ahead of the second-place rider, despite suffering a flat tire and breaking a wheel. For a period during the late-‘50s and early-‘60s, Ekins was easily the most dominant racer in desert events. Ekins was a founder of the famous Baja 1000, making record runs down the Mexican peninsula in the early-1960s.
Perhaps Ekins’ greatest accomplishments came in the esteemed International Six Day Trials. In 1964, Ekins, his brother Dave, and Steve McQueen raced in the ISDT in Germany. The team led the international competition before McQueen was involved in a crash and Bud later broke his leg. In all, Ekins won four gold medals and a silver during his seven years of competing in the ISDT during the 1960s.
By the mid-1960s, Ekins owned a Triumph dealership and had become something of a hero to Hollywood’s young movie actors, who would often hangout at his shop. One of those actors was McQueen. Ekins helped McQueen learn off-road racing and the actor became an accomplish racer.
Through his association with McQueen, Ekins began his career as a movie stuntman. In 1962, McQueen asked Ekins to come to Germany to do some stunt riding for the filming of "The Great Escape." Ekins was in Germany for more than four months working on the film. It was at the end of shooting that McQueen and Ekins came up with the now-famous jump scene where McQueen, playing a prisoner of war, is trying to escape by motorcycle from a German prison camp and attempts an impossible jump over a barbed-wire fence. Ekins, acting as stunt double for McQueen, was the rider who performed what is now perhaps the most famous motorcycle stunt ever performed in a movie.
Ekins continued his stunt work and became one of the best in Hollywood. He continued doing stunt work until he was in his mid-60s, his stunt career spanned an incredible 30 years.
After retiring, Ekins continued running a small motorcycle shop in Hollywood that features vintage machines. During the 1980s, Ekins became one of the top collectors of vintage motorcycles in the country. Ekins was proud of the fact that not only was his collection vast, but it was alsoa living collection. He claimed that all of his motorcycles were in running order. At one point, he set out to collect at least one of every motorcycle brand ever produced in America. He found the task impossible, but he still built up an impressive collection of 54 different American makes, most built prior to World War I.
When inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999, Ekins still ran his Hollywood shop and enjoyed collecting and restoration and the daily company of motorcycle enthusiasts. He died Oct. 6, 2007.
Bud Ekins, a devil-may-care motorcyclist who went from racing through the mountain trails and desert rambles of Southern California in the late 1940s to renown as the stuntman double for Steve McQueen in a 65-foot flight over a barbed-wire barrier, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 77 and lived in Hollywood.
In a family photo, Bud Ekins takes the leap as Steve McQueen’s double in “The Great Escape.”
Mr. Ekins in a family photo.
The death was confirmed by his daughter Susan.
Though known for that spine-tingling, if not vertebrae-crunching, leap to freedom while on the run from a German P.O.W. camp in “The Great Escape” (1963) and for some dazzling car stunts as well, Mr. Ekins was far more famous among ardent bikers and weekend fans of motorcycle racing.
“He was a great racer, a stunt rider and a major player in the birth of motocross,” said Mark Mederski, director of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio, into which Mr. Ekins was inducted in 1999.
Motocross is racing on natural terrain with closed-circuit tracks marked by tape. These days the sport has commercial sponsorship, “jockeys” testing bikes before races, mechanics provided by manufacturers, crash helmets and body armor. But when Mr. Ekins and his buddies first took to the hills, they wore aviator goggles and leggings, bolted on shovel blades to serve as engine protectors and did their own repairs. Lots of repairs.
Mr. Ekins’s brother, David, a former editor of Motorcyclist Magazine and also a Hall of Fame inductee, said that if his brother failed to win a race, it was because he pushed his bike past the breaking point. That was evident in one of the most important annual competitions of the ’50s, the 100-mile Catalina Grand Prix.
“Bud raced it seven times,” David Ekins said. “He won in 1955. Every other year he led at the 50-mile mark. But then on the turns, he’d pitch the bike sideways at 90 miles an hour.”
“He was having fun as a showman.”
Three times, however, Bud Ekins did win the Big Bear Hare and Hound Race across 153 miles of the Mojave Desert. Leading about 700 riders in 1959, he came in a half-hour ahead of the pack.
In 1964 Mr. Ekins organized the American team for the International Six-Day Trials in Germany, the Olympics of motorcycling now called the International Six Days Enduro. The team also included Clifford Coleman, his brother and a young man who had come into Mr. Ekins’s motorcycle dealership in Hollywood, asked for off-road racing lessons and became a friend: Steve McQueen.
The friendship led to that classic “Great Escape” stunt: 12 feet high on a 400-pound ’62 Triumph.
“I made it on the first pass,” Mr. Ekins told Cycle News Magazine in 1998. His fee, $1,000, was “huge money back in those days,” he said.
Asked about the landing, he said, “Hard!”
Seven times during the 1960s Mr. Ekins participated in the International Six-Day Trials, racing about 200 miles a day. To earn a gold medal, competitors had to “run clean” each day, which required them to pass certain markers on time; repair their own bikes; and be among the top 20 percent of riders in daily speed tests. Mr. Ekins won four gold medals.
James Sherwin Ekins was born in Los Angeles on May 11, 1930. His father owned a welding shop. Mr. Ekins never completed eighth grade. He spent two years in reform school after a joy ride in a stolen car. Later, when not working in his father’s shop, he went hot rodding. Then the roar of his cousin’s Harley hooked him.
By his early 20s, Mr. Elkins was winning race after race in Southern California on his 1950 Matchless. He won the area’s No. 1 biking plate seven times.
“Bud knew the fine line between control and crashing,” his brother said.
Besides his brother and his daughter Susan, Mr. Ekins is survived by a sister, Vivian Gorriando; another daughter, Donna Ekins-Kapner; and two granddaughters. His wife, the former Betty Towne, died in 1996.
Before the 1980s when he reopened his shop, a showcase for his collection of nearly 100 vintage bikes, Mr. Ekins worked in films for 20 years. His harrowing stunts included two in the 1968 crime-thriller “Bullitt,” again as Mr. McQueen’s double and as an innocent stranger. In one, he lays down his bike in front of a skidding truck. In the other he drives a Ford Mustang in a 10-minute chase, soaring over the crests of San Francisco streets.
Asked by Cycle News if he ever refused a stunt, he said: “Yeah, some of them were too stupid to consider.”
Correction: November 2, 2007
An obituary on Oct. 12 about Bud Ekins, a motorcycle and auto stunt driver, referred incorrectly to two of his stunts in the 1968 crime thriller “Bullitt.” Mr. Ekins drove a Ford Mustang, not a Dodge Charger, as he doubled for Steve McQueen in part of the famous chase scene; the villains were in the Charger. In another scene, in which he laid down his motorcycle in front of a skidding truck, he played an innocent stranger who had been riding by; he was not doubling for Mr. McQueen.
CLASSIC LINE FROM EKINS ABOUT PARKS: "Mike comes around now and then, but when the beer runs out, so does he."
I first ran across the name Birney Jarvis via reading Hunter Thompson's
"Hell's Angels" way long ago. Jarvis at the time was an Angel who convinced the club to allow Thompson to chronicle them. In the book Thompson speaks highly of Jarvis' later work with the SF Chronicle. It was at the Chronicle where he would come in contact with Petitclerc and ultimately became the inspiration for the Bronson character.
Birney Jarvis, a retired San Francisco Chronicle reporter whose life read like a script for an adventure movie, died at his home in Bay Minnette, Ala., on June 3. He was 82 and suffered from leukemia.
At various times, Mr. Jarvis was a Hells Angel, a blue water sailor, a boxer, a karate instructor, an author and a journalist. "He was a larger-than-life adventurer," said Jerry Carroll, a former Chronicle reporter and longtime friend. "He was at home behind the wheel of a sailboat in a roaring gale, or at the reins of a covered wagon in the Texas hill country," Carroll said. "He collected antiques, played the banjo and could sing sea chanteys by the hour. He was a fitness buff who pounded a heavy punching bag every day well into his 70s. He was a man's man, but a lot of the ladies liked him, too."
Mr. Jarvis was born Dec. 9, 1929, in San Anselmo. His father was a sea captain who abandoned the family, and Mr. Jarvis had a hardscrabble childhood. He often recalled he had to walk to school barefoot. School never interested him; he dropped out in the ninth grade and never went back.
He was an amateur boxer who won 56 bouts and lost one, and was a charter member and vice president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels.
His cross-country travels on a Harley formed the basis for the television series "Then Came Bronson," which ran in 1969 and 1970. He got his start in newspapering as a motorcycle messenger for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, carrying old-time photo plates from crime scenes.
He later worked as a cub reporter in Hollister and Redding and became a police reporter for The Chronicle in 1959. He covered everything from bank robberies and murders to the saga of Humphrey the Whale, a humpback who got lost in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Mr. Jarvis quit The Chronicle four times to go sailing or traveling. Once, when his sailboat foundered off the Cuban coast, Mr. Jarvis returned to California with only 13 cents in his pocket. He was so valuable as a reporter that The Chronicle hired him back immediately.
In 1987, he quit The Chronicle for good and retired to the Alabama Gulf Coast region to be near his wife's family. In retirement, he wrote for local newspapers, became a flotilla commander in the Coast Guard Auxiliary and traveled.
Mr. Jarvis was married twice. He is survived by his wife, Joyce, whom he met on a blind date. They married soon afterward, and the match lasted 42 years.
Besides his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Marilynn Sebring of Stapleton, Ala., and Colleen Anderson of Fredericksburg, Va., and by two sons: Kevin Jarvis of Midway, Ga., and Eric Jarvis, who lives in California. There are 13 grandchildren.
At his request, there will be no services.
Miscellaneous Crew (1 title)
1969 Then Came Bronson (TV series) (assistant to producer - 1 episode)
In addition to the iconic sci-fi series, Solow oversaw such sixties' staples as "Mission: Impossible (CBS, 1966-1973) and "Mannix" (CBS, 1967-1975), making Desilu Studios more than what could have been just a vanity project for one of Hollywood's favorite couples, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Future studio mogul Solow graduated from Dartmouth College in 1953, and by way of the now clichéd "mailroom" job at the William Morris Agency in New York City, made his less-than-auspicious entrée into show business. Within three years he became a talent agent, and soon thereafter, moved to NBC to work as a program director for its California National Productions, as well as the company's film division. Not long after, Solow was transferred to Los Angeles in 1960 to continue his work with the peacock network.
When the NBC film division was dissolved, following a change in government regulations of media ownership and consolidation, Solow went to work for CBS, where he was a Director of Daytime Programs for the West Coast. He returned to the NBC fold a year later, when the same position was offered to him.
After several successful years in network programming, Solow took a leap of faith and left his job at NBC to join Desilu Studios, the production company formed by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz - who had, for the past decade, epitomized television in its infancy with the instant comedy classic, "I Love Lucy" (CBS, 1951-57). At the time of Solow's arrival, while he worked under veteran CBS programmer Oscar Katz, Desilu had fallen on hard times financially - most particularly with their film division - which led to a re-focusing on what made Desilu possible in the first place - television. After being deemed the best man for the job, Solow was appointed Vice President of Production in 1964 - and the rest was soon-to-be TV history.
A year after moving up in the corporate ladder, he came into contact with little-known producer Gene Roddenberry who was armed with a sci-fi show idea, best described as "wagon train to the stars," entitled, "Star Trek." Ball, who initially misunderstood the show's premise to be about a traveling USO tour set in World War II, was unsure about moving forward on this iffy genre. Solow not only persuaded her to get on board for "Trek," but also to expand her studio to include a variety of different shows. His arguments worked, leaving the foreword-thinking exec to oversee all aspects of the groundbreaking series, including the introduction of such ideas as the "captain's log" narration feature and the reasoning that, if the show appeared to take place in flashback, audiences might not be so put off by its otherworldly aspects. Solow was intimately involved in all other aspects of the show - including casting, writing, etc. This total emersion in his Starship Enterprise "baby" would engender such fascinating themes and endearing characters that the franchise would go on to spawn an outright obsession by "Trekkies" for several feature films, five additional series, and hundreds of books and games - to say nothing of the fabled "Star Trek" conventions.
Lest anyone think Solow's only legacy was the Vulcan mind meld, the executive also oversaw other popular Desilu series such as "Mission: Impossible" and "Mannix." Years later, when Desilu was sold to Gulf & Western, becoming absorbed into Paramount, Solow left the company to join Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as Vice President of Television Production. He oversaw the development and production of "Medical Center," (CBS, 1969-1976) "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," (ABC, 1969-1972) and "Then CameBronson." (NBC, 1969-1970). Having proven himself on the small screen, Solow moved into film with his appointment as M-G-M's Vice President of Worldwide Motion Picture and Television Production. He reunited with Roddenberry, hiring him to write and produce the feature film, "Pretty Maids All in a Row" (1971). On Solow's watch, M-G-M released three popular features in 1970 - "Ryan's Daughter," "Brewster McCloud," and "Kelly's Heroes" - and a year later, two other hits - "Shaft" and "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."
Like many producers who had earned their stripes and felt constricted under company rule, Solow left M-G-M in 1973 to produce on his own. He created the short-lived television show, "Man From Atlantis," (CBS, 1977) and went on to produce the feature film "Saving Grace," starring Edward James Olmos, in 1985. As the years progressed, Solow continued to lecture on television and film production, and - as a well-known name in Star Trek fan circles - revisited his most noteworthy legacy by co-writing Inside Star Trek: The Real Story (1996) with Robert H. Justman, followed a year later by The Star Trek Sketchbook with Yvonne Fern.
Robert "Bob" Sabaroff, a writer for such TV series as Hanna-Barbera's partly animated The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, died Wednesday morning, comic book and cartoon historian Mark Evanier reported on his "News From Me" site. His age was not immediately available. Sabaroff's death followed "an ugly bout" of leukemia, Evanier said. The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn aired in prime time on NBC in 1968 and 1969. Lasting for 20 episodes, the series starred live-action actors portraying Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher with animated villains and backgrounds. Reruns were syndicated along with Banana Splits reruns in the Banana Splits And Friends Show package. Sabaroff was the co-creator and co-producer of the 1969 TV series Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks. Similar to Route 66, it featured one man on a motorcycle instead of two in a car. Sabaroff wrote for dozens of TV series from the 1950s to the 1980s, including scripts for the original Star Trek series (1968's "The Immunity Syndrome") and its successor, Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Conspiracy" and "Home Soil," both released in 1988). Among his writing credits on TV were Death Valley Days, The Deputy, The Beachcomber, Flipper, Marcus Welby, M.D. and The Young Lawyers. Other TV series for which he wrote included Bonanza, The Equalizer, The High Chaparral, The Invaders and Tarzan, Evanier said. A rare movie screenwriting credit was for Gordon Flemyng's caper film The Split (1968), based on Richard Stark and Donald E. Westlake's novel The Seventh. "He was an intense person who'd been everywhere and knew everyone, often speaking of hush-hush government assignments and offering first-hand knowledge of world affairs," Evanier recalled. "We had some interesting discussions and debates, and I regret that we didn't have more of them."
