Cycle News

VOL. 56 ISSUE 11 MARCH 19, 2019 P119 Fordyce, like the rest of the crowd, was picking his jaw up off the ground. He hired Loftin on the spot. Thus began the stunt-riding career of Carey Loftin, who would go on to be a motorcycle racer and eventually a renowned Hollywood stuntman. Loftin was born on January 31, 1914, in Blountstown, Florida. The son of a preacher, Carey grew up in Alabama and Mississippi. He went to high school in Hattiesburg, Missis- sippi. Loftin began riding at 10 when he borrowed an old strap-drive Ex- celsior from a local blacksmith and proceeded to plow up a farm field, mostly with his face. In spite of such discouragement, the young Loftin continued to ride whenever he could get his hands on a machine. The first motorcycle he owned was an old 37-cubic-inch Indian single-cylinder that cost him the grand sum of $10. It was just about worth $10, Loftin said in a 1953 interview with Cycle magazine. There was a gut- less wonder if you ever saw one. It was humiliating. Every cycle in town ran away from it, but it made a mechanic out of me. An athletic kid, Carey wasn't content to merely ride his motor- cycle. He learned to do acrobatic stunts while riding. He impressed his friends with his antics and con- tinually pushed himself to do more difficult stunts. Loftin rode for various stunt shows in the 1930s, supporting himself during the Depression. During off times, he supplemented his income by working as a motor- cycle mechanic. After a stint in the Marine Corps, Loftin moved to Los Angeles in the late 1930s and took a job as a mechanic. He quickly broke into movie stunt work. Loftin's expertise with motor vehicles, including cars, trucks and motorcycles, gave him the chance to contribute his skills to numerous films from the late 1930s until he retired in the early 1990s. "The first stunt I did at Warner Bros. was a motorcycle wreck," Loftin said. "The tires were sup- posed to shoot out from under me, so I jack-knifed it on this dusty road and took a big tumble. When they yelled cut, I got up, dusted myself off and started walking away. John Hudkins, nicknamed The Bear, took me by the arm, pulled me over, and said, 'Son, you're never going to make any money in this business. Limp till you make a deal.' It was good advice, and I took it." During the 1940s and '50s, Loftin raced in many Southern Cali- fornia events such as the Catalina Grand Prix, the Big Bear Run, the Greenhorn Enduro and others. When race promoter J.C. Agaja- nian put on some thrill shows, Loftin came up with stunts that he claimed nearly turned Aggie grey. One example was a head-on collision between a car and a motorcycle. Everyone tried to talk Loftin out of it, but he insisted he could make it work. Finally, Carey convinced Aga- janian to let him attempt the stunt. Everything went well during the stunt. Loftin hit the car head-on and sailed over the top of the roadster. As the spectators saw Loftin get up and dust himself off someone noticed the car was continuing out of control. Loftin had kicked the driver in the head during the stunt, temporarily knocking him cold. As a stunt driver and stunt coordi- nator, Loftin helped create some of the most exciting and famous chase sequences in movie history. His body of work spanned five decades and included classics such as The French Connection, Bullitt, Van- ishing Point, and Days of Thunder. When Loftin worked on Bullitt, a fellow stuntman called Loftin easily the best car man in the business, and that praise was earned time and again throughout his lifetime. Loftin avoided severe injury for much of his career. One of his worst injuries came in a big bar- room brawl scene for the movie Soldiers Three, when a breakaway balcony collapsed before it was scheduled to fall. According to his son Doug, Lof- tin, who was well into his 70s, was hired by Clint Eastwood to work in the movie The Rookie. After five or six days of inactivity on the set, Lof- tin told Eastwood that he wasn't get- ting his money's worth out of him. Eastwood laughed and told Loftin they hired him to be on the set so that they could hear his stories. Loftin died in 1997 at the age of 83, survived by his two sons, Doug and Jim. The AMA inducted Loftin into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2001. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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