In Remembrance: Polly Burson

     Polly Burson, the renowned rodeo trick rider who became one of Hollywood’s first stuntwomen, has passed away on April 4, 2006 in Ventura, California. She was 86.

     Born on December 24, 1919 in Ontario, Oregon, Burson learned to ride horses on her grandfather’s ranch. By the age of seven she was competing in rodeos, first riding calves and later doing rope tricks. At the age of 22 she realized her dream of trick-riding in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

     Burson made her first film appearance in the 1945 Republic Pictures serial The Purple Monster Strikes, doubling for actress Mary Moore. In 1947’s The Perils Of Pauline, she doubled for Betty Hutton, Jumping from a galloping horse onto a moving train, climbing up its side and then jumping from car to car. For Niagra (1953), Burson substituted for star Jean Peters and clung to a rock near the Falls before being hoisted into a helicopter. In 1953, she doubled for Julie Adams in the classic Creature From The Black Lagoon, getting grabbed by the titular Gill Man and pulled off of a boat.

     She performed stunt work in such films as Winchester ’73 (1950), The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), The Ten Commandments (1956), Vertigo (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), Spartacus (1960), True Grit (1969) and Who’s That Girl? (1987).

     In 1951, Burson became the first female stunt coordinator, working on director William Wellman’s western Westward The Women. Working at a time when most female character stunt work was actually done by men, Burson became the first woman to double for a man in the 1956 western Pillars In The Sky, when her riding skills earned a part as an Indian in a horse chase sequence.

     While performing a stunt for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake – in which she stood on a porch while thousands of gallons of water were dumped on her – Burson broke her left leg and some facial bones. She decided to retire, buying a boat and sailing the South Pacific. She still returned intermittently to film work. Her last screen appearance was in the 1992 film Hero at the age of 73.

     In 1990, Burson became the first recipient of the Tad Lucas Memorial Award of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. She also received the Golden Boot Award from the Motion Picture & Television Fund. She has also been inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.