So, I was kicking back the other day, watching some old movies. You know how it is, sometimes you just get in the mood for those classics. And I got to thinking about Steve McQueen. What an icon, right? Always did his own thing, seemed like.
Anyway, I put on “The Great Escape.” Love that film. And, of course, you have that legendary motorcycle jump over the barbed wire fence. For the longest time, I, like probably many folks, just figured McQueen himself nailed that stunt. He was a known motorcycle guy, a racer even, so it made sense in my head.
But then, something made me a bit curious. I decided to do a little digging, just started looking into the making of that scene. And that’s when this name, Bud Ekins, popped up. And boy, did that open up a whole story.
It turns out, Bud Ekins was the actual rider who performed that incredible jump. McQueen, yeah, he was a skilled rider, no doubt about it. He apparently did a lot of the other motorcycle riding in the movie. But that one specific, super famous jump, the really big one? That was all Ekins. They said it was something about insurance not letting McQueen do it, or maybe Ekins was just the absolute top dog for that kind of high-risk maneuver on that Triumph TR6 Trophy they had painted up to look like a German bike.
And the more I read, the more fascinating it became. See, Ekins wasn’t just some stuntman McQueen hired. These two were tight. Best friends, actually. The kind of friends whose families would hang out, go racing in the desert on weekends. It wasn’t just a professional relationship; they were proper mates. That really changed how I saw their on-screen collaborations.
Then I started to connect the dots. I’d seen Ekins’ name mentioned before, but it hadn’t really clicked. I thought about other McQueen movies, like “Bullitt” with that epic car chase. And guess what? Bud Ekins was right there, involved in the stunt work for that one too. It seemed like he was McQueen’s trusted guy, the one he relied on when things got really hairy on set.
It really made me stop and think. You see the big star, the face of the movie, but there are these incredibly talented, brave people working behind the scenes, often literally risking their necks, to make those moments unforgettable. Learning about Bud Ekins and his role, especially in “The Great Escape,” was a real eye-opener. He wasn’t just a stunt double; he was a legend in his own right, and a close friend to another legend. It’s one of those cool pieces of movie history I stumbled upon, and I just felt like sharing it. Makes you appreciate those old flicks even more, knowing a bit more about the unsung heroes like Bud.
