I'm amazed to read that Bob Yerkes just died at the age of 92. Why is that amazing? Because Bob Yerkes spent his life diving out of windows, dangling by cables, swinging on trapezes, clinging to clock towers, being set on fire, etc. He was not just a stuntman. He was a superstar stuntman, one of the most in-demand guys producers would want to hire when they had a dangerous feat which had to be done. You can read more about him in this New York Times obit but I'll quote just this much here…
Mr. Yerkes (rhymes with "circus") performed stunts in the films The Towering Inferno (1974), Poltergeist (1982), Ghostbusters (1984) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), as well as on television in Gilligan’s Island, Wonder Woman, Starsky and Hutch and Dukes of Hazzard. He was concussed more times than he could remember.
And that's about 3% of all he did. He also trained a vast array of stuntpeople and professional acrobats. Every trapeze artist I've ever met (about six) trained under and loved Bob Yerkes.
He was one of only two people I've met — the other is Sid Krofft — who actually ran away from home at an early age and joined the circus. I met Bob when I was working on That's Incredible! and he had amazing stories about doubling for just about every action hero-type in show biz, doing things that you or I wouldn't do for any amount of money. I find it amazing that he made it to 92 and that he didn't die from leaping off a burning building or something. The cause of death was pneumonia. He was a fascinating man and probably the closest thing to a real-life super-hero I'll ever encounter.