21. Paul Mantz’s Near Suicidal Stunts in Twelve O’Clock High
After his discharge from the military, Paul Mantz resumed his aerial stuntman and movie stunt pilot career. Some of his greatest Hollywood aerial exploits after the war occurred on the set of 1949’s Twelve O’Clock High, in which he performed “near-suicidal” B-17 belly landings as the cameras rolled. Unfortunately, his storied career came to an abrupt end on July 8th, 1965. Mantz and fellow veteran stuntman Bobby Rose were on the set of The Flight of the Phoenix, in which they doubled for the movie’s stars, Jimmy Stewart and James Attenborough.
The stuntmen flew the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1, a one-off makeshift airplane made of aluminum and plywood, specially manufactured for the movie by Mantz’s company, Tallmantz Aviation. Mantz piloted the airplane as cameras rolled to capture film for the movie’s early aerial sequences. The script called for takeoffs, which Mantz attempted to simulate with “touch and go” passes before the cameras. However, on the third low camera pass, Mantz’s rate of descent of 90 miles per hour exceeded the aircraft’s structural capacity. When he touched down, the modest impact combined with an unexpected drag to produce disaster.