Helen Gibson……! – Express Urdu

Stunt is the most important component of any film or drama, despite the availability of modern technology from the past to the present, because whenever there is a need to jump from a rock, ship or boat to land or a river. Is.

If one has to go through a raging fire or perform a dangerous horse ride, then even the hero or heroine who rules millions of hearts shy away from doing so, but in that moment a stuntman or woman is always ready to show that courage. There are, which undoubtedly requires great courage, unwavering courage and great skill.

Although the history of stunts is linked to cinema, it officially emerged in the 1900s, when it was officially recognized as a profession and stuntmen began to be paid, because it Earlier, there were no professional stunt performers but a few emotional or needy people willing to do it.

Although nothing can be said with certainty about the first stuntman in showbiz, Frank Hanaway is considered the first stuntman as his name is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first stuntman.

After that, there have been many famous stuntmen in the history and still there are, but here we are going to present you the story of a stunt performer, who was not a man but a woman and she was the first professional in Hollywood. The stunt was awarded. The name of this great stunt woman is Helen Gibson, who performed these feats at a time when in American society a woman was not even considered eligible to vote, a woman could not drive alone.

There were no institutions at the state level to protect the welfare or rights of actors and artists, except for a few private institutions. At that time, Gibson broke several bones and made his mark in society. “I definitely get very angry when someone says they bet I can’t do it,” Gibson says of her courage.

American stuntwoman, actress and producer Helen Gibson’s birth name is Rose August Wenger, who was born on August 27, 1892 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She is one of five girls of Swiss German parents, Fred and Annie Wenger.

It is a separate matter that Helen’s father wished to have a boy in his place, but he tried to fulfill his wish through Gibson and prepared him to perform boyish feats. And with that in mind, Helen participated in her first Wild West show in Cleveland in the summer of 1909 (run by Miller-Arlington) and practiced horsemanship, referring to Helen Gibson as saying, ’ (I was) practicing to be an expert horseman, adept at picking up handkerchiefs from the ground while galloping, but when experienced horsemen told me I might get kicked in the head, I didn’t pay attention. “Yes, because I believed that such things could happen to others.”

The show, managed by Miller-Arlington, was closed by the company in 1911, due to which all the staff were laid off, but later Thomas Harper, the famous film maker of the time, hired the staff for the New York Motion Picture Company. Hired and contractually paid each staff member $8 per week.

Funkara first got an opportunity to express her talent in the movie Ranch Girls on a Rampage in 1912 as the sister of famous actress and producer Rath Rowland, which she did well. In 1913, at the second Los Angeles rodeo, Helen’s skills were well received, and she was offered an all-expenses-paid ride to Oregon by a capitalist. There was also compensation, which Helen accepted, and so she began to service the investor’s horses and learn new horsemanship skills.

It was here in June 1913 that Helen met the horse race champion Edmund Richard and they began working together. In April 1915, while working for the production company Kalem, the stuntwoman performed a stunt in the movie Helen Holmes, which is considered her most dangerous stunt. In this scene, they had to jump from the roof of a station onto a moving train, for which Helen was rehearsed several times by stopping the train.

The train had to run on camera for about a quarter of a mile and its acceleration was timed in seconds, but Helen surprised everyone by jumping onto the train without hesitation and successfully completed the stunt. She staggered once as she walked, but she held on to the edge of the train compartment and hung there until the scene was complete, sustaining a minor injury during which it was insignificant in the face of such a massive stunt.

In 1920, Gibson formed a production company, Helen Gibson Productions, and under this banner, he made his first film, No Man’s Woman, but this film bankrupted the artist personally. But a year later the film was released by another studio with some alterations, which reduced the financial loss somewhat.

In 1921, The Spencer Productions hired Gibson for the film The Wolverine, where the company was pleased with her outstanding performance and the actress was paid $450 per week. She suffered an appendicitis and ended up in hospital, causing her popularity to decline even after she was away from the screen, and at one point she even had to sell the furniture in her house due to lack of work.

However, in 1924, she got a job performing horse tricks with the Ringling Bros. circus company, where she worked for two and a half years. In September 1926, she came to the attention of Keith Vaudeville, a well-known theater owner of the time, which brought her considerable financial benefits. In 1927, Helen once again returned to Hollywood and started doing stunts for famous actors of the time, Louis Fazenda, Erne Rich, Edna Oliver, Mary Dressler, May Robeson, etc. Became a special guest.

In 1935, Helen married Clifton Johnson, then a studio electrician but later enlisted in the Navy. The world’s first stunt woman continued to work until 1954, but in 1957 she suffered a stroke, which affected her health and work.

Helen performed the last work of her life in the famous American film director John Ford’s film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, for which she was paid 35 dollars. Retired in 1962 on a pension of $200 a month, Helen moved with her husband to Roseburg, Oregon, where she spent the last 15 years of her life before dying of a heart attack on October 10, 1977, at the age of 85. She passed away.