20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
1. “Keeping The British End Up, Sir!”
The opening stunt, in which Double-0 Seven evades his KGB pursuers by skiing off of a mountainside in Austria before jettisoning his skis and using a Union Jack parachute to glide to safety, was performed by Rick Sylvester on Baffin Island's Asgard Peak in Canada.
The crew, led by second unit director and editor, John Glen, had to wait ten days for the right weather conditions before Sylvester could perform the breath-taking feat. Even then, it was feared that none of the various cameras set up to capture the death-defying spectacle had successfully done so, but one had managed to follow the stunt throughout its entire execution.
Despite skiing off of a cliff, Rick Sylvester also danced with death when one of the skis that he had discarded narrowly missed slicing through his parachute canopy! He was paid $30,000 for the stunt, plus a bonus for its successful completion.
The daredevil act remains one of the most memorable stunts in movie history.
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