George DeNormand

Biography

George DeNormand's life is an example of somebody whose life is almost too eventful to be true. Once he got out of the military, he became a professional boxer. Like most boxers, his career only lasted a handful of professional bouts however it opened up the door to a move to appearing as a stuntman in films. While most boxers who appeared in movies had faces which showcased the many years of abuse they took during their career, DeNormand was able to escape with face and cognitive ability intact. In the 1930s, he started a long career as a stuntman. Like most stuntman, he had a specialty, and his was appearing in fight scenes and doubling for actors who the studio did not want to risk hurting. There was no better period in DeNormand's career than the 1940s. By then he had established himself as one of the go-to brawlers for movies. This led him to be cast as a regular henchman in various Johnny Mack Brown movies where he was able to get paid as a stuntman and as an actor. Sometimes he was handy to have around just in case they needed a stuntman to do a fighting sequence or if they needed a random henchman to have beaten up. DeNormand had several credited roles in the late 1940s where he was an outlaw that Johnny Mack Brown had to fight or a gang member Brown had to shoot off a horse. Like most stuntmen, DeNormand's body began to break down in the 1950s and he found regular work as an extra in both westerns and dramas as an extra. Sometimes he would be given dialog but DeNormand's thick New York accent made it really hard to give him lines of dialog if the setting was wrong. He was able to appear multiple times in many of the hit television shows of the time and he even had a few talking appearances in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. By the late 1960s, DeNormand's stunt days were over. The various productions he worked for would occasionally have him do a few small stunts that could not be done by a regular person. These were regularly referred to by various cast members as "Whammys" where the stunt would not be hazardous enough to call in a member of the stuntman's union but where an extra would get upgraded in pay. One of DeNormand's final stunts or credits where he received a whammy was on the hit television show "The Wild Wild West" where he played a murdered toy maker who receives a close-up right before his body falls out of a closet. DeNormand was heavily connected to the studios so by the 1970s, he was still receiving various silent bits from movies. He was still frequently chosen in shows like Gunsmoke to play a banker or movies like Get to Know Your Rabbit where he had a single line of dialog as an aspiring magician. DeNormand loved the motion picture industry and he continued to appear in various films until he died as result of cancer in 1976 leaving behind a legacy of somebody who appeared in various aspects of the film industry and who was greatly respected by all who knew him.