Bakunas (October 23, 1950 – September 22, 1978) was a stunt performer who died doubling for George Kennedy in a fall from the Kincaid Towers in Lexington, Kentucky, for the film Steel (1979).

Born in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Bakunas quit his job as a gym teacher at Tenafly (N.J.) High School in 1974 and set out to break into the film industry.

[1] In 1978, Bakunas set a world record with a 70.1 metres (230 ft) fall from a helicopter for the film Hooper,[2] which was broken that same year by Dar Robinson's 87.2 metres (286 ft) fall for a non-movie-related publicity stunt.

[3] Bakunas, determined to retake the record, returned to Lexington to perform a 96 metres (315 ft) jump from the 22nd floor of a construction site, where he had previously successfully fallen nine stories.

On September 21, 1978, as his father and a crowd of about 1,000 watched, Bakunas performed the fall, reaching an estimated speed of 115 miles per hour (185 km/h).