When he could not obtain a union card as a stuntman fast enough, he became an instructor in three more sports, including hang gliding.
He also played the character of Che Che in a reenactment of the "gatecrasher" fight scene from On Her Majesty's Secret Service traditionally used to test the fighting skills of actors up for the part of James Bond.
It cost $1 million to have Simon Crane descending on a rope between two planes at an altitude of 4,572 m (15,000 ft).
After a four-year break from the Bond franchise, during which he coordinated stunts for the Academy Award-winning films Titanic (in which he happened to play fourth officer Joseph Boxhall, and had two lines) and Saving Private Ryan, Crane returned to handle the stunts for The World Is Not Enough, with Vic Armstrong as second unit director.
He was to make his directorial début directing a film adaptation of the popular video game, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men but departed from the project.