A stunt performer is an actor skilled in both choreographing and safely presenting actions on-screen that appear to be dangerous, risky, or even deadly.

Stunts frequently performed include car crashes, falls from great height, drags (for example, behind a horse), and the consequences of explosions.

This acrobatic discipline required long training in the ring and perfect body control to present a sensational performance to the public.

[4] The word stunt was more formally adopted during the 19th-century travelling vaudeville performances of the early Wild West shows, in North America and Europe.

Egerton Castle and Captain Alfred Hutton were part of a wider Victorian era group based in London, involved in reviving historical fencing systems.

Circa 1899–1902, Hutton taught stage fencing classes for actors via the Bartitsu Club, where he also served on the Board of Directors and learned the basics of jujutsu and the Vigny method of stick fighting from his fellow instructors.

[5] By the early 1900s, the motion picture industry was starting to fire-up on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but had no need for professional stunt performers.

[4] Professional daredevil, Rodman Law, was a trick parachutist known to thousands for climbing the side of buildings and parachuting out aeroplanes and off of tall base objects like the Statue of Liberty.

As the industry developed in the West Coast around Hollywood, California, the first accepted professional stuntmen were clowns and comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops.

[3] The reason for this was that staple diet of the early films was an almost continual roll call of pratfalls, high dives and comedy car wrecks – the basic ingredients of a circus clown's routine.

[7] These mostly western-themed scripts required a lot of extras, such as for a galloping cavalry, a band of Indians or a fast-riding sheriff's posse; all of whom needed to proficiently ride, shoot and look right on camera.

[2] Early recruits included Tom Mix, who after winning the 1909 National Riding and Rodeo Championship, worked for the Selig Polyscope Company in Edendale.

Mix made his first appearance in The Cowboy Millionaire in October 1909, and then as himself in the short documentary film titled Ranch Life in the Great Southwest in which he displayed his skills as a cattle wrangler.

One of them was the young Rose August Wenger, who married and was later billed as Helen Gibson, recognised as the first American professional stunt woman.

[8] Thomas H. Ince, who was producing for the New York Motion Picture Company, hired the entire show's cast for the winter at $2,500 a week.

[6] Subsequently, a number of rodeo stars entered the movie industry on a full-time basis, with many "riding extras" eventually becoming movie stars themselves, including:[1][2] Hank Bell (300 films, between 1920 and 1952); Bill Gillis; Buck Jones; Jack Montgomery (initially worked as Tom Mix's body-double); and Jack Padjeon (first appeared in 1923, played Wild Bill Hickok in the John Ford directed The Iron Horse in 1924).

A focus on replicable and safe stunts saved producers money and prevented lost down-time for directors through reduced accidents and injury to performers.

[2] Stuntmen were now an integral part of a film's drawing power, helping to fill cinemas with thrill seeking patrons anxious to see the new Saturday matinee.

The entire stunt sequence was shot on location at the Atlantic Hotel on the Broadway in Los Angeles (demolished 1957), at actual heights.

Dar Robinson invented the decelerator during this period, which used dragline cables rather than airbags for stunts that called for a jump from high places.

[17] The co-development of this technology and professional performance training continues to evolve to the present, brought about through the need to not only create more visual impact on screen in the modern action movie era.

[3] It also provides a safe platform to a new breed of trained professional stunt performers, including Bill Hickman, Terry Richards, and motorcycle greats Bud Ekins and Evel Knievel.

[3] Latterly came the fast action Martial arts movies as a distinct genre, originating for western consumption mainly from Hong Kong from the 1940s, choreographed and later acted in by stunt performers turned stars including Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba from the 1960s, Kent Norman "Superkentman" Elofson, and latterly Jackie Chan.