Enos Edward "Yakima" Canutt (November 29, 1895 – May 24, 1986) was an American champion rodeo rider, actor, stuntman, and action director.

He gained the education for his life's work on the family ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot, and ride.

Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a bronc rider, bulldogger, and all-around cowboy.

[3] Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, who invited Canutt to compete around the country.

[2] While bulldogging in Idaho, Canutt suffered tears to his mouth and upper lip by a bull's horn; after getting stitches, he returned to the competition.

[4] Canutt got his first taste of stunt work in a fight scene on a serial called Lightning Bryce;[6] he left Hollywood to compete in the 1920 rodeo circuit.

[2] While in Hollywood in 1923 for an awards ceremony, he was offered eight Western action pictures for producer Ben Wilson at Burwillow Studios; the first was to be Riding Mad.

[7] He won the first leg of the Roosevelt Trophy as the cowboy who accumulated the most points between Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Pendleton Round-Up.

[2] In 1930, between pictures and rodeoing, Canutt met Minnie Audrea Yeager Rice at a party at her parents' home.

Canutt also developed cabling and equipment to cause spectacular wagon crashes, while releasing the team of horses, all on the same spot every time.

[4] Safety methods such as these saved film-makers time and money and prevented accidents and injury to performers and animals.

Canutt developed the 'Running W' stunt, bringing down a horse at the gallop by attaching a wire, anchored to the ground, to its fetlocks and launching the rider forward spectacularly.

[2] In his 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when stuntman Terry Leonard (doubling for Harrison Ford) 'dropped' from the front of a German transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench), and climbed up the back and round to the front again.

Wayne and Canutt found if they stood at a certain angle in front of the camera, they could throw a punch at an actor's face and make it look as if actual contact had been made.

In 1932, Canutt's first son Edward Clay was born and nicknamed Tap, short for Tapadero, a Spanish word for a stirrup covering.

He handled all the action on many pictures, including Gene Autry films; and several series and serials, such as The Lone Ranger and Zorro.

One of his clever devices was a step that attached to the saddle so that he had leverage to transfer to another moving object, like a wagon or a train.

[18]In the 1936 film San Francisco, Canutt replaced Clark Gable in a scene in which a wall was to fall on the star.

He also appeared as a renegade accosting Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) as she crosses a bridge in a carriage driving through a shantytown.

[21] In 1940, Canutt sustained serious internal injuries while doubling for Clark Gable in Boom Town (1940) when a horse fell on him.

For Dark Command, Canutt fashioned an elaborate cable system to yank back the plummeting coach before it fell on the stuntman and horses; he also created a breakaway harness from which they were released before hitting the water.

[22] In 1943, while doing a low budget Roy Rogers picture called Idaho, Canutt broke both his legs at the ankles in a fall off a wagon.

MGM brought Canutt to England in 1952 to direct the action and jousting sequences in Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor.

[2] Ivanhoe was followed by Knights of the Round Table, again with director Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor.

[23] In 1954, Canutt directed the Hollywood Western movie "The Lawless Rider," starring Johnny Carpenter and Texas Rose Bascom.

He took five days to direct retakes that included the slave army rolling its flaming logs into the Romans, and other fight scenes featuring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and John Ireland.

In 1960, Canutt worked with Disney on Swiss Family Robinson, which involved transporting many exotic animals to a remote island in the West Indies.

Over the next 10 years, Canutt continued to work, bringing his talents to Cat Ballou, Khartoum, Where Eagles Dare and A Man Called Horse (1970).

[29] For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Canutt awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street in 1985.