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Hal Needham @ 82.

Hal Needham, longtime stuntman and director of “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Cannonball Run” for Burt Reynolds, died Friday in Los Angeles after a short battle with cancer, his manager confirmed.

He was 82.

At one time the highest paid stuntman in the world, he was said to have broken 56 bones, broken his back twice, punctured a lung and knocked out a few teeth while working on 4500 TV episodes and 310 feature films.

Needham, a native of Tennessee, broke into show business as a stunt double for Richard Boone on the series “Have Gun, Will Travel.” Among the hundreds of films on which he did stunts were “Stagecoach,” “How the West Was Won,” “The Bridge at Remagen,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “Little Big Man.”

He developed numerous camera and production innovations, and won a Scientific and Engineering Oscar in 1987 for the design and development of the Shotmaker Elite camera car and crane. Among his other inventions were the air ram, air bag, car cannon turnover, nitrogen ratchet, jerk-off ratchet and rocket power.

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/ha...82-1200763031/