Article June 17, 2002 Issue

It was a beautiful snake

Loren L. Janes

IF A SCENE IN A MOVIE calls for an action that is dangerous, or takes a skill that an actor or actress doesn't have, a stunt double will perform. Loren Janes has been a stunt double for 48 years, working on over 500 movies and 2,176 TV shows. In this interview, he tells about an experience he had while working in 1965 in China on The Sand Pebbles, a film starring Steve McQueen.

On this shoot, everybody was normally too tired to eat at lunchtime. The weather was very hot and humid. So we took naps at midday. We'd try to find a cool, dark, shaded place to sleep. The lunch break ended when a cannon was fired from the gunboat we were using in the movie.

One day when I crawled down into this little Chinese junk for a nap, I felt a sharp prick on my wrist, as if I had stuck a needle into it. I quickly pulled up my arm, and there was a snake hanging onto it. I tried to grab the snake, but it dropped off and disappeared into a crack in the wood. I just thought, "Well, it's a beautiful snake. And I have a little spot there. That's OK."