Heidi von Beltz, a stuntwoman who was paralyzed when a stunt went terribly wrong on the set of The Cannonball Run, died Wednesday at Tarzana (Calif.) Medical Center. She was 59 and had, with the aid of her sister, courageously battled quadriplegia for the last 35 years of her life.
Von Beltz was a stunningly beautiful 24-year-old stuntwoman, actress and world-class skier in 1980 when she got the call from her fiancée, stunt coordinator Bobby Bass, to come to the desert outside of Las Vegas to double for Farrah Fawcett on the ensemble action comedy starring Burt Reynolds.
When it came time to film the stunt, the car’s driver, Jimmy Nickerson, still didn’t think it was ready. He wanted more repairs but was told that the parts from Los Angeles had not arrived and that he’d have to “make do.”
“The last thing I remember before the crash was somebody yelling, ‘Faster! Faster!’ over the walkie-talkie,” von Beltz recalled. The Aston Martin then slammed head-on into the first in the line of onrushing cars, and she was hurtled into the windshield. When members of the film crew got to the scene of the burning wreck, they found her unconscious inside the car, her head hanging limply on her chest, her neck crushed. In that moment, everything changed: She was paralyzed from the neck down, and would remain so for the rest of her life.
Von Beltz was a stunningly beautiful 24-year-old stuntwoman, actress and world-class skier in 1980 when she got the call from her fiancée, stunt coordinator Bobby Bass, to come to the desert outside of Las Vegas to double for Farrah Fawcett on the ensemble action comedy starring Burt Reynolds.
When it came time to film the stunt, the car’s driver, Jimmy Nickerson, still didn’t think it was ready. He wanted more repairs but was told that the parts from Los Angeles had not arrived and that he’d have to “make do.”
“The last thing I remember before the crash was somebody yelling, ‘Faster! Faster!’ over the walkie-talkie,” von Beltz recalled. The Aston Martin then slammed head-on into the first in the line of onrushing cars, and she was hurtled into the windshield. When members of the film crew got to the scene of the burning wreck, they found her unconscious inside the car, her head hanging limply on her chest, her neck crushed. In that moment, everything changed: She was paralyzed from the neck down, and would remain so for the rest of her life.
Heidi von Beltz, a stuntwoman who was paralyzed when a stunt went terribly wrong on the set of The Cannonball Run, died Wednesday at Tarzana (Calif.) Medical Center. She was 59 and had, with the aid of her sister, courageously battled quadriplegia for the last 35 years of her life.
Von Beltz was a stunningly beautiful 24-year-old stuntwoman, actress and world-class skier in 1980 when she got the call from her fiancée, stunt coordinator Bobby Bass, to come to the desert outside of Las Vegas to double for Farrah Fawcett on the ensemble action comedy starring Burt Reynolds.
When it came time to film the stunt, the car’s driver, Jimmy Nickerson, still didn’t think it was ready. He wanted more repairs but was told that the parts from Los Angeles had not arrived and that he’d have to “make do.”
“The last thing I remember before the crash was somebody yelling, ‘Faster! Faster!’ over the walkie-talkie,” von Beltz recalled. The Aston Martin then slammed head-on into the first in the line of onrushing cars, and she was hurtled into the windshield. When members of the film crew got to the scene of the burning wreck, they found her unconscious inside the car, her head hanging limply on her chest, her neck crushed. In that moment, everything changed: She was paralyzed from the neck down, and would remain so for the rest of her life.
Von Beltz was a stunningly beautiful 24-year-old stuntwoman, actress and world-class skier in 1980 when she got the call from her fiancée, stunt coordinator Bobby Bass, to come to the desert outside of Las Vegas to double for Farrah Fawcett on the ensemble action comedy starring Burt Reynolds.
When it came time to film the stunt, the car’s driver, Jimmy Nickerson, still didn’t think it was ready. He wanted more repairs but was told that the parts from Los Angeles had not arrived and that he’d have to “make do.”
“The last thing I remember before the crash was somebody yelling, ‘Faster! Faster!’ over the walkie-talkie,” von Beltz recalled. The Aston Martin then slammed head-on into the first in the line of onrushing cars, and she was hurtled into the windshield. When members of the film crew got to the scene of the burning wreck, they found her unconscious inside the car, her head hanging limply on her chest, her neck crushed. In that moment, everything changed: She was paralyzed from the neck down, and would remain so for the rest of her life.
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