For the uninitiated
Steven Lambert was, at one time, one of Hollywood’s most elite stuntmen. Back in 2019 he and co-writer Justin Dabrow sat down and wrote the bulk of Steven’s life in From the Streets of Brooklyn to the Halls of Hollywood; from his beginnings as self-described “punk kid from Brooklyn” who was uprooted by his parents to go live in Los Angeles, take up and become a Kung Fu master, and then go on to become one of those most revered names in the Hollywood stunt community. If you are as into those trivial behind-the-scenes moments on high-budget movie sets as you are watching the movies themselves, this book is like having an insider’s pass to how stuff really happens in Hollywood and a genuine glimpse at life as a stuntman.
Now that you’re all caught up
This particular title was chucked not specifically at me, but as a general recommendation by YouTube vlogger Viking Samurai, https://youtu.be/mVj1tXDAuVY; I do recommend watching that link because the author himself discusses in better detail some events that transpired between himself and Hollywood martial-arts sensation Jean-Claude Van Damme. Suffice to say the book’s version isn’t as fun. Really, though, that book has so many awesome stories in it I’m
What I think is my favorite part of this book is that it reads of self-edited and -published. What I mean is the innumerable instances of syntax, spelling and grammatical errors. Mind you I don’t mention that to poke fun at the authors, but to express admiration for the effort that went into the book. It’s like finding an easter-egg in a book when you come across a typo or other error that the editor(s) missed, and this book has tons of eggs!
After that, my next favorite part was Lambert’s interest in putting to bed an outlandish rumor that has more than made the rounds on YouTube as well as other social-media platforms like Twitter: that of whether or not “Judo” Gene Lebell actually choked Steven Seagal – the once-Hollywood A-lister who popularized the martial art Aikido in the US – out to the point of making him soil himself. Lambert goes into amusing detail as far as how the events between the other two actually went down. Cliff notes version was that Lebell had only begun to apply a choke on Seagal (rear-naked, presumably) wherein Seagal side-stepped and struck Lebell to the crotch that Lebell quickly recovered from and sent Seagal flying backwards with feet going up overhead and landing on his back from a Judo sweep. I found myself impressed with Lambert’s follow through in his own ethics and telling the truth as he saw it between those two (plus two of Seagal’s bodyguards) and doing his part to put to rest a rumor that has spawned its own Mandella Effect.
Fast-forward to another action-packed martial-arts movie called The Quest directed by JCVD, too, or was it? Let’s just say when you’re both starring in and directing a motion picture things can get a little hectic on (or off) set if promises aren’t kept and deadlines aren’t met. Van Damme, it seems, had to lure all the movie’s tournament fighters to come be in his movie and he used the bait of offering to get to fight him on camera. So misleading! Were it not for Lambert putting the fights together and “playing nanny,” as he described, who knows how that movie would’ve turned out; one aspect of this story that I liked was that Lambert pushed Van Damme to use more punches and, ultimately, something different from his usual back-spinning heal-kicks that he’s known for throwing in Bloodsport and Double Impact and Kickboxer.
The next tale of his that I found fascinating and amusing was his involvement in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story; between auditing the hopefuls that wanted to play the titular role, having to coordinate all if not the majority of the fight sequences, then train their chosen one played by Jason Lee (no relation to Bruce) who had no prior martial arts experience. While working on the production Lambert even got a real jewel of a resource in Bruce’s widow, the famous Linda Lee Caldwell stepped up to offer former students of Bruce’s who might be able to help train Jason to move as much like Bruce as could be expected. A little drama unfolded with one of those former students and before production wrapped Jason Lee was asking to only train with the dramatic student; read the book to learn more. One of the elements of the movie I always wondered about that this book answered was the role that demon played nearer the middle and end of the movie. Come to find that demon-character was strictly for Hollywood story-telling and did not represent any actual entities from the real Bruce’s life. What I found fascinating was that the demon was played by Sven-Ole Thorsen – go ahead, look him up on IMDb, I’ll wait. Lambert had all kinds of fun stories about him, too!
One of those funny stories comes from the production of Total Recall. Lambert, Schwarzenegger and Sven are walking down a street in Mexico when they hear a ruckus in some bushes on the side of the street. When they get close enough to realize it’s people in the bushes, and not just any two people but the movie’s director Paul Verhoeven and a woman, Sven laughs, “Paul, you low forehead,” (idiot), “why are you fooling around in the bushes when you have the nicest suite in the hotel we’re all in?!” I admit I laughed hard at that story. Another touching part of making that movie was that Lambert’s daughter was born during production, the news came so fast that the director impulsively threatened to replace Lambert if he left. Arnold being Arnold stepped in and told the director to shut up, and gave Lambert a pass to go meet his new child. That’s what I call using the power of one’s celebrity the noble way; no way would the director have replaced his star Arnie.
One last story from those chronicles. I consider myself a life-long fan of the first three Indiana Jones movies; I had no idea how pivotal Lambert was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; without giving all his contributions a way I will say the motorcycle jousting sequence when Indy and “Dad” are escaping the castle on motorbike was all of Lambert’s put-together. In fact he also played the Nazi soldier who comes out of the guard box when Indy goes crashing through the gate moments before the joust. Reading about his working with Spielberg was especially cool as Lambert give a lucid idea of how that highly acclaimed director communicates and collaborates.
Unfortunately in the land of movie-making is also lots of politicking and the lies and deceit that come with that game. There were multiple occasions where Lambert found himself at a cross-roads to either lie for sake of appearing to saving face on a job or tell the truth and possibly not work in the industry again; time and time again he stuck to the truth, and unfortunately some of his much younger colleagues in the stunt groups he was part of showed their true colors and drove him to quite their groups for how they handle the truth – suffice to say they couldn’t. Probably the biggest lesson that stood out was Lambert’s desire for authenticity and honesty.
Aside from the book Lambert has taken on others in the movie-making realm that sought to challenge his own legitimacy; the inspiration behind Bloodsport – Frank Dux – has sought to make life interesting not merely for Lambert, but for kickboxing legends like Don “The Dragon” Wilson. In the world of who’s the best fighter I saw the best idea for a challenge ever. Dux believes himself to be a masterful/expert movie fight-choreographer/-coordinator so Lambert, having well over 20 maybe 30 years as a coordinator and trainer and stuntman, had the idea of putting together a competition to see who can choreograph the coolest fight sequence. Make a demo reel and share it to a panel of judges and see who gets rated the best. When I heard that challenge it was like hearing Handel’s Messiah go off in my head, “Hallelujah!” Talk about using one’s words over their fists, well, Lambert found a fun way to fuse the two.
I think my favorite aspects of this book were in realizing 1) I was mistaken to want to be an actor in my youth and should have aspired to be a stuntman since they are the ones who get to have the fun, and 2) that one can actually have a favorite stuntman. If you have a chance I highly recommend this book for all its delightful easter-eggs, Yiddish commentary, and 100s upon 100s of pages of great stories from countless movies and real-life moments of jaw-dropping situations.
