Sheena on TV - Pt 2: Filming in Mexico Page 9

IRISH McCALLA ON TV

Part 2 - Filming In Mexico
Page 9 - Irish's Accident

As mentioned on Page 2: Irish's Contract, Irish McCalla had agreed to perform all of her own stunts for the Sheena series, and she claimed that she did that for the first twelve episodes of the series. She had strengthened her arms for the vine-swinging scenes prior to going to Mexico but Irish has said her strength had been weakened by continual bouts of amoebic dysentery. In several places she has said that the incident occurred while they were filming "the thirteenth episode" ("And I'm not even superstitious!" she frequently remarked). In Black and Feret she identifies 3 October 1955 as the date of the accident, based on the journal, or "production diary" she kept at the time. She says it was the day "my cockeyed career as my own stunt double or stuntgirl ended abruptly". In that account she says the scene they were filming at the time involved a villain named Wagner who was rushing to the river in an attempt to escape. Bob and Sheena were in pursuit and Wagner had climbed a tree and was standing in the fork of the tree firing at Bob. Sheena was to swing in, kick Wagner in the chest, and knock him into the river below where he was devoured by a crocodile.

Irish has said that in order to perform the stunt she was standing on top of a platform about ten feet (3 m )high. The platform, which was reached by a ladder, was perched on top of a raft floating in the river and the raft was tied to the tree to stop it from floating away down river. Irish said that because there were no stuntmen available they got a young crew member to try the stunt first so she could judge the position of where she was supposed to hit the fork of the tree. Irish said that when the boy did the trial swing he hit the tree too low, but he was wearing big heavy boots to protect him. Irish noted from this that she would need to hold the rope, which was dressed up to look like a vine, a little higher so she landed in the tree higher. She was perched on top of this rig and the cameraman and director were arguing about some detail of how the scene should be shot. Irish has always had a fear of heights but had managed to overcome this for all of the tree work and vine swinging she had done up to this point. However, on this occasion she started to feel a little dizzy, possibly because of the dysentery. She yelled down to the director that she better do the stunt soon or either she is going to fall off the platform or toss her tortillas.

They knew that Irish was serious so they gave the command to roll cameras and she swung out off the platform. Irish realised immediately that she wasn't going to make it because she started sliding down the rope and she didn't have enough strength to hold her own weight. She could see that she was going to hit the tree with her upper torso and face. Her old buddy Jock Mahoney,

an experienced stuntman, had taught her how to land by doubling herself up and landing with a spring in her legs to absorb the shock. She instinctively incorporated Mahoney's technique to save herself. She pulled herself up with all the strength that she could muster in her arms and folded her knees up like an accordion so that when she hot the tree her legs from the knees down took all of he impact. She later recalled that she hit the tree with such force that her hair was thrown forward over her face, instead of trailing behind her. She started to pass out and felt herself limply sliding down the rope. Irish remembered hoping that someone would catch her before she fell into the river and drowned.

The director had seen what was happening, rushed in and grabbed Irish's right arm, which was closest to him. This was a fortunate thing under the circumstances because her left arm was very badly injured. The next thing she remembered was being half in and half out of the water and being hauled out onto the river bank. She could remember the doctor kneeling over her and probing her for broken bones. She was a mess of blood, badly-grazed skin and tree bark and she began screaming, "No moleste! No moleste!" before passing out. When she awoke she was being carried to a jeep by Christian Drake, which she remembered thinking was funny at the time because she was bigger than he was. She realised then that she couldn't move her left arm, which caused her some concern because she is left -handed. Irish had sustained torn ligaments in her left arm, the synovial (joint) fluid had leaked out of her left elbow and she had serious lacerations and abrasions on her legs ("I looked like I'd been through a meat grinder.")

Later that night Irish was told that the Nassour brothers had ordered the film removed from the camera to avoid any law suits. The stunt had been poorly planned and hurriedly prepared ("What they didn't realise was that it never dawned on me to sue them. Sure, their preparation was inadequate, but I'd agreed to do the stunt. I was brought up to keep my word, and if I agreed to do something, I'd do it no matter what.") (Prevue, The TV Collector, Femme Fatales and Black & Feret)

Irish was patched up in Mexico and sent back to Los Angeles for two weeks of intensive physiotherapy (Starweek). She was greeted at the airport by a press agent who gave the wounded starlet a velvet sling to wear (Femme Fatales). There was obviously still time for some publicity shots, as indicated by the two photos shown here (top of page and right). The photos were probably taken at Irish's California home where she was recovering. Note the large cutout figure of Sheena used for personal appearances in the background of both photos. The Mexican set was closed down until Irish returned and while Irish was away a Mexican trapeze artist named Raul Gaona was hired to perform the vine swinging stunts. It proved to be too expensive to import a stuntwoman from the US and they could not find a stuntwoman tall enough for the role in Mexico. Irish has often commented on how Raul was frequently teased about the fake breasts he had to wear for the role. When Irish returned to the set they had a physician standing by to massage her arm and for the first time since arriving on location a trailer was provided for her (Prevue). Irish continued to do her own fights, swimming and spear throwing but she said that she was never able to do any more swinging on ropes after that ("I was so smashed up I never recovered from the torn ligament in my arm and I still have a sore left knee." - mid-Ninties comment)

I know many Irish McCalla and Sheena fans will not be pleased by the information that follows. Irish's story of the accident happening on Episode 13 inspired me to go looking for all of the scenes of Irish performing her own vine swinging stunts in the first twelve episodes. I got quite a shock when I discovered that there weren't any. There are several scenes of her climbing trees, or dropping out of trees, but every single instance of vine swinging in the series was performed by Raul Gaona. His scrawny legs are easy to identify and his wig is slightly longer than Irish's hair. I have come to the conclusion that Irish's accident happened much earlier than she always asserted. Below is my evidence for this claim:

• Irish has frequently said that the cast and crew were in Mexico for "seven-and-a-half months". She appeared on The Milton Berle Show on 2 June 1956, which she said was immediately after her return from Mexico (see Page . Irish has told how her press agent, Marj Walker, met her at the airport to notify her that she was now a star and would be soon be appearing on this very popular program (Ultra Filmfax). Berle's show was filmed live and there were a couple of rehearsals, one the day before and another the same day, so Irish may have returned to California only a week or two before this appearance. It seems safely conservative to conclude that Irish arrived home around mid-May 1956. If we count backwards seven-and-a-half months from mid-May 1956 we can calculate that the Sheena crew arrived in Mexico some time in early October or late September 1955. Now let's reexamine the date of Irish's accident according to her own diary - 3 October 1955!

• We will now look closely at exactly when Raul Gaona joined the production. In her interview in The TV Collector magazine Irish said that although she did all the stunts for the first 13 episodes the company hired "somebody" to do the long swings, including the one for

the title sequence (right). In the same interview she says that "a stuntman who was a trapeze artist" was hired while she was recovering in the US after her accident filming "the thirteenth" episode. The company filmed 26 episodes during the seven-and-a-half months they were in Mexico. It seems reasonable that Episode 13 was probably done around the middle of this period, in either December 1955 or January 1956. We know that Episode 11, Jungle Manhunt, was copyrighted on 22 November 1955 and Episode 13 was probably completed a few weeks later. However, the first vine swinging scene in the series occurs in Episode 4, Forbidden Land, and that stunt is definitely performed by Raul Gaona. The scene of the long swing across the river that was used for the opening credits appears in the middle of Episode 4. Interestingly, the first episode to feature the name of the episode superimposed over the long swing across the river is actually the preceding episode - Episode 3, The Sacred River (right). This means it was used on all of the episodes filmed in Mexico. We do not have the copyright date for Episode 4, but we do have the copyright dates for Episodes 3 (12 October 1955) and 5, The Test, (24 October 1955). This means that Raul Gaona was hired to perform vine swinging stunts for the series soon after the crew arrived in Mexico, which is several months before the date Irish McCalla said he was. It also means that the stuntman hired to perform the vine-swinging in the title sequence was not a different stuntman to the one hired many months later, as Irish claimed. It was the same individual - Raul Gaona - and both scenes were filmed in mid-October 1955, not in Episode 13, which was completed several months later (The TV Collector).

• As mentioned on Page 6: Working Conditions, Irish was ill during the filming of the episode titled The Sacred River (Episode 3), the first episode filmed in Mexico. She mentioned that it took four days to shoot the scene of her killing the mechanical crocodile (left) because of frequent disruptions from both heavy rains and her own poor health. It is interesting to consider this piece of information in the light of several other facts. Firstly, Irish said the accident was caused by her own strength being badly weakened by illness. Secondly, Raul Gaona was hired after Irish's accident. Lastly, Raul Gaona first appears in the series in the very next episode, Episode 4. It seems to me that the only logical conclusion is that Irish had her accident while filming Episode 4, Forbidden Land, not Episode 13 as she had always maintained.

• Irish said that the episode they were filming at the time of the accident involved a villain named Wagner climbing into the fork of a tree hanging out over a river from where he began shooting at Bob. Sheena then swings in and knocks the villain into the water where he is devoured by crocodiles. The scene Irish is describing appears in Episode 12, The Leopard Men, which is actually pretty close to the Episode 13 she ascribes it to, except that the villain's name is Helfer, not Wagner. Helfer, however, was played by an actor named Fernando Wagner. We have already established that the accident happened in Episode 4. When we look at the list of principal guest stars in Forbidden Land (click on link to read the credits for this episode) we find that that the same actor, recognisable by his German accent, appears in this episode also. This time he is billed as Ferdinand Wagner and in the episode he plays a victim, not a villain. For some reason Irish appears to have intentionally combined elements from these two episodes to construct her story that her accident occurred in Episode 13 instead of Episode 4.

I have come to the conclusion that Irish had her accident the very first time that she tried to perform the vine-swinging stunt in front of a camera. She had only been in Mexico a couple of weeks but in that time she had suffered from an acute bout of amoebic dysentery and her strength had been severely depleted. To have the filming disrupted so soon by an accident involving their principal star must have alarmed the producers considerably. They had gone to considerable lengths to transport a sizeable American production company to Mexico, they had hired additional local crew and had engaged the services of Mexican actors and

extras. Now, with only one additional episode in the can, filming ceased and all of this was on hold while their star returned home to be assessed. I find it reasonably impressive that everything was back on track just two weeks later. I think this probably has a lot to do with the grit and determination of Irish McCalla (and a very skillful LA physiotherapist).

It has also become increasingly obvious that for the rest of her life Irish continued to preserve the myth that she had done all of her own stunts for the first 12 episodes. A good example of this occurs on page 41 of Black and Feret's biography of Irish. An excerpt from Irish's diaries, which she hoped to publish as "Memoirs of Sheena", is reproduced: "Several columnists have printed articles stating that I never did my own stunts but had a double all the time. This always burns me up, as my part-time double gets all the credit while I get the scars and bruises. I have always had a great fear of heights... (but) I have never felt that I was going to fall from the rope vines on which I swung in the series." This raises the question of whether Irish was lying when she made these kinds of statements, which she did frequently over a long period of time. She often said that the accident occurred while filming Episode 13, which is untrue; it happened on Episode 4. She said that she performed vine-swinging stunts for the first twelve episodes of the series, which is untrue; there is no existing footage of Irish swinging on vines in any of the episodes, especially those filmed before her accident in Episode 4. Irish said that a different stuntman was hired to perform the long swing across the river in the opening credits than the one hired to replace her after her accident, which is untrue. She was forced to say this because this scene appears in the series a long time before Episode 13. As explained above, Gaona performed both stunts because he was hired much earlier than Irish said he was.

I think that the construction of the myth that Irish performed her own stunts for half of the series revolved around several considerations. It must have been personally embarrassing for her because one of the reasons she was hired was because of her athleticism. "Tell them you will do your own stunts" Tom Kelly had said to her when he called her to tell her he had recommended her to the producers because she looked exactly like Sheena (see Page 2: The Recommendation) in the Audition section). She had obviously told the Nassours of how she and her brothers had swung on ropes over the river as kids back in Nebraska. To fail so miserably on her first attempt must have been very sobering for her. Secondly, the publicity value of promoting their Amazonian leading lady as an athletic "go-get-em kind-o-gal" would be severely diminished if it was revealed that a Mexican stuntman had to be brought in to replace her only two weeks after arriving in Mexico. I think that a mutual agreement must have been reached by all of the principals involved that it would be best for the success of their project if the actual events were not disclosed.

Irish McCalla appears to have been a woman of high moral integrity in all aspects of her life. She resisted all attempts by filmmakers to exploit her sexually and consistently refused to do nude scenes on camera, despite making a living off her astounding good looks. She said that she did not want to embarrass her family and did not want her sons' friends saying, "I saw your mamma naked!" She was raised in a strict Irish Catholic family from the farmlands of Nebraska and was imbued with conservative ethics from a young age (see the Childhood page). In interviews she gave during the Eighties and Nineties she expressed her displeasure at the graphic nature of sex and violence in contemporary cinema. I suspect that Irish probably felt a little uncomfortable when she first starting peddling falsehoods for the sake of publicity but, as with many things in life, if you repeat something often enough you can eventually start believing it yourself. We will probably never know Irish's personal feelings about this situation and I apologise if I have diminished the shine on the star for some of Irish's fans. A farmgirl from Nebraska had to learn of lot of things about life once she started swimming in the deep end of the pool in Hollywood. One of them was how to construct and preserve a myth.

IRISH ON TELEVISION INTRO

TOP OF PAGE

PAGE 10 - OTHER SHEENA ANECDOTES

OTHER SHEENA PAGES
Please don't forget to visit my pages devoted to the twenty-six episodes of Sheena Queen of the Jungle, if you haven't done so already. You will find plot summaries, numerous comments about the individual episodes and video captures from all of the surviving episodes. There are also large-sized copies of a many of the photos used on these pages available to download on the Sheena Gallery page.

SOURCES
• Prevue Pinup Special 2 magazine, Aug/Oct 94
• The TV Collector magazine, Jan/Feb 97
• Femme Fatales magazine, Jan 99
• TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black and Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
• Starweek magazine, Aug 82
• Ultra Filmfax magazine, Apr/May 98
PHOTOS
• The two colour photos of Irish wearing a sling are my personal collection, as is the photo of Irish jumping out of a tree
• The video capture of the episode title of The Sacred River is from my DVD-Rs of the Sheena Queen of the Jungle series
• The photo of Irish as Sheena wrestling a crocodile is from TV Star Parade magazine Feb 56
• The colour photo of Raul Gaona is from TV Guide magazine, week of 16-22 Jun 56

IRISH BIOGRAPHY INTRO

SHEENA INTRO

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