Richard Rush was an American film director, scriptwriter, and producer. He is known for directing The Stunt Man, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. His film Color of Night won a Golden Raspberry Award as the worst film of 1994, but Maxim magazine also singled the film out as having the best sex scene in film history. Rush, whose directing career began in 1960, also directed Freebie and the Bean, a police buddy comedy/drama starring Alan Arkin and James Caan. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film Air America.
Richard Rush
The Stunt Man is a 1980 American action comedy film starring Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback and Barbara Hershey, and directed by Richard Rush. The film was adapted by Lawrence B. Marcus and Rush from the 1970 novel of the same name by Paul Brodeur. It tells the story of a young fugitive who hides as a stunt double on the set of a World War I movie whose charismatic director will do seemingly anything for the sake of his art. The line between illusion and reality is blurred as scenes from the inner movie cut seamlessly to "real life" and vice versa. There are examples of "movie magic", where a scene of wartime carnage is revealed as just stunt men and props, and where a shot of a crying woman becomes, with scenery, props and sound track, a portrait of a grieving widow at a Nazi rally. The protagonist begins to doubt everything he sees and hears, and at the end is faced with real danger when a stunt seems to go wrong.
Theatrical poster