TED WHITE CAST A GIANT SHADOW
Stuntman and actor Ted White passed away October 14, 2022, at the age of 96.
White, born January 25, 1926, as Alex Bayouth in the small Oklahoma town Krebs known for being Oklahoma’s Little Italy, accumulated more than 160 credits from both stunts and acting over a long career, beginning with the 1949 war film Sands of Iwo Jima where he appeared uncredited as a marine and continuing through his final credited stunt work in 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
White, though not always credited and never a featured performer, bridged the gap between multiple eras of Hollywood filmmaking.
Tedwhite.com begins, I was born January 25, 1926 in a small town in Texas.
I enlisted in the marine corps at the age of 17 and joined the fourth marine division after finishing boot camp in San Diego. My first campaign took me to the Marshall Islands and after that I returned to Maui on the Hawaiian islands. After several months of rough training the division was sent to Iwo Jima.
After 6 years in the marine corps I resigned my commission as a second lieutenant.
I had a scholarship at the university of Oklahoma to play football and I also boxed in Golden Gloves and AAU. After 4 years of college I got married and moved to California where I began my career as a stuntman and actor.
I could go on and on but if you come to one of my conventions I would be more than happy to tell you the rest.
White’s films include Creature from the Black Lagoon, Giant, Rio Bravo, The Alamo, Cat Ballou, The Cincinnati Kid, Point Blank, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, 1941, Used Cars, Cutter’s Way, Escape from New York, History of the World, Major League, and Road House for stunts and Rio Bravo, The Alamo, Cat Ballou, Point Blank, Cutter’s Way, History of the World, Tron, Silverado, The Hidden, and Major League for acting.
White doubled most notably for John Wayne, Fess Parker, Clark Gable, and Richard Boone, and he appeared on quite a few TV shows to go along with all the films.
His peak year was obviously 1984, though, with appearances in Against All Odds, Romancing the Stone, The Wild Life, Starman, and easily his most famous role as Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
Not bad for a 58-year-old man.
White refused screen credit for The Final Chapter because he thought it would do his career no good. Like Betsy Palmer and the original Friday, White apparently thought absolutely very little of the project initially but later turned around and embraced the series, their individual film, and their specific role at conventions and in retrospective interviews.
By the way, Palmer, who played Jason’s slightly protective mother Pamela Voorhees, was born on November 1, 1926 (nearly 10 months after White), and she died May 29, 2015.
When you see Jason chase after Kimberly Beck’s Trish Jarvis late in the picture, it’s obvious that he definitely could not catch her in a foot race.
White sells the kills very well in The Final Chapter befitting the status of a seasoned stuntman who stood at 6-foot-4, and they have a brutal conviction all their own in this long, long, long-running series that has finally been surpassed by Halloween in installments since there’s not been a Friday movie since 2009. (Halloween now owns a 13-12 edge on Friday.)
The combination of White and make-up artist Tom Savini, as well as the best cast in a Friday movie, contributed to The Final Chapter being widely considered the definitive Friday film, or the one recommended most often to people who have never seen a Friday film before and want to know which one they should watch first.
Not only did he refuse a screen credit, White also refused talking with the other actors during production because he thought any socialization with them would minimize their fear of him as Jason.
White thought child star Corey Feldman was a spoiled little brat, and so his acting toward Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis late in the film was borderline non-acting. Feldman posted a photo of himself and White on Twitter in 2014, 4 those who haven’t figured it out that’s Ted White who played Jason n F13pt4 n said he h8ed me….LOL!
White also famously looked after his much younger co-stars — in the most famous example, director Joseph Zito raised White’s ire when the 19-year-old Judie Aronson had to film her nude death scene in the dead of winter. Zito pressed on for the scene, and White demanded the director allow Aronson to get out of the lake between takes and let her warm up or else he would not carry on as Jason.
Aronson posted a photo of herself and White on Twitter in 2014, Having a good laugh with Jason … He killed me once in a raft, now with charm!
White passed on returning for both A New Beginning and Jason Lives after The Final Chapter proved untrue.
Savini posted on Twitter after White’s death, I’m 75 and I still want to be Ted White when I grow up. Tough as nails with a heart of gold. Pure class. He will be missed.
White obviously lived a life that could become a movie on its own.
From the introduction to his 2017 biography Cast a Giant Shadow: Hollywood Movie Great Ted White and the Evolution of American Movies and TV in the 20th Century by Larry K. Meredith:
Ted White says he can’t count the times he’s been shot and killed in films or television productions. He has (in the movies) gone into space, fought alongside Spartacus, fenced with King Arthur, stood side-by-side with Custer on the Little Big Horn, served as a Texas Ranger and robbed trains with Jesse James. He has ridden in the Oklahoma Land Rush, been shot by Danny Glover, joined Robin Hood and his band as they saved Maid Marian, helped establish the nation of Israel and knocked Jeff Bridges out cold. He’s played one of the world’s great ‘slashers,’ been an American Indian, shot and killed himself (in two different roles) from the walls of the Alamo, set the Lone Ranger on his path of doing good and righting wrongs, and helped capture King Kong.
Now, that’s quite the life.
Attack of the Killer Librarian 