Max Kleven, the Norwegian-born stunt performer, stunt coordinator and second-unit director with credits including Our Man Flint, Rollerball, The Deep and the Back to the Future trilogy, has died. He was 92.
Kleven died Wednesday of heart failure at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, his family announced.
Early in his career, Kleven doubled for Paul Burke on ABC’s Naked City and for Glenn Corbett on CBS’ Route 66, and he served as the president of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures in the 1970s.
Kleven did double duty performing stunts and directing scenes on several films, starting with Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and the sequel Come Back Charleston Blue (1972) and followed by Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Batman Returns (1992) and The River Wild (1994).
And as an actor on television action series, he showed up on everything from Rescue 8, Get Smart, The Big Valley, Combat! and The Invaders to Batman, Star Trek, Mannix, Kojak and Magnum, P.I.
Born on Aug. 16, 1933, in Trondheim, Norway, Kleven spent his early years on a farm with his mother, Jenny, and a cousin, Joni. He joined the Norwegian Merchant Marine as teenager and came to the U.S. in 1951; he said the moment he saw California’s sunshine and palm trees, he knew he never wanted to leave.
Kleven had been an accomplished ski jumper in his home country, and when he was spotted sliding down and flying off ramps in Sugarbush, Vermont, he was recruited to be a stunt performer. According to IMDb, the first movie he worked on was the Oscar best picture winner Around the World in 80 Days (1956).
Kleven did stunts for other films including Our Man Flint (1966), Murderers’ Row (1966), Who’s Minding the Mint? (1967), Charley Varrick (1973), Back to the Future (1985), Ruthless People (1986), Species (1995) and Wild Wild West (1999).
His résumé as a stunt coordinator included Book of Numbers (1973), Dillinger (1973), The Deep (1977), The Changeling (1980), Footloose (1984) and Sleeping With the Enemy (1991), and he was a second-unit director on Raid on Entebbe (1976), Runaway Train (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Part III (1990), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Spider-Man (2002).
He even got to direct a handful of films.
Kleven’s family said that one of his career highlights came when Steven Spielberg told him, “I hire you to fix my movies.” (Kleven worked for the producer on the Back to the Future films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1980’s Used Cars and 2000’s What Lies Beneath, among other features),
Survivors include his wife, Luz; his daughters, Valli and Céline; his son, Erik; and his grandson, Hunter.
