Paul Mantz(1903-1965)
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
- Camera and Electrical Department
American aviator who became the most renowned stunt flyer in movies of
the mid-twentieth century. The son of a school principal, he grew up
Redwood City, California and developed a fascination with flying as a
boy. He joined the Air Corps as a cadet and was a brilliant student
pilot, but he was discharged after buzzing a train full of high-level
officers. After a brief period of commercial flying, Mantz took up the
more lucrative career of stunt flying for the film industry. He quickly
proved himself willing and capable of tackling stunts considered by
other pilots to be too dangerous. He formed United Air Services, Ltd.,
providing planes and pilots for aerial stunts and photography for all
the studios. He also formed a flying school and racing partnership with
Amelia Earhart and was technical adviser on her ill- fated
round-the-world flight. During the Second World War, Mantz served as
commanding officer of the Army Air Corps' First Motion Picture Unit,
delivering hundreds of training films and documentaries on the air war.
He developed a number of camera and aeronautical innovations to improve
aerial photography, and continued as a stunt flyer, a director of
aerial photography, and a supplier of aircraft and pilots for the
movies for two decades after the war. In 1965, he came out of
retirement to fly a plane for The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and was killed in a crash.