Didn't sleep for five or six nights after that, just the sound of the air coming out of his lungs." I heard the air coming out of his lungs the last time. I pulled him out of the car, and he was in my arms when he died, his head fell over. I never stop thinking of those memories." In another interview with James Dean expert Warren Beath, Hickman is quoted as saying "We were about two or three minutes behind him. We had a running joke, I'd call him Little Bastard and he'd call me Big Bastard.
If he had lived he might have become a champion driver.
I had been teaching him things like how to put a car in a four-wheel drift, but he had plenty of skill of his own. Hickman was an extra in Dean's 1951 feature movie debut Fixed Bayonets!.Ī rare personal quote from Bill on his friendship with Dean: "In those final days, racing was what he cared about most. Bill spent some of his earlier days as driver and friend to James Dean, driving Dean's Ford station wagon towing his famed 550 spyder nicknamed "Little Bastard", and often helping and advising him with his driving technique, he was driving the Ford station wagon and trailer following Dean on the day of his fatal accident and was first on the scene. Hickman played a major role in terms of development and execution of three of the greatest movie car chase sequences of all time.īill Hickman spent most of his career as a stunt driver, and was involved in the now legendary car chase scenes from Bullitt, The French Connection and The Seven-Ups, all shot on actual city streets. William "Bill" Hickman was a stunt driver/actor from the 1950s through the late 1970s. Hickman's third spectacle would be captured in The The Seven-Ups (1973) where, yet again, he virtually outdid himself doubling for Roy Scheider in another landmark car chase. Doubling for _Gene Hackman_ in the more hazardous stunts, Hickman drove the brown 1970 Pontiac at speeds up to 90mph with Friedkin manning the camera right behind him. He staged a similar chase on the streets of Manhattan but with a greater presence of civilians, an element that had been missing in Bullitt. For his reputation earned on Bullitt, Hickman was hired by William Friedkin for The French Connection (1971). His work in Bullitt (1968) is legendary where he drove the black Dodge Charger 440 Magnum that was pursued by Steve McQueen in his Ford Mustang 390 G.T. The actor is better known for his prowess as a stunt driver.
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