Vale: Grant Page

Pioneering film and TV stuntman Grant Page (pictured left), best known for Mad Max films, has died aged 85.

His son told the Daily Mail his father was driving alone near his home in Kendall on the mid-north coast of New South Wales on Thursday when he hit a tree. An ambulance and police were at the scene within minutes. No further details of the accident have been released.

Page is a veteran of Australian film and television, with daredevil stunts in the 1970s. Across his career he coordinated stunts for George Miller, Mel Gibson, Jackie Chan and Quentin Tarantino.

His film credits include Mad Max, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Roadgames, Mad Dog Morgan, The Odd Angry Shot The Picture Show Man, The Pirate Movie and The Tracker.

His TV credits include Police Rescue, All Saints, Blackjack, All the Rivers Run, Snowy River: The McGregor Saga, The Alice, Grass Roots, and Danger Five.

In 2016 he was the inaugural recipient of the Screen NSW Award. Then-CEO Courtney Gibson, said: “When the director yells ‘action’ on set, no one takes it more literally than Grant. He created the high-octane hallmarks of 1970s Ozploitation cinema, designing and executing the most radical and pioneering action sequences in the world.

“In terms of legacy and influence, Grant’s DNA runs all the way from when Max first got ‘mad’, right through to the Oscars glory of Fury Road, and the ambition, rigour and outright spectacle of his work is simply without compare.”

George Miller (pictured right), who presented the award said, “Working, under fierce and extraordinary circumstances, on the first Mad Max I came to know the calibre of Grant Page. A masterful and innovative stuntman, he has a deep and elegant intelligence. He taught me a lot about filmmaking but even more about life. Inspirations which have sustained me ever since. Grant is heroic in every sense of the word.”

Page recently worked on George Miller’s films Three Thousand Years of Longing and the Mad Max prequel Furiosa as a stunt performer.