The Powells have had a great legacy in the stunt world, especially in the James Bond series. Stunts began in the family with Dinny Powell, younger brother of Nosher Powell, who was a professional boxer and also the sparring partner of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinsons and Muhammad Ali amongst others. He did stunts for many years and stunt coordinating and got his older brother Nosher involved and eventually doing the same thing.
Nosher had two children follow in their footsteps, Greg and Gary. The family’s history with the Bond franchise has been legendary. Dinny started with From Russia With Love (the 2nd in the series) and the family has been fully entrenched ever since, taking only one break during the George Lazenby film. Dinny and Nosher doubled and did stunts with Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Gary, Nosher’s oldest son started on The Spy Who Loved Me and over the years worked with Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. Greg has come in and started working with Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. His most famous stunt being the barrel-roll in the speedboat in The World is Not Enough.
Greg is the current big man on campus for the family as he has been stunt coordinator on the last four bond films. It also doesn’t appear that the family’s relationship with the Bond series and stunts are quite done yet as they have recruited Tilly, Greg’s daughter as a stuntwoman in Skyfall and Spectre so far. They have all created a foundation within the film Industry doing stunts for other films as well such as the Harry Potter, Star Wars, Mission: Impossible and The Avengers Series.
Very exciting to see a family so entrenched within the stunt community and I hope we see many more to come.
