Gillian Aldam

Gillian Valerie Aldam was born on 2 February 1941 in Romford, Essex, England. Before entering the film industry, she worked as a model and for a private detective agency, but her real passion was physical challenge — she loved climbing, car racing, and acrobatics. That taste for adventure led her into stunt work in the early 1960s, at a time when only a handful of women in Britain were doing it.

At the age of 22, Aldam began performing stunts and quickly made a name for herself. She became one of the pioneers of her profession, a field that was still largely improvised and dangerous. “You just signed a blood chit and took responsibility for your own accidents,” she once recalled. Her courage and athleticism brought her onto the sets of some of the most iconic action films of the 20th century. She doubled for Mary Ure in Where Eagles Dare and Sharon Tate in The Wrecking Crew (both released in 1968) and stood in for Deborah Kerr in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale. She also worked on six James Bond films, including Skyfall (2012), as well as Daylight (1996) and Jupiter Ascending (2015).

Aldam’s career was not without peril. During filming of The Wrecking Crew, she suffered severe injuries when a helicopter landing stunt went wrong, breaking her back in three places and several other bones. Doctors feared she might be paralysed, but within 14 weeks she was back on set. “I was two centimetres from being paralysed,” she later said, reflecting on her near-fatal accident.

Over the decades, Aldam became a respected figure in the British stunt community. Her name appeared in the first edition of the British Stunt Register in 1973, a document that helped formalise safety and professional standards in the industry. Despite the physical toll of her work, she has remained active and passionate about her craft.

As of 2025, Aldam continues to perform stunts into her eighties, appearing in productions such as Wicked Part Two, Blitz, Old Guy and the spy series Slow Horses. She has two children from her marriage to John Crewdson, who died in 1983. Today she is regarded as one of the trailblazers who helped shape the modern art of stunt performance, combining fearlessness, precision, and dedication in a career spanning more than sixty years.