Rémy Julienne

Rémy Julienne (17 April 1930 – 21 January 2021) was a French driving stunt performer and coordinator, assistant director and occasional actor. He was also a rallycross champion and 1956 French motorcross champion.

Julienne was born in 1930, the son of café owners in the town of Cepoy, 110 km south-east of Paris. During World War II, he was dared by children evacuated from Paris to ride a bicycle across the local canal, which inspired him to start riding motocross.

In his early 20's Julienne became French motocross champion in 1957, which brought him to the attention of eminent stunt co-coordinator Gil Delamare. Through Delamare, Julienne's first screen appearance in 1964 was replacing actor Jean Marais, and in 1966 he played a German army motorcyclist in La Grande Vadrouille.

After Delamare's tragic death during a stunt in 1966, Julienne stepped-in and agreed to fulfill contracts Delamare had signed with various film studios. Julienne's scientific approach which created spectacular on-screen images garnered him admiration within the industry in an age before computer modelling. Working initially in French film and TV, and occasional Hollywood films shot in Europe, his developing reputation led to his employment on the British film The Italian Job. Producer Michael Deeley later commented that “During our initial meeting with Rémy, Peter Collinson [the film’s director] and I were delighted to discover that he was prepared to take the chase sequence even further than we had e…