Chuck Hicks obit

R.I.P. Chuck Hicks, robot boxer in The Twilight Zone and frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator

The stuntman-actor was also one of The Untouchables. He was 93.

 

He was not on the list.

The Twilight Zone episode "Steel" came filled with tough guys. Legendary man's man Lee Marvin starred in the sci-fi tale of robot boxers. His character gets into the ring in place of a robotic pugilist named "Battling Maxo." The centerpiece of the story is a match in the ring between Marvin and an android named The Maynard Flash.

The man behind the unmoving face of the Flash was Chuck Hicks, a towering stuntman. Well, Hick was more than a mere stuntman. Prior to The Twilight Zone, he had portrayed one of Robert Stack's agents, LaMarr Kane, in The Untouchables. It was one of his more prominent, recurring roles.

Elsewhere, on Batman this member of the Stuntmen's Hall of Fame was a frequent henchman for King Tut, and played unnamed roles like "Thug," "Redneck" and "Angry Man."

"I was the bad guy, always getting beat up," Hicks told The Los Angeles Daily News in 2011.

His work most often came back to boxing. In Cool Hand Luke, another tough-guy classic, he played the prisoner known as "Chief" and coordinated a brutal fight between George Kennedy and Paul Newman.

But Hicks was most often an imposing opponent for Clint Eastwood. The two first worked together in the Rawhide episode "The Greedy Town" in 1962. The two would later pair in Paint Your Wagon (1969), Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Every Which Way but Loose (1978), Bronco Billy (1980), Any Which Way You Can (1980) and City Heat (1984).

Six-foot-2 and a muscular 230 pounds in his prime, Hicks was a onetime running back, boxer and rugby player who worked on scores of films and TV shows and served as a stunt double for the likes of Clint Walker, Brian Keith and Brian Dennehy.

He was a charter member and past president of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures who was inducted into the Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame.

Hicks portrayed the robot boxer Maynard Flash on the memorable 1963 Twilight Zone episode “Steel,” written by Richard Matheson, and under heavy makeup played the villain known as The Brow in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990).

The California native continued to work — as both an actor and stuntman — until 2010, when he was in his 80s. Hicks died on May 4 in his Las Vegas home, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 93.

Filmography

 

    She's Working Her Way Through College (1952)

    The Rose Bowl Story (1952)

    Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

    Casanova's Big Night (1954)

    Battle Cry (1955)

    Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

    Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

    The Girl He Left Behind (1956)

    Designing Woman (1957)

    Onionhead (1958)

    The Last Hurrah (1958)

    Up Periscope (1959)

    The Untouchables (1959)

    Ice Palace (1960)

    Merrill's Marauders (1962)

    Hell Is for Heroes (1962)

    Black Gold (1962)

    Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

    Shock Corridor (1963)

    Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)

    Kisses for My President (1964)

   Our Man Flint (1966)

    The Silencers (1966)

    Johnny Reno (1966)

    Point Blank (1967)

    Cool Hand Luke (1967)

    Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968)

    The Boston Strangler (1968)

    The Split (1968)

    The Molly Maguires (1970)

    Something Big (1971)

    Dirty Harry (1971)

    The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972)

    Slaughter's Big Rip-Off (1973)

    Hard Times (1975)

    The Enforcer (1976)

    Movie Movie (1978)

    Every Which Way but Loose (1978)

    Hide in Plain Sight (1980)

    In God We Tru$t (1980)

    Bronco Billy (1980)

    Cheaper to Keep Her (1981)

    ...All the Marbles (1981)

    The Beastmaster (1982)

    Little House on the Prairie (1983)

    Johnny Dangerously (1984)

    Everybody's All-American (1988)

    Indio (1989)

    Dick Tracy (1990)

    The Enemy Within (1994)

    The Ring (2002)

    Hood of Horror (2006)