First-Ever All-American Dale Van Sickel (1907-77) transitioned from Gator football to the Golden Age of Hollywood and a career in more than 400 films and television shows.

by Barbara Drake (MFA ’04)

In the late 1920s, the Florida Gators produced its first superstar: All-American-turned-Hollywood-stuntman Dale Van Sickel (BAE 1930).

Afficionados of football lore know Dale Van Sickel as Florida’s first-ever first-team All American (1928) and its first College Football Hall of Fame inductee (1975). But even if his name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve likely seen his thrilling stunt work in films like “Spartacus,” “North by Northwest,” “The Love Bug” and “Thunder Road.” Appearing as an actor and stuntman in 400+ films and TV productions over a 44-year-long career, Van Sickel doubled for stars such as Sean Connery, Clark Gable and Robert Mitchem and even performed stunts deemed too dangerous for Superman himself, actor George Reeves of TV’s “Adventures of Superman” (1952-1958).

His closest buddies were the little-known daredevils whose feats powered the action-movie genre, and they proudly rallied to his side when he cofounded the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures in 1961, serving as its first president.

Despite his prolific achievements, Van Sickel, who died in 1977 at age 69, never let success go to his head, said his daughter Judy Buehlman in a recent interview. That included not bragging to Hollywood swells about his early days as a football hero.

“My dad was very humble,” recalled Buehlman from her home in Houston. “A lot of people he worked with never knew he played football before. He just wasn’t one to talk about himself, which was rather endearing considering all the things he did.”

A young Van Sickel wearing a sweater with his All-American patch on the left sleeve. Photo likely taken by his father, William Milton Van Sickel; courtesy Judy Buehlman.

Van Sickel’s journey to gridiron glory and beyond began when his father, a professional photographer, moved the family from Eatonton, Georgia, to Gainesville, Florida, around 1910. The youngster’s natural athletic abilities made him a star player for the Gainesville High Purple Hurricanes — many consider him the greatest high-school player produced in the state prior to 1930 — and a year after Van Sickel enrolled at the University of Florida, Coach Charlie Bachman deployed him at the right end of the Gators’ line of scrimmage. (Van Sickel also lettered in baseball and basketball at UF.)

As was typical for footballers in the 1920s, Van Sickel played both offense and defense, and his prowess at tackling and blocking, as well as his ability to “snare passes out of the ether” (as described in the 1928 Florida Alligator), made him a standout in that first great era of Gators football. During Van Sickel’s three seasons with the Gators (1927-1929), the team won 23 out of 29 games, and in his junior year, 1928, they posted an 8-1 record, losing by one point to Tennessee in the final game of the season, precluding an invitation to the Rose Bowl.

That year, he became the first Gator named as a first-team All-American, as well as a first-team All-Southern selection. (He was also named an All-American and All-Southern in 1929.)

The Van Sickel family at a restaurant in LA’s Chinatown, circa 1948. Left to right: Father Dale, children Bill and Judy, mother Iris. Photo courtesy Judy Buehlman

Van Sickel gave his all to whatever he did, said Buehlman, who recalls her father telling her he played so hard as a Fightin’ Gator, his post-game ritual involved downing a pint of ice cream and a quart of buttermilk.

After earning a bachelor’s in education in 1930, Van Sickel stayed on for two years as an assistant coach for Gators football and basketball. However, his wife, Iris Van Sickel (a graduate of Florida State College), had other plans for the handsome six-footer, says their daughter.

“My mother sent stills of him to the different studios,” she said. “That’s when they called him to come out and do a movie.”

That first film, “Touchtown!” (1931), finds Van Sickel mining his Gator training as college football player, but he quickly expanded his repertoire, playing small parts in “Million Dollar Legs” (1932) and “Swing Time” (1936), along with stunt work in the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” (1933). In addition to stunting in Saturday matinee serials like “King of the Rocket Men” (1949) and “Zombies of the Stratosphere” (1952), Van Sickel was frequently a “heavy” or a henchman in those same pictures, scowling, stabbing and punching his way through “Canadian Mounties vs. the Atomic Invaders” (1953), “Man with the Steel Whip” (1954) and “Ghost of Zorro” (1949).

Van Sickel stunt-doubled as the lead in “Zorro” and hundreds of other Republic Pictures serials in the 1940s and ‘50s. Photo courtesy Judy Buehlman.

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1940s and ‘50s, Buehlman said she and her older brother, Bill Van Sickel, heard few details from their father about his dangerous work.

“He protected us,” Buehlman explained. “We didn’t know about what his jobs were until after he came home from shooting. … Later at the movies we’d see the things he did; it was just amazing.”

While Van Sickel worked constantly in westerns, including TV’s “Maverick” and “Bonanza” series, he left hijinks in the saddle to the experienced horsemen, concentrating instead on barroom brawling.

“He didn’t work with horses because when he was first starting out in westerns, a horse stood on his foot,” said Buehlman. “When he pulled his foot out of the boot, it was all bloody. That decided it.”

To perfect his moves as Superman’s stunt double, Van Sickel bought a small trampoline and set it up on a grassy slope outside the family home, next to a swing set.

Van Sickel, left, doubling for George Reeves as Superman, prepared to take a punch In “The Mind Machine” (1951), season 1 of the “Adventures of Superman.”

“I remember he would run up, bounce on the trampoline and grab hold at the top of the swing set, over and over again,” she said. “That was so he could do the shot of Superman flying out the window.”

Van Sickel’s other stunting forte was driving. Some of his best roadwork can be seen in “The Love Bug” (1968), Steven Spielberg’s “Duel” (1971) and “Thunder Road” (1958), the latter about moonshine runners in the Tennessee mountains.

It was Van Sickel’s perilous car stunts, though, that led to his demise.

In July 1975, while shooting scenes for Disney’s “No Deposit, No Return,” Van Sickel’s car skidded into a pilon, and he smashed his head on the dashboard. Although he was able to walk away, it soon became apparent the accident had damaged his brain, and he went into slow decline.

Van Sickel and other elite stuntmen and women were essential to the success of Disney’s “The Love Bug” (1968) and its sequels.

Typically, inductees into the NFF Hall of Fame travel to their alma mater to accept a Hall of Fame plaque that will remain on permanent display at the university. On October 11, 1975, Van Sickel was scheduled to step onto Florida Field to accept his Hall of Fame honor during halftime at the Florida-Vanderbilt game. But by then, he was already losing the ability to speak, recalled Buehlman.

“When he called me on the phone and said he couldn’t go back to Florida – that was very, very sad,” she said. “His old coach had to accept it for him instead.”

Van Sickel passed away in Newport Beach, California, in January 1977, age 69, but his legacy lives on in his hundreds of film and TV appearances, as well as his numerous sports milestones and Hall of Fame inductions (including one at the Hollywood Stuntman Hall of Fame).

It is easy today for Orange-and-Blue fans to pay tribute to this Gator Great. Just go to the low brick wall outside Heavener Football Complex, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. There you’ll find Van Sickel’s official College Football Hall of Fame plaque accepted on his behalf in 1975 by Coach Charlie Bachman, whose words cap off the inscription: “He was the greatest all-around end I’ve ever seen.”