Duke ‘Nine Lives’ Jones, a Hollywood stuntmen who worked during the 1950’s golden era of Hollywood Westerns. If he wasn’t jumping from a speeding stagecoach to a galloping horse, he was being shotgunned in the chest and flung through saloon doors. Jones’ ability to avoid injury made him the first choice for movie director’s wanting to capture near death on celluloid.

 

However, while performing a simple horse fall for the 1957 MGM film Shotgun Sheriff, Jones was crushed underneath the animal and suffered numerous broken ribs and a shattered femur. It was during his recovery that he started playing guitar and discovered a safer way to perform and thrill audiences without the threat of meeting his maker. Playing folk songs from his true cowboy days, Jones assembled the Tumblin’ Cowboys band with other retired stuntmen and women and quickly became a must see act at State county fairs and carnivals. And because Jones could never leave his penchant for danger behind, after every gig, wherever the band went to drink, someone was guaranteed to fly through a window or fall from a roof.