Wish You Were Here album cover
Hollywood stuntman Ronnie Rondell Jr., pictured ablaze on the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” (1975) album, has died. He was 88.
He died Tuesday at a senior living commumity in Osage Beach, MO.
Rondell, who came from a family of stuntmen, doned a layer of protecting fireproofing under a business suit, was dosed with gasoline, and set on fire 15 times for the Hipgnosis photo shoot on the Warner Bros. backlot in Los Angeles. (Danny Rogers was the model on the left.)
“The flames were blown back and ignited his real moustache for an instant,” Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis recalled. “A close shave, one might say.”
“There’s a funny thing about fire,” Rondell said. “When it gets in your face, you’re going to move.”
“He fell to the ground, absolutely smothered with foam and blankets and everything like that, and he got up, said, ‘That’s it. No more,’” according to Aubrey “Po” Powell, the Hipgnosis team member shooting the photos. “Luckily, I got it in the can.”
Rondell’s resume included work for TV series “Charlie’s Angels,” “Baretta,” “S.W.A.T.”, “Fantasy Island,” “Dynasty,” “Hart to Hart,” “T.J. Hooker” and others.
His film work included “Lethal Weapon,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” “Thelma & Louise,” “Speed,” and “Hooper,” among others.
He retired from Hollywood in 2000.
Read more about the “Wish You Were Here” photo shoot
RIP Ronnie Rondell Jr. Your stunts are iconic and the cover art you appeared in on Wish You Were Here which celebrates its 50th anniversary in September will outlast us all.