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Well before Evel Knievel or Hollywood stuntmen, reality television or the X Games, North America had a long tradition of stunt performance, of men (and some women) who sought media attention and popular fame with public feats of daring. Many of these feats—jumping off bridges, climbing steeples and buildings, swimming incredible distances, or doing tricks with wild animals—had their basis in the manual trades or in older entertainments like the circus. In The Thrill Makers, Jacob Smith shows how turn-of-the-century bridge jumpers, human flies, lion tamers, and stunt pilots first drew crowds to their spectacular displays of death-defying action before becoming a crucial, yet often invisible, component of Hollywood film stardom. Smith explains how these working-class stunt performers helped shape definitions of American manhood, and pioneered a form of modern media celebrity that now occupies an increasingly prominent place in our contemporary popular culture.

The movie follows the trajectories of three characters: up-and-coming and pregnant star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) enjoys time with her husband Roman Polanski (Rafai Zawierucha), her friends, and especially herself, while fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his friend and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) struggle with faltering careers in the television and film industry; their paths intersect when, after Cliff's first brush with the Manson family at Spahn Ranch, Rick and Cliff are attacked by three of its members, initially sent to murder the Tate-Polanski household. In these movies, Hollywood tends to provide its own self-critique (Cerisuelo 93), “simultaneously demystify[ing] and mystify[ing] their subject” (Ames 4) and yet “promulgat[ing] the Hollywood mystique” as a “brand shared by all studios” (Cohan 12); even at their bleakest, these movies often tell the story of how art ultimately transcends the lethal forces of capital, if only through the creative act that is the making of the movie itself (Roche, Meta 66). The opening scenes inform viewers that Rick Dalton did four seasons of the fictional Western TV series Bounty Law from 1959 to 1963, before starring in the equally fictional TV movie Tanner (1965), but his four-picture deal with Universal failed to make him a movie star, a disappointment epitomized by the rumor that he might have been in the running for the lead role in The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963). Tate and Polanski, whom Rick admiringly describes as “the hottest director in town right now, probably the world,” are the film's most visible embodiments of this moment; as friends of Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis), Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), and Jim Morrison and guests at the Playboy Mansion (a slight anachronism since the parties only started in the 1970s), the couple is thriving in Hollywood's network of confirmed or rising stars.

Buster Keaton's most spectacular gag- and surely one of the most dangerous movie stunts ever executed-was staged in 1927 toward the end of production of his last independent feature film, Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). As we see it in the film, Buster is standing in front of a two-story house during a violent windstorm, and the whole front of the house comes loose and falls forward. Buster, who is facing away from the house, does not see it coming, but we do. As it crashes to the ground, we see that a small attic window falls right over the spot where Buster is standing, saving his life. What made this gag so dangerous was that the facade of the house weighed about two tons, having been constructed to fall without bending. It was shot in one take, a long shot, and it appears in the film intact, with no editing. Keaton really stood there, and the front of the house really fell. The clearance around his head and shoulders was about two inches. After describing this gag in his book The Theatre and Cinema of Buster Keaton, Robert Knopf considers the perplexing question it raises: \"In this shot, Keaton far exceeds any reasonable demands for realism. . . . He easily could have constructed the same scene through editing. . . . Yet Keaton risked his life. . . . Why?\" (101).In addressing Knopf's question, this article draws upon and extends his insightful discussion of Keaton's comedy, especially gags such as this one. Knopf explains the falling facade gag as a continuation of Keaton's practice of doing his own stunts and filming them in such a way-using long, uncut takes-that the viewers have no doubt about their authenticity and about Keaton's bravery in undertaking them. He also notes that a long-running visual motif throughout many of Keaton's films shows Buster passing through windows and doors (Knopf 100-01). He discusses these traits in the context of vaudeville traditions that Keaton adapted to the new possibilities offered by film.

They've traded punches in knockdown brawls, crashed biplanes through barns, and raced to the rescue in fast cars. They add suspense and drama to the story, portraying the swimmer stalked by the menacing shark, the heroine dangling twenty feet below a soaring hot air balloon, or the woman leaping nine feet over a wall to escape a dog attack. Only an expert can make such feats of daring look easy, and stuntwomen with the skills to perform -- and survive -- great moments of action in movies have been hitting their mark in Hollywood since the beginning of film. Here, Mollie Gregory presents the first history of stuntwomen in the film industry from the silent era to the twenty-first century. In the early years of motion pictures, women were highly involved in all aspects of film production, but they were marginalized as movies became popular, and more important, profitable. Capable stuntwomen were replaced by men in wigs, and very few worked between the 1930s and 1960s. As late as the 1990s, men wore wigs and women's clothes to double as actresses, and were even \"painted down\" for some performances, while men and women of color were regularly denied stunt work. For decades, stuntwomen have faced institutional discrimination, unequal pay, and sexual harassment even as they jumped from speeding trains and raced horse-drawn carriages away from burning buildings. Featuring sixty-five interviews,Stuntwomenshowcases the absorbing stories and uncommon courage of women who make their living planning and performing action-packed sequences that keep viewers' hearts racing.

Grapevine leafroll disease affects the health status of grapevines worldwide. Most studies in Australia have focused on grapevine leafroll-associated viruses 1 and 3, while little attention has been given to other leafroll virus types, in particular, grapevine leafroll-associated virus 2 (GLRaV-2). A chronological record of the temporal occurrence of GLRaV-2 in Australia since 2001 is reported. From a total of 11,257 samples, 313 tested positive, with an overall incidence of 2.7%. This virus has been detected in 18 grapevine varieties and Vitis rootstocks in different regions of Australia. Most varieties were symptomless on their own roots, while Chardonnay showed a decline in virus-sensitive rootstocks. An isolate of GLRaV-2, on own-rooted Vitis vinifera cv. Grenache, clone SA137, was associated with severe leafroll symptoms after veraison with abnormal leaf necrosis. The metagenomic sequencing results of the virus in two plants of this variety confirmed the presence of GLRaV-2, as well as two inert viruses, grapevine rupestris stem pitting-associated virus (GRSPaV) and grapevine rupestris vein feathering virus (GRVFV). No other leafroll-associated viruses were detected. Among the viroids, hop stunt viroid and grapevine yellow speckle viroid 1 were detected. Of the six phylogenetic groups identified in GLRaV-2, we report the presence of four groups in Australia. Three of these groups were detected in two plants of cv. Grenache, without finding any recombination event. The hypersensitive reaction of certain American hybrid rootstocks to GLRaV-2 is discussed. Due to the association of GLRaV-2 with graft incompatibility and vine decline, the risk from this virus in regions where hybrid Vitis rootstocks are used cannot be overlooked.