Tommy Lane, Actor and Stuntman in ‘Live and Let Die,’ ‘Shaft,’ Dies at 83
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Stuntman and actor Tommy Lane, who appeared in films including “Live and Let Die” and “Shaft,” died Monday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. He was 83.
His daughter Kamala reported that he died after a long bout of COPD.
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In Richard Roundtree’s “Shaft,” his character Leroy could be seen crashing through Richard Roundtree’s Times Square office window. “That’s some cold shit, throwing my man Leroy out the window. Just picked my man up and threw him out the goddamn window,” says Willy in the 1971 blaxploitation classic.
Courtesy of Kamala Lane
In the 1973 James Bond film “Live and Let Die,” he played Adam, one of Kananga’s henchmen who chases Roger Moore in a speedboat off the coast of the fictional island of San Monique. His character threatens, “You made one mistake back on that island, Bond. You took something that didn’t belong to you. And you took it from a friend of Mr. Big’s. That kind of mistake is tough to bounce back from.”
Before the speedboat scene, he can be heard to say “Bond ripped off one of our boats. He’s headed for the Irish Bayou. The man that gets him stays alive! Now, move you mothers!”
He also appeared in “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” “Ganja & Hess,” Burt Reynolds-starrer “Shamus” and TV shows including “Simon & Simon” and “Flipper.”
Born Tommy Lee Jones in Miami, Lane was also a jazz musician, and played trumpet and flugelhorn at New York City’s Blue Note throughout the 1980s.
He is survived by wife Raquel Bastias-Lane, seven children; a stepson and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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