Hannah also became an advocate for the homeless.
#Rufus hannah tv
"I see a TV show like 'Law & Order,' where they win a case and go back to the office and have a drink, and I say to myself, 'Boy, that looks pretty good.' I can almost taste it. "I loved to get drunk," Hannah told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2010. "He took care of the complex like it was his place," Soper said. He held the job for more than half a decade. He became assistant manager at Soper's 62-unit townhome complex where Hannah had scrounged for cans. But eventually, he turned his life around.
Hannah in those days was a wild-haired, gap-toothed man with the word "BUMFIGHT" tattooed across his knuckles. In 2006, the four filmmakers reportedly paid at least $300,000 to settle lawsuits filed by Hannah and two other men who appeared in the original video. They avoided jail, but McPherson and another man later were sentenced to 180 days each in jail for failing to complete community service. The four original filmmakers eventually pleaded guilty in California to misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to stage an illegal fight. But they were condemned by homeless advocates, blamed for inspiring violence against the homeless and banned in several countries. The videos sold hundreds of thousands of DVD copies. Hannah, who smashed his head into a steel door, said he suffered permanent injuries. The "actors" were paid about $10 per stunt and were usually drunk. It was followed by several sequels in which Hannah, known as "Rufus the Stunt Bum," and other transients performed dangerous and degrading stunts, such as brawling each other, jumping off buildings, smashing head-first into doors and walls and lighting their hair on fire.
The first "Bumfights" was released in 2002. I never had any idea the stuff he was filming would become what it did." "I just wanted some money to get drunk, so I did what he told me to. "He told me he was doing a video for his economics class on what it was like when you don't have a job," Hannah said in a 2006 article in the New York Times.
Hannah, a Georgia native who began drinking when he was 14, was living on the streets when he began his "Bumfights" career.Ī high school student and aspiring filmmaker, Ryan McPherson, offered him $5 to run head-first into milk crates stacked outside a grocery store in El Cajon, California. "I helped him stop drinking, and he was sober for the past 13 years." He went through so much, then turned his life completely around," Soper told KNSD-TV ( ). Soper gave Hannah a job and helped in his eventual recovery. On Friday, Hannah's friend and benefactor, Barry Soper, sobbed as he placed a bouquet of flowers on the Dumpster in San Diego where he first met Hannah more than 15 years ago as the man was scrounging for aluminum cans to recycle for booze money. One of the two vehicles apparently ran a red light on State Route 4, but the investigation continued and no citations were immediately issued, Cain said. Hannah's sister received a head injury, but she was expected to survive. Hannah, who was living in the town of Adrian, Georgia, was a passenger in a car driven by his sister that was T-boned by a semi-truck on Wednesday just outside the town of Swainsboro, Georgia State Patrol Sgt. LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rufus Hannah, a formerly homeless alcoholic who was paid to fight other homeless men and perform dangerous stunts in the notorious "Bumfights" videos, has died. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use.
0 kommentar(er)
