Bob Minor

Bob Minor
PerformerTOS
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Portrays:	Celestra Launch Bay Guard (uncredited)
Date of Birth:	January 01, 1944
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	82
Nationality:	USA
Related Media
		@ BW Media
[{{{site}}} Official Site]
IMDb profile

Bob Minor (born as Roger Lee Minor on January 1, 1944) is an American stunt performer, actor, stunt coordinator, and second unit director. He appears uncredited as a Celestra launch bay guard in the Original Series episode "Take the Celestra," having been identified via computer-aided facial recognition. Over a career of more than five decades, Minor accumulated well over 100 film and television credits and became a pioneering figure in the integration of the Hollywood stunt industry.

Career

Minor was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he attended Manual Arts High School and excelled in baseball, basketball, football, and track. He earned a scholarship to Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, where he set a college record in the high hurdles. Following graduation, he studied acting at Sal Dano's Acting School while simultaneously pursuing bodybuilding, winning the Mr. Los Angeles, Mr. Venice Beach, and Mr. Southern California titles in 1969. He stands 6'2".

His path into stunt work began after reading about a casting call for stunt performers on a western starring Jim Brown and Raquel Welch. Though he missed that particular opportunity, it motivated him to train in fencing, staged falls, stunt driving, and SCUBA diving. He gained early industry footing by performing in the Universal Studios Hollywood tour western show and working as a bodyguard for musicians, connections that opened doors to film production work.

Minor made his stunt debut doubling for James Iglehart in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). His next major break came working as both actor and stunt coordinator for director Jack Hill on Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), both starring Pam Grier. He also worked with Hill on The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) and Switchblade Sisters (1975).

In 1973, Minor became the first African American member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, a milestone in an industry where the discriminatory practice of putting white performers in dark makeup to double for Black actors — known as "painting down" — remained common. Six years after joining, he rose to second vice-president of the association. His Stuntmen's Association belt buckle, dating to approximately 1972, is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, where it is displayed in the "Taking the Stage" gallery as part of the museum's recognition of Black stunt performers.

Throughout his career, Minor served as a stunt double for many leading Black actors, including Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Sidney Poitier, Bernie Mac, Roger E. Mosley, Carl Weathers, Danny Glover, and John Amos. As a stunt coordinator, he spent six years on Magnum, P.I. (1982–1988), where he also served as second unit director. He has described Glory (1989) as the production he is proudest of, having coordinated approximately seventy stunt performers for the film's Civil War battle sequences. Additional stunt coordinator credits include Boyz n the Hood (1991), Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), and Set It Off (1996).

As an actor, Minor appeared in Rollerball (1975), The Deep (1977), Escape from New York (1981), Rocky III (1982), Commando (1985), and Action Jackson (1988), among many other film and television roles. On television he guest-starred in The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky & Hutch, Wonder Woman, The Fall Guy, L.A. Law, Alien Nation, Matlock, Walker, Texas Ranger, and ER. He portrayed the Klingon Bo'rak in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Visionary" (1995).

In 1997, Minor sustained a serious head injury during a stunt on the production of Blues Brothers 2000. He recovered and continued working, with subsequent credits including Ocean's Eleven (2001), The Italian Job (2003), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and National Treasure (2004).

Battlestar Galactica

Minor appears uncredited as a launch bay guard aboard the Celestra in "Take the Celestra," the twentieth episode of Battlestar Galactica (original series), which first aired on April 1, 1979.

External Links

• Bob Minor article at Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki.

• Bob Minor article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• Bob Minor article at Buck Wiki, the Buck Rogers wiki.

References