Happy Birthday to Gorss, Swor and Lee!....Day 81 of Bond 365

Sol Gorss, actor and stuntman

Sol Gorss

Born this day in 1908

Stunts for From Russia With Love

I about fell out of my chair when I looked at Sol Gorss’ IMDB filmography of 252 actor credits and 88 as a stuntman!

Gorss started acting in 1931 as a policeman in The Front Page. He started doing stunts a few years later in the 1936 Bengal Tiger. He had roles that overlapped with his stunts and worked on television and in film. Gorss did his last stunt work in the 1966’s Murderers’ Row and the following year, his last acting role in Red Tomahawk as a Townman/Roulette Player, which came out after his death.

Ken Swor

Born this day in 1935

Assistant Director for Diamonds Are Forever

Reading through his IMDB profile, Ken Swor sounded liked a real down to earth type of person. He played sports in school and eventually earned a teaching degree, so he could teach and coach.

In the late 1960s, he took a director’s guild test and scored in the up 10%. Scoring as high as he did led him to train as an assistant director and in 1971, one of his first outings as an Assistant Director was on Diamonds Are Forever – pretty darn amazing! He worked on some popular television series such as The Streets of San Francisco and Barnaby Jones.

In the 1970s, he added Production Manager to his list of talents. As a production manager, he apparently worked exclusively on television series and movies. Again, he worked on some very popular projects in their day: The Streets of San Francisco, Police Story, Fame, and The Twilight Zone.

His last credit was in 1995 and in 2004 he passed away from heart failure at the age of 69.

Will Yun Lee

Will Yun Lee

Born this day in 1971

Colonel Moon in Die Another Day

Will Yun Lee was born in Virginia to Korean parents and as a child, his family moved around a lot, leading Lee to have both tough (Bronx) and tropical (Hawaii) locales as backdrops during his childhood years. Eventually, he and his father, a Korean Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster, settled in San Francisco. Lee spent time in his father studio and learned Tae Kwon Do. 

Lee attended University of California Berkeley and studied Political Science, however it was also a time in which two things impacted his life. First, Lee began worked with high-risk teens, youth he could identify with from his years when he lived in the Bronx. His commitment to youth has continued to be an important role for him.

Second, Lee became interested in acting and landed a role on the television show Nash Bridges starring Don Johnson and Cheech Marin. It led him to relocate to Los Angeles and pursue a career in acting. Looking at his IMDB filmography, Lee has been working consistently since 1997 with his first role. In addition, he has branched into voice over work in video games such as the Sleeping Dogs franchise. And recently, he has been working on Hawaii Five-O, Strike Back and True Blood.

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