Jeannie Epper was born on January 27 1941 in Glendale, California to a family of stunt performers. She grew up in North Hollywood. Her father was stuntman John Epper, who performed stunts in movies from The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) to The Great Bank Robbery (1969). She performed her first stunt when she was only nine years old, riding a horse down a cliff in the movie Elopement (1951). When she was 13 years old she went off to finishing school in Switzerland for two and a half years.
Her first credit was for the movie Cheyenne Autumn in 1964. She spent much of the latter Sixties as a stunt double on the television Western series The Big Valley. During the decade she performed stunts in the movies The Hallelujah Trail (1965), Our Man Flint (1966), Mackenna's Gold (1969), Hello, Dolly! (1969), and Little Big Man (1970).
In the Seventies she was Lynda Carter's stunt double on Wonder Woman. She also served as a stunt double on the shows The Bionic Woman and Charlie's Angels. She performed stunts for individual episodes of the shows Emergency! and Laverne & Shirley. She worked on such movies as Play Misty for Me (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Coffy (1973), The Don is Dead (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974), Mame (1974), Foxy Brown (1974), Earthquake (1974), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Day of the Locust (1975), Logan's Run (1976), Eaten Alive (1976), Silver Streak (1976), Bound for Glory (1976), Black Sunday (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Avalanche Express (1979), The Silent Scream (1979), 1941 (1979), The Ninth Configuration (1980), The Blues Brothers (1980), Used Cars (1980), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), and Melvin and Howard.
In the Eighties Miss Epper was a stunt double on the TV series Dynasty. She performed stunts in the Tales from the Crypt episode "All Through the House." She performed stunts in the movies Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), Caveman (1981), The Cannonball Run (1981), Deathtrap (1982), The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), Poltergeist (1982), Blade Runner (1982), The Beastmaster (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), The Final Terror (1983), Term of Endearment (1983), Romancing the Stone (1984), Ghost Warrior (1984), Private Resort (1985), Fletch (1985), Clue (1985), The Naked Cage (1986), Murphy's Law (1986), Legal Eagles (1986), Vamp (1986), Extremities (1986), Vendetta (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), Retribution (1987), Million Dollar Mystery (1987), RoboCop (1987), Flowers in the Attic (1987), Off the Mark (1987), Patty Hearst (1988), Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), All's Fair (1989), K-9 (1989), Road House (1989), The Package (1989), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Come See the Paradise (1990), Total Recall (1990), and The Rookie (1990).
In the Nineties she performed stunts on the television reunion mini-series Dynasty: The Return. She also performed stunts on an episode of the show L.A. Heat. She worked on such movies as Switch (1991), Mobsters (1991), Dead Again (1991), Article 99 (1992), Midnight's Child (1992), Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992), The Mighty Ducks (1992), Innocent Blood (1992), Extreme Justice (1993), Dreamrider (1993), The Fugitive (1993), Demolition Man (1993), Josh and S.A.M. (1993), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Blown Away (1994), Night of the Running Man (1995), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Separate Lives (1995), Money Train (1995), Guns and Lipstick (1995), Sgt. Bilko (1996), Spy Hard (1996), Kazaam (1996), A Very Brady Sequel (1996), High School High (1996), Set It Off (1996), Metro (1997), Vegas Vacation (1997), Con Air (1997), Steel (1997), Fire Down Below (1997), Armageddon (1998), Blade (1998), Soldier (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), Mystery Men (1999), Whatever It Takes (2000), and Submerged (2000).
In the Naughts Jeannie Epper performed stunts on the movies Rush Hour 2 (2001), The Princess Diaries (2001), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Orange County (2002), The Sweetest Thing (2002), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me if You Can (2002), The Italian Job (2003), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Bad Boys II (2003), Freaky Friday (2003), November (2004), Kill Bill: Vol 2 (2004), Criminal (2004), Elizabethtown (2005), Poseidon (2006), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), American Son (2008), The Happening (2008), State of Play (2009), Table for Three (2009), The Book of Eli (2010), The Back-up Plan (2010), and Nothing Special (2010).
From the Teens into the Naughts Jeannie Epper worked on such films as Cedar Rapids (2011), The Amazing Spider-Man (2011), After (2012), and Flight (2012), Hot Pursuit (2015).
In addition to TV shows and movies, Jeannie Epper also performed stunts for video games, including Ground Zero Texas. She also appeared in bits parts in movies such as Cheyenne Autumn, Soylent Green, Earthquake, and Spider-Man. She had larger roles in the movies Foxy Brown and Quarantine (2008) and episodes of the TV shows Tales from the Crypt, Monk, Supernatural, and The Rookie.
Jeannie Cooper's sisters Margo and Stephanie were also stuntwomen. All three sisters would work together, most notably in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean in which they played prostitutes who beat up the lead character (played by Paul Newman). Multiple members of her family, brothers and sisters, performed stunts in the bar fight scene in 1941.
When it came to stunt performers Jeannie Epper was a true pioneer. As hard as it may be to believe now, as late as the 1970s it was not unusual for men to double for female actors. Talking to the TV Academy Foundation in 2014, she said, "It wasn’t until sexy ladies like Linda Evans and Lynda Carter said we didn’t want hairy-legged boys doubling for us anymore," She was a founding member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures. She was certainly good at her job. She performed such stunts as the mudslide scene in Romancing the Stone. Among other things, she was a skilled horsewoman. Jeannie also had a long career. She received her last credit when she was eighty years old. Jeannie Epper was a true pioneer and a truly great stunt performer.
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