Word: chariots
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Crawford's reverence for his own talent is exceeded only by his contempt for his own life. Even career stuntmen quake at his sight gags. In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, he was almost bisected by a chariot. In How I Won the War, an unreleased film with Beatle John Lennon, he is nearly mashed by a German tank. In Black Comedy, eight times a week for four months, he has skidded down staircases on his heel, hurtled into doors face first, crashed to the floor entangled in a phone wire...
Biggest crowd catcher, next to the space capsules, is Hollywood, where maxi-size billboards show such favorites as Charlie Chaplin, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe alongside such old studio props as the actual chariot used in the 1927 version of Ben Hur. The real hit is the show of short film clips from dozens of past alltime favorite movies. "We can't get the people watching the films off the platform," complained the Seven's Ivan Chermayeff. "They get tears in their eyes, who knows why? Maybe they remember when they first took their girl to the flicks...
...stretches out on a flat piece of heavy cardboard. Helpers then lift the chute so that it can fill with wind-all the while chanting "Come and help, Gus!" (the name for springtime gusts in the Rockies)-and away the rider goes over the grass on his cardboard chariot at speeds as high as 30 m.p.h...
Nathan's succeeds. The nearest subway entrance is miles through the dark, there are no buses to chariot you home if the stares don't turn aside, no pillar to lean against. Try leaning anywhere and the private cops scoot you along. Lounging is bad for business--and constant circulation means inevitable collision...
Even finer points, such as learning to stand chariot-style to cushion the bumps, come quickly, although taking off from a 6-ft.-high ski jump at full speed is strictly for the experts (last week at Lancaster, Bob Fortin set an unofficial world's jumping record of 67 ft. 7 in.). Says Maine Resort Owner Alan Ordway, who compares the thrills of snowmobiling to riding a good thermal in a glider: "They've set everybody's age back 20 years; a guy of 60 figures that he's got 20 good years left...