Tim Condren (1926 - 2006)

Tim Condren
I'm very sorry to say that Mr. Condren passed away at 3:05 pm (London time) today, July 19.
His niece emailed me this morning to let me know and to thank everyone for the support. The London Stunt School also wanted to thank everyone for their kindness, the letters of encouragement did lift Mr. Condren's spirits.
I'm sure Mr. Condren was surprised by the outpouring of support the Star Wars fans sent his way.
I now implore all of you to take a little bit of time, get out your extra postage and send your condolences to his family and London Stunt School where he had been teaching for years.
Ms. Boyd, Mr. Condren's niece, let me know just now that the funeral will be on Wednesday, July 26, 2006 and anyone who would like to send their condolences, wishes or anything else can send it to either one of these addresses (preferrably the latter):

The Condren Family
c/o London Stunt School
Sudbury Primary School
Watford Road
Wembley
Middlesex
HA0 3EY
UK

OR

The Condren Family/Miss Z L Boyd
12 Kingsley Court
Penhale
Fraddon
Cornwall
TR9 6PD

Thank you all very much for helping.

Leah


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While I know very little of his personal life I can give you a little bit of information about his professional life.

Tim Condren always had an interest in the physical and made a good career being physical over the last 40 or so years.Condren worked with legends such as Roger Moore, Charles Bronson, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Robert Mitchum to name but a few, and created stunt work for many popular movies including several Bond films, Star Wars, Superman I & II, Labyrinth, Willow and others. He also played a smattering of on-camera roles, one of which was one of the original Stormtroopers for Star Wars.

His very first stunt work in film was in the 1962 David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia (my favorite film) Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) was also in this film.

Condren's work took him to the US, Australia and to other film locations around the world and also had him gainfully employed in the UK (his home) for all of his adult life.

Condren was experienced in archery and horses and incorporated those skills into his stunt work, generally both together. While in the US he made several westerns (I'm still working on finding which films these were), usually involving horse work, many times playing an Indian (Apache and Sioux, of course), all of which were filmed here in Southern California or in Arizona. He also participated in several rodeos as a trick rider/guest performer. I believe that he did the same in Australia too.
Many years ago Condren made appearances in circuses (he had a strong acrobatic background) and also made good of his fencing and sword-fighting skills by working the show at the Tower of London (The White Tower) as a Knight...these shows are still presented now and are held in August.

Condren spent many of these past years teaching at the London Stunt School with Alasdair Monteith and others preparing scores of young stunt hopefuls for film, TV and other productions. This was his last position before his death and I do believe that he was teaching up until he became ill.

I don't know how he died (what he died of) but I do know that his family and friends were there to support him through all of it and that he was glad to hear from fans he no doubt had little idea existed until 3 days ago.

Leah