Biography
Henry Allen Robinson, III (Allen) was born in Germany to a U.S. Army officer stationed there with his family. Growing up and moving often as part of a military family, Allen was exposed to many cultures and countries, including in Europe and Asia. He showed signs of fearlessness, creativity, and adventure from a very young age: jumping off a 3-meter high dive platform at age 6 into a swimming pool; rigging a zipline between trees at age 12 providing fun for all of the neighborhood kids; and modifying his 6 ft unicycle into a 10 ft one, which he rode with ease. In high school, Allen played football, was a springboard diver, competitive swimmer, and pole vaulter. At 19, he customized his first car, a Baja Bug, which gave him his first taste of racing autocross.
After completing 18 months of college education, Allen pursued many avenues, such as bartending, handyman , and snow ski instructor, before finding his true passion of stunt work. In 1985 he responded to a newspaper want-ad stating "Stuntmen wanted. will train", which became the perfect way to parlay his athletic talents and spirit of adventure into a career. He started out playing a gunfighter and performed 14 live shows a day, 6 days a week during a summer at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park.
Afterwards he was hired as a stunt man at Walt Disney World as a gunfighter at Magic Kingdom. He later became a Harrison Ford stunt double at the MGM Studio's live show "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular" in 1989. He spent four years there performing thousands of shows for audiences that included such icons as Michael Jackson and Princess Diana.
At every opportunity, Allen added new skills to his resume. In addition to being a gunfighter, he learned technical rope work, how to be set on fire, SCUBA diving, professional skydiving and skydive photography, and was certified as FAA parachute rigger. Skydiving was a particular interest for Allen having been inspired by his Special Forces Green Beret father. Allen and fellow stuntman, Brady Michaels, fired up the American Eagles Skydiving Team; were hired to skydive into football and baseball games and several NASCAR races; and even jumped out of the back of a Boeing 727 jet airliner in flight.
On his creative side, Allen expanded into precise technical work, creating his entrepreneur endeavor "The Adrenaline Workshop," designing and sewing professional stunt harnesses, crash pads, and other equipment which served and protected many people and film stars, including performers for Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere" and "O."
Allen was one of a handful of people ever trained to fly the world's only Rocket Belt. He was sent to Sweden for training only to find out the training locations were closed due to Russian submarines cruising along the coast. He was on the cutting edge of new adventures with his 1990 start in the bungee jumping business. After earning his pilot's license for hot air ballooning, Allen started bungee jumping off the balloon (tethered at 150 ft off the ground) and from cranes and trained his jump masters on safety protocols. He became a media magnet for his hot air balloon stunts -- most notably one he designed specifically to combine stunts: first, he bungee jumped from 3000 ft from the balloon, then cut away from the cord, fell another 800 ft before opening a parachute and landing safely. He engineered and rigged every part of the stunt and was filmed by the local TV station.
Allen's first venture into television came when performing a fight and high fall in a TV special with the legendary Everly Brothers. In1990, Stunt Unlimited's co-founder Glen Wilder hired Allen to be Anthony Perkins' stunt double in Psycho 4. In 1993, Allen was hired to run and swim as Forrest Gump. This first time doubling for Tom Hanks had him being chased by a pickup truck only inches from his heels, swimming to the dock to Lt Dan in his wheelchair. and getting shot in the buttocks.
In 2001, Stunt Coordinator, Doug Coleman hired Allen to double Tom Hanks for the second of 6 subsequent times, in Road to Perdition. Working with Doug led to many film opportunities, and Allen was introduced to big name directors such as Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis. He worked in many films including Blades of Glory, Poseidon, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Get Smart. He was the stunt coordinator on The Polar Express in 2003, working again with Tom Hanks. The Polar Express was the first feature-length motion capture picture using digital recording techniques and had its unique challenges.
Allen was invited to be part of the United States team at the Moscow International Stunt Festival in 2003 where he completed two BASE jumps. The jumps were made very low at 177 ft high with only a 4-second canopy ride. Both jumps were successful but there was no room for error. Because his life's work was all about safety, he decided this was an adventure he did not wish to pursue any further. However, the desire to fuel his need for adrenaline never left and Allen began racing superbike motorcycles. This high-speed dragging a knee around corners racing, 3 weekends a month at the track resulted in one crash at 100 mph. Skills learned at the track later served him well doing motorcycle stunts on the TV show Sons of Anarchy, which he did for five seasons.
Allen repeatedly worked with some A-list film stars, such as Tom Hanks (7 films), and doubling Jim Carrey (3 times), and was selected to be Clint Eastwood's stunt double in the film The Mule. He had first met Mr. Eastwood on the film Sully when doubling for Tom Hanks as the real-life Captain Sully. Even though The Mule was not big on stunt action, doubling Mr. Eastwood was a career highlight working so closely with a film legend.
Allen's career as a stuntman and stunt coordinator has been recognized. In 2013, he was voted in as a member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, the first stunt group founded in 1961. In 2016, he was inducted into John Hagner's Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.
After moving to central Texas in 2014, Allen got heavily involved as a first responder on the Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR) team, where he is a swift water technician, high water rescue vehicle driver, rescue boat operator, and ground search operations.
You can catch Allen signing autographs and "Scream2 Ghostface" memorabilia for fans at Horror and Pop cons nationwide. You also might see Allen on stage, sharing stories of his career and inspiring people to fearlessly follow their dreams. He organizes and attends car shows and enjoys his horses and German Shepherds with his wife, Sandra Dee Robinson, on their farm outside of Austin Texas. With his love of Jesus. Allen enjoys serving at his church.
