Friday the 13th: Part Boo

Photo by: Jaime Kujala
From: PB Pulse

A pretty fun article about our very own-- and Palm Beach, Florida resident-- Steve Dash and his acting career, from the Palm Beach Pulse.

For years, 68-year-old Dash, then known as Steve Daskawisz, enjoyed the jobs and connections he got from having played the famous fiend, but not the credit. That’s because Warrington Gillette, the actor he replaced in the role and who appeared in only one scene, was officially credited as Jason, while Dash was listed as his stunt double. [...]

It was around that time, on the set of “Nighthawks,” that he was first approached by stunt coordinator Cliff Cudney about doing stunts. “I said ‘I’m an actor,’” he remembers. But the next day, he returned to find his stuff moved to the stuntmen trailer, which he protested until he realized that stunts paid more. [...]

That’s why he jumped at the chance to play the lead, a fellow named Jason. When he arrived to the shoot, he inquired about the script.

Instead, “they said ‘Get the bag,’ and I was like ‘What bag?’ and Cliff said ‘Oh, yeah. We forgot to tell you. You don’t get a script. You’ve got no lines and you’ll be wearing this bag on your head,’” Dash says. “It was like ‘What?’ But it’s a job. And I needed the job. So I’ve got no lines and I’m killing all these kids because they’re having sex? OK.’” [...]

So he spent several weeks in Connecticut “chasing Amy Steel around” in that bag, which was taped down to his skin every day so that it would lie flat without gaps. Eventually Dash developed burns on his skin, which is why the producers of the next film came up with a way to hide the actors’ faces without pain - the famous hockey mask.

Read the entire article at PB Pulse