Stuntman/Author Gary Kent at BookPeople

See, sometimes I go to events that aren't in movie theaters, or where movies aren't shown. Last Wednesday, stuntman/actor/filmmaker and now author Gary Kent had a book signing at BookPeople, where he read from his book Shadows & Light: Journeys with Outlaws in Revolutionary Hollywood.

Kent, who now lives in Austin, has appeared at Alamo Drafthouse events for films in which he's worked on -- The Girls from Thunder Strip and recently Psych-Out. Besides Psych-Out, he's done stunts for other Richard Rush films such as Hell's Angels on Wheels, The Savage Seven, and Freebie and the Bean. You may remember Anne Heller's 2007 article for Slackerwood about The Pyramid, which Kent wrote and directed. More recently, he was stunt coordinator for Bubba Ho-Tep.

The event kicked off with some live music -- practically a requirement in this town -- including an amusing lamentation from Bianca DeLeon about what happens when your date gets shot. That set the tone perfectly. Alamo Drafthouse programmer Lars Nilsen then introduced Kent, doing a much better job than I just did in the previous paragraphs.

Kent pointed out some of his colleagues who were at the signing: stunt coordinator Bob Ivy, who played the title role in Bubba Ho-Tep; Chuck Bail, a stuntman, actor, and filmmaker who worked with Kent on many of Rush's films; and filmmaker Don Jones, who directed Kent in Lethal Pursuit. I wish Lars were here now because I'm probably missing a couple of people or important film credits. You can see some of these guys in the background of the following photo.

Kent read a few excerpts from his book, which ranged from exciting to comical to, in one case, poignant -- a list of stuntmen and women who died on-set during movie shoots. He then proceeded to sign a lot of books, including one for me. Here's what his book looks like in close-up:

A documentary film crew was at the book signing, although I don't know anything about the movie they're shooting. But they're in one of my favorite photos from the evening:

I haven't read Shadows & Light yet, but hope to do so soon. If you want to hear excerpts from Wednesday night's reading, Anne Heller shot/edited a video of the evening's highlights, embedded below:

I've also published a Flickr photo set from the event with many more photos of Kent and other attendees.