Toby Halikci - Creator of the original Gone In 60 Seconds

[hoorayforhollywood]

Toby Halicki was a fascinating guy who made the greatest of all time (original) car crash B-movie "Gone In 60 Seconds". He died tragically in an accident on one of his movie sets. I'm posting the wikipedia entry on him to get the ball rolling, in case any of you have other info or memories about him. He acted in, produced, directed, and basically built that movie from the ground up himself. Not to be confused with the remake with Nike Cage. This is the original and BEST. Mr. Halicki deserves an entry at FAD. He had a wild and crazy life, from beginning to end. Not only that, he was HOT looking!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.B._Halicki

[SueWahoo]

I love the old Gone in 60 Seconds. It's heads and tails above that crappy copy with Nick Cage. I just love the patina of older movies and the fact that there was very little trickery in Toby's movies. Um, and probably very little story too, but, hey, the car stunts are fantastic! It kinda reeks of guerrilla filmmaking. Sorry, but sometimes the CGI just doesn't look real no matter how well it's done.

[hoorayforhollywood]

I love the old Gone in 60 Seconds. It's heads and tails above that crappy copy with Nick Cage. I just love the patina of older movies and the fact that there was very little trickery in Toby's movies. Um, and probably very little story too, but, hey, the car stunts are fantastic! It kinda reeks of guerrilla filmmaking. Sorry, but sometimes the CGI just doesn't look real no matter how well it's done.

I totally agree. The Nick Cage remake was crappy. Toby's original had that great underground feel to it. He proved that an independent filmmaker can go out there and make a profit without the "big boys" help or promotion. That's what impressed me about him, that he put together a bunch of pals and they made a movie. It has something like 93 car crashes, the most ever shown on screen. Apparently he was very safe with his stunts, so for him to get killed in a freak accident on one of his sets, with a huge pole falling over, so terribly sad. I miss the days of "guerrilla filmmaking". The crap today is so predictable...Toby earned his place in Hollywood history.

[SueWahoo]

There's a very small picture from a news article where you can see Halicki on the ground after getting hit by the pole.

http://www.gonein60seconds.com/toby/accident_t.htm

[Kathyf]

Very sad

[hoorayforhollywood]

There's a very small picture from a news article where you can see Halicki on the ground after getting hit by the pole.

http://www.gonein60seconds.com/toby/accident_t.htm

Thanks so much for posting this article. I have never seen this before. Yes, very sad. What a freaky thing.

[jay]

I always thougth he made a pretty good car chase movie with so small a budget I heard that he compressed some vertebra when he made the jump over the cars at the end of the movie

[SueWahoo]

He almost killed himself when he reamed a light pole on an off-ramp. He hit it at 100 (or so they say) because a stunt driver was slightly off his mark. He was knocked unconscious and injured so they rushed to the hospital. When he finally woke up, his first words were pretty much: hey, we got the shot right?