Donna Hall Fishburn, BHS 1946

Donna Hall Fishburn, BHS 1946

Donna Hall Fishburn, a veteran Hollywood stunt double and horsewoman who worked in hundreds of westerns in a 40-year career in which she doubled for Barbara Stanwyck in "The Maverick Queen," Debbie Reynolds in "How the West Was Won" and Doris Day in "Calamity Jane," has died. She was 74.

Fishburn, whose professional name was Donna Hall, died of lung disease Aug 7, 2002 at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank. Born in Los Angeles, Fishburn was the daughter of stuntman Frank "Shorty" Hall, a former jockey, who put her on a horse almost as soon as she could walk. At 3, she was thrown from a horse for the first time."Dad put me back on the saddle again and I've never been afraid of a horse," Fishburn said when she was an 18-year-old Burbank High School graduate and already wrangling movie horses.

Fishburn made her movie debut at 10 when a little girl was needed to come out of the starting gate in a racehorse picture. After she began her stunt career in the late '40s, she jumped off trains, fell off horses and transferred from horses to moving stagecoaches. She even jumped to a stagecoach while standing on two horses. Fishburn once said she was too scared to become an actress. But doing anything on horseback never frightened her, although movie work sometimes took a toll. In "Cat Ballou," she jumped off a train and hit a rock. And while she was working as a stuntwoman for Stanwyck on location for "Maverick Queen," a horse fell on her."Then," as she once recalled, "I got food poisoning from the catering truck, and the next day they accidentally dropped me on my head. But they paid me well--and I got to see a lot of Colorado."

Fishburn, who did trick-riding in rodeos on the weekends and once appeared at Madison Square Garden, was among only a dozen or so women doing western stunt work in those days. Among her other feature film credits are "Annie Get Your Gun," "Big Country" and "The Apple Dumpling Gang."

Fishburn also worked in numerous TV westerns, including "Kit Carson," "The Lone Ranger," "The Cisco Kid," "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Have Gun Will Travel."She appeared frequently on TV's "Annie Oakley," doubling for star Gail Davis, said her husband and only survivor, retired movie wrangler Jay Fishburn, who said his wife did what she loved to do. "We couldn't wait for the sun to come up and hated to see it go down," Fishburn recalled of her movie days in 2000, the year she received a Golden Boot Award.