Peter Dunn on AllMovie

Burly actor and stunt man Peter Dunn was active in movies and television from the early '50s until the 1980s. Born in 1921, Dunn started in his twenties as a rodeo rider, and later moved to Hollywood, where he broke into movies as a stunt man in Westerns. He also did some acting on-stage in Los Angeles, but was most active onscreen doing stunt work, and even when he was given an actual movie role, it was usually more for his physique and appearance than for his ability at reading lines.

His early screen credits included work in Tay Garnett's Soldiers Three (1951), Vincente Minnelli's Kismet (1955), and George Stevens' Giant (1956), but he got some of his most extended screen time in William Cameron Menzies' science fiction/horror thriller Invaders From Mars (1953). In the latter film, Dunn -- along with Lock Martin and Ed Wolff -- was one of the large-sized actors portraying the hulking Martian "mutants," clad in green body-suits and lurking around the artificially created underground caves of the story. The biggest role of his entire career may well have been in Irvin Berwick's late-'50s horror film The Monster of Piedras Blancas, in which he seems to have played the dual role of Eddie, the deputy constable, and the creature of the title (accounts differ, some sources saying that it was Dunn in the monster suit while others claim that Jack Kevan, who designed the costume, was wearing it -- and both may have played the monster in different scenes). This led to a rather grisly "in-joke," when the monster (apparently played by Dunn) stalks onscreen in one scene, having disposed of the deputy (who was definitely played by Dunn), carrying a bloody severed head that is a perfect replica of Dunn's own head.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Dunn's movie activities were largely confined to work as a stunt man and extra, in Mackenna's Gold, Chisum, The Poseidon Adventure, Blazing Saddles, and The Shootist. He was also active on television from the '50s through the '70s, doing stunt work and playing small supporting roles in Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Bonanza, Rawhide, Branded, Mission: Impossible, Emergency, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Bionic Woman. He retired at the end of the 1980s and died of a heart attack in 1990, at the age of 68.