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Legends of Diving Articles |
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Big John McLaughlin
Movie Double, Stunt Diver, Engineering Test Diver
Big John McLaughlin: Deep Sea Diver, Stunt Diver, Marine Engineer,
Underwater Cinematographer, Marine Mammal Trainer, Guardian of
the Sea, Coast Guard Certified Master Diver, Demolitions
Instructor, Deep Water Salvage for the U.S. Navy…the list goes
on and on. It is impossible to categorize him for the thing he
is probably best known for: Hollywood underwater stuntman. His
business card says it best: “License to Thrill.”
Big John was born in Charleston, South Carolina on January 27,
1927. At a young age he knew that he wanted to be a Navy diver.
Very early on, hanging around the docks, he found out that if he
untangled the propellers on the fish boats he could get a bucket
of fish to eat. Listening to the stories told around the docks
inspired him to make the Sea his home. At the age of 12 he
became a certified diver and later on became a lifeguard.
World War II broke out and he joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a
machinist, as well as honing his skills as a diver. After the
war, John became an oil rig diver in the Gulf in the 1950's. The
rigs at this time would

John
McLaughlin, Divers Training Academy, 1963
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shut down when the weather was bad. At
these times Big John found himself in Miami and the Florida
Keys. On one of these R and R trips, he ran into some divers
from a company called Divers Training Academy of Miami, which
was federally and state funded at that time. His interest was
piqued and he became one of their top instructors and later
their company engineer. Big John Taught hard hat diving, scuba,
demolitions, salvage, deep diving, and decompression sickness.
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addition to this, he taught rebreathers, which he had worked
on in the Navy. What makes this so impressive is that this was
clear back in the early 60’s and 70’s, when this technology was
still cutting edge.
It was while traveling from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale that he met
Courtney Brown and struck up a lifelong friendship with him.
Courtney was involved in doing stunt work for movies and
documentaries. It was around 1959 that McLaughlin became
involved in the Sea Hunt Series. It was felt that he looked
enough like Lloyd Bridges he could be used in the water close
ups.
It was Ivan Tors, producer of Sea Hunt, that gave him McLaughlin
his screen name. Since there was already a John McLaughlin in
the Screen Actors Guild, McLaughlin legally changed his name to
“Big John.” It was also during this period that he met Ricou
Browning, who was filming some of the underwater sequences.
Lloyd Bridges made the comment one day "Big John is a real
likable guy and one of the most complete divers ever. He's
trained in absolutely
everything. And I learned a lot about diving from him.”
He continued his stunt work throughout the series and became good friends with
Ricou and Courtney. At this time he also met Commander Doug Fane and became a
long time friend of his, as well. A lot of the Sea Hunt episodes were inspired
by the adventures of Cmdr Fane in the South Pacific during the war.During the
sixty's
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Big John
McLaughlin with Lloyd Bridges |
and seventy's he lived on Nassau filming eight of the
James Bond Movies with Ricou Browning and Courtney Brown. Ricou
said he used these stuntmen because they had their own language
under the water. Everyone worked so well together. It was during
this time that wrangling with sharks and animals of the sea
became a first love for Big John. He found out working that with
orcas was easier than working with dolphins and that sharks
could be handled very easily. He travelled to San Diego and the
Navy Base to learn how to handle Dolphins more effectively. At
this time the Navy was doing extensive experimentation work with
dolphins.
His favorite of the James Bond Movies was Thunderball. It took
them over a year to film and, according to John, it was lots of
fun to make. He was a stunt double in that movie for 34
different people. From the Bond movies he went on to train and
work with Flipper, while that television series was being made.
He was involved in many TV shows and documentaries. His animal
handling and stunt work never stopped, and his experience proved
to be invaluable on every project he worked on.
McLaughlin became a professional diver on the cutting edge of
new technology. One day while working in the Florida keys, he
ran into" Papa Topside," Capt George F. Bond, who developed the
theory for Saturation

Big John
McLaughlin with Capt. George F. Bond |
Diving and Techniques. Bond also helped to develop Dive Tables
used by divers around the world and was also known for building
Sea Lab. Capt Bond was working on Emergency Swimming Ascents
from extremely deep depths. This was being tested to devise
escape methods from submarines. Intrigued by the dangerous
experiment, Big John volunteered to be a part of it and himself
performed an emergency swimming ascent from a depth of |
300 feet. Having worked on this project longer than
McLaughlin had, Capt Bond and his chief ascended successfully
from a depth of 350 feet. Big John and Capt Bond became good
friends, as a result of this time spent together.
As a civilian, Big John was asked from time to time to help the
Navy on their deep Salvage dives. He worked on a 520 foot lake
dive in Michigan. He was one of the first divers to work with
world- renown Dr. Bill Hamilton. Big John was one of the first
to dive with neon in the experimentation phase. He dove as far
as 520 feet using Neon. It is gas mixed to the outside pressure
or saturation. Dr. Hamilton was known in the early 60's as the
foremost authority on mixed gases. He was involved in the deep
water salvage of an airplane which crashed into Lake Mead in
November of 1970. On board was the Atomic Energy Commissioner,
Theos Thompson. They eventually had to use a diving bell at the
site and were set up on a barge replete with a Decompression
Chamber.
It was during this time that his new neighbor became an old
friend, Commander Doug Fane. The two spent a lot of time
together comparing notes about diving. He was working with Capt.
George Bond at the time on the Helgoland, an underwater sea lab.
In 1998 he was declared “Diver of the Year” by divers and
equipment managers. In addition to this claim to fame, Big John
has taught countless movie stars to dive…Tom Cruise and Brooke
Shields among them.
McLaughlin’s passion for the environment moved him to make a
public outcry about the coral at Ft. Lauderdale being destroyed
by ship anchors. He initially went to the Port Captain and then
to the Coast Guard. His words fell on deaf ears, but Big John
could not be stopped. Ten years and an act of Congress later,
coral-preserving anchoring patterns were finally put into place.
Big John played a valuable role in saving these precious reefs
for the next generation of divers to enjoy.
Asked if he had ever been bent in all his diving and
experimentation work around the world, Big John answered “no.”
He was religious about making water stops at thirty feet and
would then go to the surface and take pure O2 to clean out his
system. If he didn’t feel right after that, he would return down
to 30 feet. His safe diving practices served him well throughout
his lengthy and exciting career.
The numerous contributions that Big John McLaughlin has made to
the diving world make it abundantly clear as to why he is truly
a Legend of Diving.
Movies Big John Worked
On:
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Day of the
Dolphin
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“Joe” Panther
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007
Thunderball
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007 The Spy
Who Loved Me
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007
Goldfinger
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Key West
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The Daring
Game
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Caddy Shack
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“Namu” the
Killer Whale
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007 Never Say
Never
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Lady in
Cement
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Cocoon
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Hello Down
There
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Legend
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Television:
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Flipper
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Spanners Key
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Gentle Ben
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Fantasy Island
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Prismus
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240 Robert
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Salty
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C.H.I.P.S.
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Six Million
Dollar Man
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Wet Gold
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Bionic Woman
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New Flipper
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Big John
McLaughlin (center) is photographed with CDR Doug Fane,
Founder & Legendary
Commander of UDT-1 during WW2 (left) and Dr Ray
McAllister, (right) Florida Atlantic University
Professor, one of the first (1951) diving instructors at
the Scripps Institutes. Dr McAllister at FAU
in Boca Raton is Professor Emeritus of Ocean Engineering
and author of "Diving Locations
Boynton Inlet to Dania Pier" and "Sea Stories from a
Diving Dinosaur",

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