Sky-high stunts

Janet Lee Orcutt wasn’t suicidal or intoxicated when she jumped from the eighth story of the Coeur d’Alene Resort and plunged head-first toward Lake Coeur d’Alene.

She was working.

In October 1991, the California stuntwoman made the jump several times, at different heights, before she crashed through a fake glass window in Room 1018 and fell head-first 106 feet — into an air-filled bag 17 feet deep and measuring 25-by-40 feet on the surface.

But Orcutt’s jump wasn’t the craziest thing that occurred 35 years ago when the new syndicated TV show “Stuntmasters” came to Coeur d’Alene — a one-season show that “highlighted the dangerous and exciting world of Hollywood stunt performers.”

That honor went to Spokane stuntman Jeff Habberstad, who spent part of his childhood at his family’s cabin in Twin Lakes. A few days after Orcutt’s heart-stopping plunge, Habberstad plummeted 180 feet from the Hagadone suite of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. He had dropped 200 feet from a helicopter before. But this time he was on fire.

“I try to put the height and fire in the back of my mind,” Habberstad calmly told reporter Keith Erickson of the Coeur d’Alene Press before his flaming leap on Oct. 23, 1991. “I focus on where I’m going — the spot.”

Neither Orcutt nor Habberstad, a 1979 graduate of Spokane’s Mead High, had sustained a serious injury while performing stunts. Orcutt told the Press that she never suffered as much as a scratch from her work. Habberstad said he once broke a thumb.

“Life is much more dangerous (in the) off hours,” Habberstad said.

Habberstad’s jump was the focus of a full-page Press ad for a discounted winter stay at the resort the following January. A photo shows him ablaze and falling with a superimposed headline: “The Coeur d’Alene Resort offers many ways to warm up this winter.”

The ad goes on to say that for $69 a day, the Coeur d’Alene Resort provides more traditional warm-ups “such as sharing a favorite beverage next to a crackling fire, relaxing in the spa, or dancing the night away to the region’s hottest bands.”

“Stuntmasters” had planned six stunts in Coeur d’Alene, but cut one of them due to inclement weather — a jet ski jump over the Coeur d’Alene Resort’s floating green. A disagreement with cautious city officials prompted show execs to cancel a flaming crash scene, known as a “cannonball roll,” at the old Third Street parking lot at McEuen Field.

Instead, producers added Habberstad’s daring leap from the Hagadone penthouse hot tub.

Ring Warrior

A Coeur d’Alene man once stood toe to toe with Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” who was the boxing heavyweight champ from 1937 until 1949. And Larry Udell lived to talk about it.

“I think he’s kind of proud that he didn’t actually get knocked out,” Bob Koep, marketing director for Pinewood Care Center, told John Mason of The Press in October 2001.

Koep was watching a football game with residents at the retirement home, when Udell mentioned his battle with Louis, who won 68 of 71 fights, with 54 knockouts during his record boxing reign. Officially, Udell was one of those KOs.

In 1934, he was bloodied and knocked to one knee in the third round against Louis when the referee declared a technical knockout. It was Louis’ third professional fight.

Udell, who finished with a career record of 80 wins and 12 losses, helped feed his family during the Depression by earning $25 per fight. He made more from boxing than he did from his day job — painting houses in Aberdeen, S.D.

Udell was fighting dementia when the Press called on him. His son, Neil, said he wasn’t sure whether his dad’s memory lapses resulted from age or fights.

Neil said, “I’m sure a lot of it was caused by getting clobbered over and over and over.”

A Tell-Tale Pause

Many old-timers know that the Diamond Cup races ran from 1958 through 1968. But few recall why the 1967 race was canceled. Or that it foreshadowed the end of the event.

On Oct. 19, 1966, Coeur d’Alene Unlimited Hydroplane Association directors voted 15-0 to drop the Diamond Cup for the following summer, according to The Press. The races still attracted huge crowds. But the association was having trouble paying for them.

 Commodore Tom Richards told The Press that his organization finished $4,500 in the red in 1966. The races cost the group $47,000 to stage, but gate receipts and solicitations brought in only $42,500.

“This community cannot raise the money necessary to finance this type of promotion,” Richards said. “It is priced out of the field.”

The group’s financial problems began five years before when it was pressured by the sanctioning Unlimited Hydroplane Association to offer prize money to attract the big boats to Coeur d’Alene. The local hydroplane organization offered $5,000 that year for winning entries. By 1966, the tab for cash prizes had risen steadily to $23,000.

Richards’ group rallied for another Diamond Cup race in 1968 but barely broke even. Money and lack of volunteers were cited as reasons in 1969 to end the halcyon races.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Forgive me if / I slyly scoff, / but why trust pigs / to guard a trough? — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Comment on Certain Candidates”).

• Pedestrian Beware: From 1972-74, Sherman Avenue was dubbed as Idaho’s most dangerous state, federal, or alternate route. It didn’t help that our main street doubled as State Highway 10. In 1976, through Oct. 19, 102 non-injury and 16 injury accidents happened on Sherman. The biggest culprit? Motorists opening doors into traffic. There was no Idaho law against doing so. Nor as much common sense then.

• CDA Trivia: The iconic Iron Horse restaurant on Sherman Avenue got its name because late owner Tom Robb loved trains. Born and raised in Boise, Tom lived a few blocks from the Union Pacific depot. He once told the Press, “I just grew up loving the old trains.” Partner Barb Renner shared Tom’s affection for locomotives. So, the pair renamed the old Manor Inn that debuted as the Iron Horse in June 1972.

• Post Falls Promo: In October 1991, as Post Falls emerged from Coeur d’Alene’s shadow, Harry Perry of Post Falls Tourism made a wild prediction. By 2020, he said, Post Falls would have more residents than Coeur d’Alene. At the time, Coeur d’Alene outnumbered River City 24,563 to 7,349. Harry didn’t miss by much. Today, Coeur d’Alene has an estimated 58,785 residents and Post Falls 48,338. And counting.

• Five Stars: Pappy Boyington, the Coeur d’Alene-born World War II hero, enjoyed the 1970s TV show based on his life as a fighter pilot and leader of the famous Black Sheep Squadron. And he dismissed critics who said that the program didn’t follow his autobiography, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” In 1976, he told The Press, “Well, they were not going to publish an encyclopedia. Everything in the show is either true or a close parallel.”

Parting Shot

Hilde Kellogg and her husband, Jack, ran the popular Bar B Q Ranch Western Outfitters in Post Falls together from 1952 until 1965. And then Jack died.

Afterward, a grieving Hilde threw herself into real estate and public service. She would go on to serve 10 terms in the Idaho House of Representatives and win recognition as an advocate for North Idaho and Highway 95 reconstruction.

“I think it is a good thing for a widow to do,” Hilde told Russ Hill of The Press in October 1976 of her civic activism.

She was still running the western outfitter with her sister, Betty Garrett. But, among many other things, she was also serving on the Post Falls City Council and chairing the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

Reporter Hill noted that a sign in Hilde’s office read: “The woman’s place is in the home — right after she gets off work.” But Hilde never got off work. She almost always had a meeting to attend or worthy cause to support after store hours.

• • •

D.F. Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].

    In 1991, Pat Tagliaferro, left, and Merv Johnson of Art Dogs worked on a platform for a giant inflatable bag that was used by the TV show “Stuntmasters” to catch people jumping from as high as 200 feet from the Coeur d’Alene Resort.  

    Stuntman Jeff Habberstad.  

    In 2001, ex-boxer Larry Udell, 94, left, of Coeur d’Alene, pretended to punch his 69-year-old son, Neil.  

    In 1932, boxer Larry Udell posed for a publicity photo, two years before boxing Joe Louis, the legendary heavyweight champion.  

    During the 1963 Diamond Cup, Bernie Little left the Coeur d’Alene pit area in a hydroplane, named “Tempo.”  

    In 1976, a pedestrian dashed across a busy and dangerous Sherman Avenue intersection.  

    In 2022, owner Tom Robb posed for The Press in his iconic Iron Horse Bar & Grill.  

    In 1991, Harry Perry of Post Falls Tourism was shown at the site of a proposed aquarium at Black Bay. Harry wanted to build the image of Post Falls.  

    In 1976, Pappy Boyington, the legendary World War II hero from Coeur d’Alene, was shown with his wife, Jo, on the set of “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”  

    In 1976, Hilde Kellogg operated her Bar B Q Ranch Western Outfitters at Seltice Way and Idaho Street in Post Falls before she became an Idaho legislator.