Description
“They keep throwing her off cliffs and things. Sometimes they hand her up by the feet and stand around cackling fiendishly. Sometimes they dip her head first in cold water. Cyd Child is the easygoing type, she doesn’t take umbrage. That’s her job. She’s a stunt girl.” – Martin White, Evening Echo (Dec 1967).
Christine Gallie is a 7th Dan who trained at the Budokwai in London, becoming the first woman to be allowed to train with the men’s elite class. Amongst her many titles are European Champion and six times British Open Champion. Brian Jacks once hailed Christine as “the innovator of women’s competition judo.” Christine was the first woman in this country to get 5th Dan and then 6th Dan.
Under the stage name of Cyd Child, she became one of the foremost stunt performers in the UK, working on film franchises such as James Bond, Superman and The Pink Panther, as well as television classics such as The Goodies, Space: 1999 and UFO. But it is for The Avengers where she has received greatest acclaim, in her role as double for Emma Peel and Tara King, and then Purdey in The New Avengers.
This autobiography is a celebration of Cyd’s colourful life and her dual careers in judo and stunt performance, and contains hundreds of previously unseen photos from her personal archives.
Foreword by Joanna Lumley, Brian Jacks and Elizabeth Viney.
