Dale Van Sickel Dale Harris Van Sickel ( November 29 , 1907 – January 25 , 1977 ) was an American college football , basketball and baseball player during the 1920s , who later became a Hollywood motion picture actor and stunt performer for over forty years . Van Sickel played college football for the University of Florida , and was recognized as the first - ever first - team All - American in the history of the Florida Gators football program . Early life . Dale Van Sickel was born in Eatonton , Georgia in 1907 , but grew up in Gainesville , Florida . Van Sickel attended Gainesville High School , where he played high school football for the Gainesville Purple Hurricanes . In 2007 , eighty - one years after he graduated from high school , the Florida High School Athletic Association ( FHSAA ) recognized Van Sickel as one of the " 100 Greatest Players of the First 100 Years " of Florida high school football . He is generally regarded as the best high school football player produced in the state of Florida before the 1930s . College career . Van Sickel attended the University of Florida in Gainesvile . He played right end for the Florida Gators football team for three seasons from 1927 to 1929 , on the opposite side of the line from left end Dutch Stanley . During his three years as a member of the Gators varsity , the team won twenty - three of twenty - nine games . Led by future Hall of Fame coach Charlie Bachman in 1928 , Van Sickel and the Gators posted an 8 – 1 record during his junior season , outscoring their competition 366 – 44 — the most points scored in the nation . The Gators ' sole 1928 loss was to Tennessee in Knoxville — by a single point , 12 – 13 . The Associated Press , Newspaper Enterprise Association and Grantland Rice of " Collier ' s Weekly " named Van Sickel to their respective 1928 first - team All - America squads , making him the first player from the University of Florida to be named a first - team All - American . As was typical of the 1920s era , Van Sickel played both offense and defense ; his College Hall of Fame biography describes him as " a swift and sure - handed receiver on offense and a gifted defensive player . " Van Sickel was injured during his senior football season in 1929 , and while he was productive , he was unable to post the same sort of numbers in 1929 that he did during his 1928 All - American season . Van Sickel was also the team captain and a varsity letterman for the Florida Gators basketball and Gators baseball teams . He was later inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a " Gator Great , " and he was also the first Gator to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975 . The sportswriters of " The Gainesville Sun " selected him as the No . 11 all - time Gator player among the top 100 from the first century of Florida football in 2006 . Hollywood career . Van Sickel graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor ' s degree in 1930 , and he remained at the university to be an assistant coach for the Gators football and basketball teams during the 1930 and 1931 seasons . Afterward , he moved to Hollywood to begin a career as a movie stuntman , and had his first on - screen stunt role in the Marx Brothers ' film " Duck Soup " ( 1933 ) . Over the next thirty - eight years , Van Sickel appeared as an extra and occasional leading man in over 280 film s and television episode s , and performed on - screen stunts in another 140 . In addition to appearing in numerous B movies , he was a stunt man and on - screen extra in such Hollywood classics as " The Searchers " , " North by Northwest " and " Spartacus " . He was a founding member and the first president of the Stuntmen ' s Association of Motion Pictures . Van Sickel died in 1977 in Newport Beach , California as a result of injuries received while filming a car crash stunt in 1975 ; he was 69 years old . Van Sickel was survived by his wife Iris and their daughter .