Eddie Powell

Eddie Powell (March 9, 1927 - August 11, 2000) was a British stunt performer and actor. Powell performed stunts in several films for Hammer Studios, serving as a regular stunt double for Christopher Lee. His credits during this time included portraying Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965) and the Mummy in The Mummy's Shroud (1967). He also appeared in several James Bond films and in Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966).

Eddie Powell portrayed Xenomorphs in Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986).

Biography

Powell performed stuntwork in several films for Hammer Studios, serving as a regular stunt double for Christopher Lee. His credits during this time included portraying Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965) and the Mummy in The Mummy's Shroud (1967). He also appeared in several James Bond films and in Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966). Powell would later do stunts in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Batman (1989), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

During an interview segment on the 1995 documentary Dalekmania, Powell revealed the following about his work as The Alien:

The other sci fi film I'm known for is a film that Ridley Scott did on the Alien, and I was brought in to play the Alien. The original person pulled out right at the very beginning---didn't want to know about it---so I took over. I said to the producer three-quarters of the way through the film; "I hope I'm going to get the main credit for this"...I just got it for the action for the Alien, which really upset me.^[1]