Newman Dared Redford to Jump the Cliff—What Happened Next Terrified the Stunt Chief

If Newman Goes, I Go

The sun was just beginning to rise over Durango, Mexico, painting the cliffs in a golden glow. On the edge of one such cliff, forty feet above the Nazis River, two men stood side by side, dressed in dusty period costumes. Paul Newman and Robert Redford—their names alone carried a weight that could bend the rules of Hollywood. Yet, at this moment, the rules of nature were not so easily swayed.

Bill Hickman, the weathered stunt coordinator, watched them with a mix of disbelief and dread. He’d spent twenty years keeping actors alive, but pride and friendship threatened to rewrite the script.

“You don’t understand,” Hickman said, voice steady but urgent. “This isn’t a diving board. The river is twelve feet deep. Rocks are three feet under the surface. If you angle wrong, if you hesitate, if you panic midair and shift your body weight, you hit those rocks at thirty miles an hour. That’s not a broken bone. That’s paralysis. That’s death.”

Paul Newman nodded, eyes calm. “We understand.”

“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be standing here telling me you want to do this without a safety team, without rehearsal, without—”

“We’re doing it,” Redford interrupted gently. “The question is whether you’re going to help us do it safely, or whether we’re just going to jump and hope for the best.”

Hickman looked at George Roy Hill, the director. “George, you’re the director. Tell them no.”

Hill pulled his baseball cap lower over his eyes. “I tried that three hours ago. They threatened to do it anyway when I wasn’t looking.”

That’s when Hickman realized he wasn’t dealing with rational actors. He was dealing with two movie stars who had turned a film stunt into a matter of pride. And pride was going to get someone killed.

Three weeks earlier, none of this had seemed remotely possible.

The Cliff

The location scout for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had brought back photographs of a cliff near Durango, forty feet high, overlooking the Nazis River—perfect for the escape scene where Butch and Sundance jump to evade the Bolivian army. George Roy Hill spread the photos across the conference table. “This is our cliff. We’ll shoot wide on Paul and Bob at the edge. Cut to stunt doubles for the jump. Cut back to them in the water.”

Bill Hickman, already hired as stunt coordinator, studied the photos. River depth: twelve feet at the center, shallower near the edges. Hickman nodded. “Doable. I’ll need two experienced high-fall guys. Water safety team. At least a week of rehearsal.”

“You got it,” Hill said. “This has to look real, but nobody gets hurt.”

“Never do,” Hickman said.

But Hickman should have known better. The moment Paul Newman saw those photographs, something shifted in his expression—a look Hickman would later recognize as dangerous curiosity.

The Hotel Bar

The production moved to Durango in late September 1968. The cast and crew settled into a local hotel that was equal parts rustic charm and questionable plumbing. Newman and Redford shared adjoining rooms, and most evenings the stunt team would gather in the hotel bar. That’s where it started. That’s where everything always starts with Newman. A casual conversation that would spiral into something nobody could control.

Gary Combmes, one of the stunt doubles, was describing a fall he’d done on The Wild Bunch. Thirty-foot drop onto an airbag. “Felt like hitting concrete, but you time it right. Tuck your legs. You’re fine.”

Newman, sitting at the bar with a beer, leaned over. “How high can you fall into water without injury?”

Combmes thought about it. “Depends on the water. Pool, maybe forty feet if you enter clean. River, thirty. Maybe thirty-five if you know the depth and there’s no current.”

“What about forty feet into twelve feet of water?”

“That’s specific,” Combmes said slowly. “You talking about our cliff?”

Newman smiled. “Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically, it’s possible. But you’d need perfect form—straight entry, toes pointed, arms tight. Any rotation, any hesitation, and you’re hitting those rocks underwater. I wouldn’t do it without at least five practice runs.”

“But you could do it.”

“I’ve been doing stunts for fifteen years, Paul. That’s different than—” Combmes stopped. “Wait, you’re not thinking about—”

“Just curious,” Newman said, but his eyes said otherwise.

Robert Redford, who’d been listening from a nearby table, walked over. “Paul, whatever you’re thinking. Stop thinking it.”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“You’re thinking about jumping off that cliff.”

Newman took a long drink of his beer. “I’m thinking that if we’re going to sell the greatest buddy film ever made, we should probably commit to the biggest moment in the movie.”

“We are committing. That’s what stunt doubles are for.”

“Is it, though?” Newman turned to face Redford fully. “Because I’ve seen the test footage. The cuts are obvious. The audience is going to know it’s not us.”

“The audience doesn’t care, Paul. They want to see Butch and Sundance jump. They don’t need to see Paul Newman’s actual face during the fall.”

“I think they do,” Newman said quietly. “I think they need to believe we’re really making that choice. Really taking that leap together.”

Redford stared at him. “You’re serious.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe, but I’m right.”

What Newman didn’t know was that Gary Combmes, sitting three feet away, had just made a critical mistake. As he stood up to leave, he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Honestly, if you know what you’re doing, it’s not that hard. I could do it blindfolded.”

Newman’s head snapped around. “Really, Paul?”

“I’m exaggerating. It’s a figure of—”

“How about a bet. You jump blindfolded, I’ll pay for everyone’s drinks for the rest of production.”

Combmes laughed. “And if I don’t, then I will.”

The entire bar went quiet because everyone understood what had just happened. Paul Newman hadn’t made a bet with Gary Combmes. He’d made a bet with himself. And now the only question was whether Robert Redford would let Newman jump alone. And whether competitive pride would drag them both off that cliff.

Redford saw it, too. He saw the trap closing. “Paul, don’t.”

“Too late,” Newman said, grinning. “Bet’s on the table.”

“I’m not jumping off a cliff because you made a stupid bar bet.”

“Who said anything about you jumping? I said I would pay for drinks, not we.”

And there it was, the challenge, the unspoken dare. Because if Paul Newman jumped off that cliff and survived, Robert Redford would have to live with being the coward who stayed on solid ground. And that, both men knew, was unacceptable.

Redford looked at Newman. Newman looked back. Neither blinked.

“You’re an idiot,” Redford said.

“Probably.”

“If we die, I’m going to kill you.”

Newman smiled. “Deal.”

Training Days

The next morning, Newman approached Bill Hickman on set. Casual, relaxed. “Hey, Bill. Question for you.”

Hickman was checking safety rigging for a horse stunt. “Yeah, that cliff jump scene. How dangerous is it for someone with experience?”

Hickman glanced up. “Depends on the someone. For my guys, manageable. For anyone else, extremely.”

“But possible?”

“Paul.” Hickman put down his clipboard. “Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.”

“You’re not curious. You’re planning. And whatever you’re planning, the answer is no.”

Newman held up his hands. “I haven’t asked anything yet.”

“You don’t have to. I’ve worked with enough actors to know when someone’s getting ideas. And cliff jumping is not an idea. It’s a death wish.”

“But hypothetically—”

“No hypotheticals. You want to know if you could physically survive the jump? Yes, probably. Maybe. Depends on a hundred variables. You want to know if I’d ever let you do it? Absolutely not. The studio would fire me. The insurance company would sue us. And George would have a heart attack.”

Newman nodded slowly. “Okay, thanks, Bill.”

As Newman walked away, Hickman called after him. “Paul, don’t do anything stupid.”

Newman turned back with that famous grin. “Would I?”

“Yes,” Hickman said. “You absolutely would.”

Four hours later, Redford approached Hickman with almost the same question. “Bill, about the cliff jump, how hard is it really?”

Hickman closed his eyes. “Paul already talked to you, didn’t he?”

“He might have mentioned something about a bet.”

“And you’re actually considering this?”

“I’m considering,” Redford said carefully, “whether I can let Paul Newman jump off a cliff without me. Because if he does it and survives, I’ll never hear the end of it. And if he does it and doesn’t survive, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“So your solution is to jump with him.”

“My solution is to convince him this is insane. But if I can’t convince him, then yes, I’m jumping with him.”

Hickman sat down heavily on an equipment crate. Twenty years of stunt work, twenty years of keeping actors safe, and now two of the biggest stars in Hollywood wanted to do something that could end their careers, the film, and possibly their lives.

“You know what the worst part is?” Hickman said. “I understand why you want to do it. The scene plays different if it’s really you two. The audience feels it. The stakes are real. Cinematically, you’re right. But real life doesn’t care about cinematics.”

Redford sat down next to him. “So, you’re saying no?”

“I’m saying if you’re going to do this anyway, I’d rather help you do it safely than have you sneak off and do it stupidly.”

“We wouldn’t sneak off.”

Hickman raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you?”

Redford was quiet for a moment. “Then probably.”

“That’s what I thought,” Hickman said. “Here’s my offer. I’ll train you, both of you, one practice jump each from twenty feet. If you can execute that perfectly, we’ll talk about the forty-foot jump. But the moment either of you hesitates, panics, or screws up the form, we’re done. Deal?”

“Deal,” Redford said immediately. “And you’re not telling George until after the practice jumps because if he finds out before then, he’ll shut this down.”

“He’s going to find out eventually.”

“Eventually isn’t now. Now is when I teach you how not to die.”

Practice

For the next three days, Bill Hickman ran Paul Newman and Robert Redford through the most intensive cliff diving training of his career. They started with platform dives into the hotel pool. Five feet, then ten feet. Learning to enter the water straight, arms tight to the body, chin tucked, toes pointed.

Newman picked it up fast. His body remembered something from his youth. “I did some cliff diving in high school,” he admitted. “Nothing this high, but the form feels familiar.”

Redford struggled more. “I don’t like heights,” he confessed. “Never have.”

“You’re making a movie where you jump off a cliff,” Hickman pointed out.

“I know. The irony isn’t lost on me.”

But Redford worked through the fear. Every morning, 6:00 a.m., before the rest of the crew arrived, Newman and Redford were at the pool. Hickman drilling them. “Tighter arms, straighter back. Don’t flail. The moment you flail, you’re dead.”

On the third day, Hickman took them to a quarry twenty minutes outside Durango. Twenty-foot drop into deep water. “This is the test. You each get one jump. Perfect form or we’re done.”

Newman went first. He stood at the edge, looked down at the water, and dove without hesitation. Clean entry. Perfect form. When he surfaced, he was grinning. “That felt good.”

Redford stood at the edge for a full two minutes. Hickman didn’t rush him. “Fear is normal, Bob. Fear keeps you alive, but paralysis gets you killed. When you jump, you have to commit. No halfway.”

Redford nodded, took a breath, and jumped. His form wasn’t perfect. His arms came out slightly. His entry was a bit sideways, but it was good enough. When he surfaced, he looked at Hickman. “How was that?”

“Alive,” Hickman said. “That’s what matters.”

The Final Test

That night, Hickman went to George Roy Hill. Hill was reviewing dailies in his trailer. “About what?” Hill said.

“About Paul and Bob wanting to do the cliff jump themselves.”

Hill froze. “What?”

“They’ve been training with me for three days. They’re serious. And honestly, George, they can do it. I wouldn’t be saying this if they couldn’t, but they can.”

Hill took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Bill, the studio will never approve this.”

“Then we don’t tell the studio.”

“The insurance company.”

“We tell insurance it’s stunt doubles. We shoot the wide shot with Paul and Bob on the cliff. Then we shoot the jump. If it works, we use it. If it doesn’t, we have the stunt double footage as backup.”

“And if one of them gets hurt?”

Hickman was quiet for a moment. “Then I lose my career. And you lose yours. But George, I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I know when a stunt is possible. This is possible.”

Hill stared at the wall for a long time. “Then what would you need?”

“One more practice jump. Full height. I found a spot thirty minutes out. Forty feet into fifteen feet of water. Clear bottom. No rocks. If they can do that jump cleanly, they can do the film jump.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Hill pulled his baseball cap on. “I’m coming with you.”

The Jump

The next morning, a small convoy drove out to the practice cliff. George Roy Hill, Bill Hickman, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and one camera operator sworn to secrecy. The cliff was perfect, forty feet high. The landing zone was marked with floating buoys. Hickman had already tested the water depth himself that morning.

“Last chance to back out,” Hickman said, but Newman shook his head. “We’re doing this.”

Redford looked at the cliff, swallowed hard. “Yeah, we’re doing this.”

“Same rules as before. Perfect form. Both of you jump one at a time. I’ll watch from below. If I see anything wrong, anything that makes me think you’re not ready, we stop.”

Newman went first again. He climbed to the cliff edge, looked down, and without hesitation dove. His body was a straight line. His entry was perfect. The camera captured every second. When he surfaced, he let out a whoop that echoed across the water.

George Roy Hill, watching from the shore, muttered, “I can’t believe I’m allowing this.”

Robert Redford was next. He stood at the edge longer than Newman had. His hands were shaking. Bill Hickman, watching through binoculars from the water, could see him breathing hard. “Come on, Bob,” Hickman whispered. “You can do this.”

And then Redford jumped. For a moment, his form wavered. His arms started to spread, but halfway down, he corrected, pulled everything tight, entered clean. When he surfaced, he wasn’t smiling. He was just breathing hard. Relief.

“How’d I do?” he called to Hickman.

“You did it,” Hickman said. “You actually did it.”

On shore, George Roy Hill turned to the camera operator. “Please tell me we got that every frame.”

The operator said, “We did.”

Hill nodded slowly. “Then I guess we’re doing this for real.”

The Real Cliff

Which brings us back to three hours before our story began. Three hours before Bill Hickman stood at the base of the film cliff watching two movie stars refuse to listen to reason.

Because in those three hours, the insurance company had called. Somehow word had leaked. Someone had talked and the insurance rep had been very clear. “If Newman or Redford attempts that jump, we pull coverage immediately. The film shuts down. Are we understood?”

George Roy Hill had assured them, “They won’t jump. We’re using doubles. Everything’s fine.”

But Newman and Redford didn’t know about that phone call. And when Hill tried to tell them, tried to explain that the studio had gotten involved, that insurance had made threats, Newman’s response was simple.

“Then we don’t tell them. We shoot it. We use stunt double names in the paperwork and nobody knows until the film premieres.”

“Paul, that’s fraud.”

“That’s filmmaking.”

Redford, standing next to him, added quietly, “We’ve come this far, George. We’re not stopping now.”

And that’s how Hill found himself three hours later standing at the base of a cliff in Mexico, watching his stunt coordinator try to talk sense into two actors who’d passed sensible about two weeks ago.

The Leap

Pride was going to get someone killed. Hickman finished. He looked at Newman and Redford, looked at George Roy Hill. Then he sighed the sigh of a man who just lost an argument he never had a chance of winning.

“Fine. We do this my way. You jump when I say jump. You land where I tell you to land. You follow every instruction I give you or I walk off this set and you can explain to the studio why production shut down.”

Newman nodded. “Deal.”

“And if either of you dies, I’m testifying at the inquest that you jumped against my explicit orders.”

“Totally fair,” Redford said.

Hickman pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Water safety team positions. Camera two, get up on the far ridge. I want the full arc of the jump. Camera one, you’re on their faces at the cliff edge. And somebody please put the stunt doubles in costume in case this goes horribly wrong and we need to reshoot with people who aren’t suicidal.”

The crew moved into position. Newman and Redford stood at the cliff edge in full costume. Hickman climbed up for final check. “Arms tight, chin tucked, toes pointed. You rotate one degree, you hit rocks. Understood?”

“Understood,” Newman said.

Redford was staring at the water. “Yeah.”

Newman grabbed Redford’s shoulder. “You trust me?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

George Roy Hill called from behind camera, “This is the stupidest and bravest thing I’ve ever filmed.”

Newman took Redford’s hand. “One, two, three.”

And they jumped. For 2.3 seconds, they fell. Arms locked, toes pointed, two bodies descending forty feet. Bill Hickman watched from the water. Perfect. Both of them. Newman hit first. Clean entry. Redford half a second later.

Then Newman surfaced, gasping, grinning. Alive. Redford surfaced next to him, breathing, alive.

“Did we get it?” Hill’s voice echoed down.

“We got it.”

Hickman swam over. “You magnificent bastards. Don’t ever do that again.”

Newman asked, “Can we do one more take?”

Hickman started laughing. “No, Paul. We’re done.”

The footage was labeled stunt double cliff jump, take one. When studio executives saw it, Hill lied—Gary Combmes and his partner. When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid premiered in September 1969, that cliff jump became iconic, but almost nobody knew the truth.

Bill Hickman never told the real story. Professional ethics. Newman mentioned it once in an interview. “Bob and I did that jump ourselves.” The interviewer laughed, assuming he was joking.

Redford’s version: “Paul had an insane idea. I jumped because I wasn’t going to let him die alone. That’s friendship.”

The cliff is still there. Locals call it El Salto de los Locos—now, the jump of the crazy men. When Bill Hickman died in 1986, his daughter found a photograph. Two men at cliff edge. On the back, Hickman’s handwriting: “The day Paul and Bob tried to give me a heart attack. Best stunt I ever coordinated. Never again.”

The Lesson

The lesson isn’t that you should jump off cliffs. The lesson is that some friendships are built on trust so deep you’d follow each other anywhere. They jumped together, survived together, created a moment that still takes breath away.

That’s what happens when pride, friendship, and a little insanity intersect at a cliff edge in Mexico. They made history.