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The "actors" were paid about $10 per stunt and were usually drunk. It was followed by several sequels in which Hannah, known as "Rufus the Stunt Bum," and other transients performed dangerous and degrading stunts, such as brawling each other, jumping off buildings, smashing head-first into doors and walls and lighting their hair on fire. The first "Bumfights" was released in 2002. I never had any idea the stuff he was filming would become what it did." "I just wanted some money to get drunk, so I did what he told me to. "He told me he was doing a video for his economics class on what it was like when you don't have a job," Hannah said in a 2006 article in the New York Times. Hannah, a Georgia native who began drinking when he was 14, was living on the streets when he began his "Bumfights" career.Ī high school student and aspiring filmmaker, Ryan McPherson, offered him $5 to run head-first into milk crates stacked outside a grocery store in El Cajon, California.
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"I helped him stop drinking, and he was sober for the past 13 years." He went through so much, then turned his life completely around," Soper told KNSD-TV ().
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Soper gave Hannah a job and helped in his eventual recovery. On Friday, Hannah's friend and benefactor, Barry Soper, sobbed as he placed a bouquet of flowers on the Dumpster in San Diego where he first met Hannah more than 15 years ago as the man was scrounging for aluminum cans to recycle for booze money. One of the two vehicles apparently ran a red light on State Route 4, but the investigation continued and no citations were immediately issued, Cain said. Hannah's sister received a head injury, but she was expected to survive. Hannah, who was living in the town of Adrian, Georgia, was a passenger in a car driven by his sister that was T-boned by a semi-truck on Wednesday just outside the town of Swainsboro, Georgia State Patrol Sgt. Hannah was predeceased by his wife and by a son, Eric.LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rufus Hannah, a formerly homeless alcoholic who was paid to fight other homeless men and perform dangerous stunts in the notorious "Bumfights" videos, has died. He toured the country as an advocate for the homeless, speaking often at high schools and colleges.Ībout three years ago, he moved to Georgia to be closer to family. He married a former girlfriend, the mother of two of his children. He went to work for Soper as an assistant manager at the townhome complex. Soper told him, “or pick out your casket.” Soper reinforced the point by taking him to a local mortuary. Hannah he would be dead within a year if he didn’t stop drinking, Mr. “He opened my heart to the less fortunate,” Mr. Soper hired him to do odd jobs around the complex. Hannah was Dumpster-diving for aluminum cans at a townhome building Mr. Hannah had started to change course, thanks to a friendship with Mr. The filmmakers also paid $300,000 to settle a civil suit filed on behalf of the homeless men.īy then, Mr. They pleaded guilty, and two of them eventually went to jail for several months for failing to complete their community service. The films also drew the attention of homeless advocates, who blamed them for helping to spark a wave of violence against transients, and law enforcement officials, who charged four men involved in producing the videos with misdemeanor charges of conspiring to stage illegal fights. Hannah - toothless, wild-haired, the letters B-U-M-F-I-G-H-T tattooed across his knuckles - falls down. Packaged into a 2002 video called “Bumfights,” the footage was a cult sensation that led to several sequels collectively the films sold hundreds of thousands of copies and spawned a drinking game among college students watching them: Toss a shot back every time Mr.