Sandra Gimpel (born17 September1939; age 85) is an American stuntwoman and stunt actress.
Gimpel was a dancer in Los Angeles before being an extra for Central Casting. One of those jobs was for the Star Trek: The Original Series first pilot “The Cage“, given “they knew I could handle costume work and stuff, from dancing.” In “The Cage”, Gimpel played a Talosian and worked briefly as stunt double for Meg Wyllie for which she filmed her scenes on Wednesday 16 December 1964 on Desilu Culver Stage 15. The costume work led her to being cast as the M-113 creature in “The Man Trap“, filming her scene on Friday 24 June 1966 at Desilu Stage 9. Gimpel also worked as an extra in later episodes. According to her own recollections, she also worked on both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise. (Portal47)
Between 1966 and 1968, Gimpel worked as Bill Mumy‘s stunt double in the last two seasons of Lost in Space, hired by stunt coordinator Paul Stader.
She appeared in stunt roles in numerous films including The Towering Inferno (1974, with Paul Comi, Gregory Sierra, Elizabeth Rogers, David Armstrong, Robert Strong and Steve Marlo), Airplane! (1980, with Jonathan Banks, Gregory Itzin, Kenneth Tobey, Jason Wingreen and Leslie Hoffman), Escape from New York (1981, with Adrienne Barbeau), Night of the Comet (starring Robert Beltran), The Goonies (1985), Commando (1985, with Rick Sawaya), Evil Dead II (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), Twins (1988, with Tony Jay, Nehemiah Persoff and Cary-Hiroyuki), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989), The Rock (1996, with Tony Todd and Raymond Cruz), Jingle All the Way (1996, with Daniel Riordan and Phil Morris), Con Air (1997, with Colm Meaney and Landry Allbright), The Truman Show (1998), Mystery Men (1999, with Jenifer Lewis and Doug Jones), Rat Race (2001, with Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman), The Animal (2001, with Michael Papajohn), Bruce Almighty (2003, with Christopher Darga and Robert Curtis Brown), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007, with Brian Markinson, Cyia Batten, Rachel Nichols, Faran Tahir, James W. Jansen, Erick Avari and J. Patrick McCormack), Norbit (2007), Planet Terror (2007), and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013, with Derek Graf).
She worked as second unit director on Mrs. Columbo (starring Kate Mulgrew), and as stunt coordinator on The Bionic Woman (starring Lindsay Wagner), Harper Valley P.T.A., Otherworld (co-starring Jonathan Banks), and Harts of the West (co-starring Stephen Root).
Her other television credits include stunt acting on the pilot film for Battlestar Galactica (with Ed Begley, Jr., Geoffrey Binney, Dick Durock, Reggie Nalder, Felix Silla, Norman Stuart and Bruce Wright), and The Stand (1994, with Miguel Ferrer, Matt Frewer, Ray Walston, Patrick Kilpatrick, Richard Lineback and Ken Jenkins), and series like Seinfeld (with Jason Alexander), Six Feet Under (with Ed Begley, Jr. and Jamie McShane), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (starring Paul Guilfoyle and Wallace Langham), Agent Carter, Criminal Minds, Raising Hope, and Lucifer.
On 22 August 2019, Gimpel was interviewed as part of the Television Academy Foundation’s The Interviews: An Oral History of Television on being an stuntwoman, her role as a Talosian in “The Cage”, her return as a Salt Vampire, and working with William Shatner.
