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Artist of the Month - December 2009

Artist of the Stars

John Hagner in movie
John Hagner, stunt/actor since 1960, stands at the ready for anything rugged that may come his way.

JOHN HAGNER – “Artist of the Stars,” has drawn celebrated personalities from Alan Alda to Efrim Zimbalist, Jr., including to date 54 different portraits and poses of John Wayne (two of which are in full color (watercolor pencils). Former President Ronald Reagan, when he was Governor of California personally signed a composite portrait of himself and John received a congratulatory letter from him.

John Hagner was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. At age 12, he did a pencil sketch of the neighborhood where he was raised. It is interesting to note that the sketch was unusual because he spent four days working on it, and at the end of the fourth day, he had drawn more than one hundred men, women and children, walking and running, fifty automobiles and bicycles, twenty-two dogs and twenty-eight cats chasing one another .... And an array of clouds, all done in one sketch. The neighborhood only had two or three families who owned cars and there were nowhere near all those people and animals. The sketch was only done on an 8-1/2 x 11” sheet of paper. He sure would like to have that picture.

John, not one to become bored with art, is an accomplished artist in watercolors, oils, silk screen, process photographer, airbrush renderings, both in black and white and in full color. He particularly enjoys his art talents mostly doing black and white graphite pencil drawings, of which he is considered a specialist.

This year (2009) he celebrates 67 years of professional art. In addition to his art work, he is a professional musician, excelling in playing drums as well as guitar and is also a vocalist. His music is mostly from the Big Band era, swing and jazz as well as country/western and contra music. His band is called “The Happy Notes.”

Robert Duval portrait by John Hagner
John Hagner portrait of Robert Duvall with the caption"John, Thank you & Best Wishes. Robert Duvall 'Gus'"

John has been a member in good standing in the Screen Actors Guild since 1960 and he has been a stunt/actor all that time for some of the major stars of motion pictures and television, including Gregory Peck, Walter Pidgeon, Gardner McKay and is currently scheduled to work in the upcoming film, “Poor Things”, starring Shirley Maclaine and Olympia Dukakas.

John Hagner is Founder, Curator and CEO of the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame and Museum, which was organized in 1973 in California. It was open to the public in Moab, Utah in 1989 and remained opened for nearly eight years.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Hall of Fame, click on www.stuntmen.org and to learn more about John Hagner, check him out on Google. To email him, his address is: johnhagner@yahoo.com. Hall of Fame’s email address is: stuntmenshalloffame@gmail.com. Phone and FAX: 435 259-7027 or Cell: 435 260-2160.

 

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