Years later, after he married Beverly and they settled in Mullins, South Carolina, he regularly cleaned and arranged her items for her. He ironed and pressed all his clothes, shined all of his shoes (everyday), and organized his clothes with a bizarre exactness. Obsessed with shiny porcelain, he’d scrub and polish his sinks every night. Kenny also established a methodical quality when it came to cleanliness. Kenny was very particular about his hair.” ![]() “It would look like it had been professionally styled. “I could wash it and let it dry,” she said. He became a barber by trade - his impeccable skill with a razor led Beverly to call him “the best barber/hairstylist that ever cut my hair.” “He was always very up front and candid with his struggles, and so if he was alive and talking to you he would be up front about the topic.”Īfter he graduated high school, Kenny entered the Navy, and it was there that he acquired his notoriously meticulous habits. “Kenny never hid the fact that he struggled with addiction,” Beverly Powers - Kenny’s last wife - told me during a lengthy phone conversation. His drug abuse and alcoholism escalated with time. In high school, drinking was his passion. In junior high, Kenny began a love affair with drugs by sniffing glue. In high school, he was a star football player at the halfback position. Kenny soon grew into a charming, athletic and handsome young man. Surprisingly enough, Kenny had developed a fear of heights in his formative days - his Grandfather would dangle him, upside down, over the dam at Lake Lanier during visits to his boathouse. Kenny Powers was born on Jat his family’s home in Landrum, South Carolina, delivered by Dr. “Kenny never hid the fact that he struggled with addiction.” The sedated moments of atmospheric exploration hurried past, leaving only a violent aftermath which saw the Lincoln explode into a cloud of splintered metal and sparkling debris. Seconds after leaving the ramp, the Lincoln’s paneling started to unglue. All that mattered was that time was standing still for the South Carolina stuntman. On the ground, divers and rescue teams awaited should Kenny plunge into the Saint Lawrence River. A helicopter flew by, filming the extravaganza. ![]() Onlookers below gasped in amazement, excitement. That’s what he needed to cement his name in the record books.Īs he jettisoned up the eight-and-a-half story ramp, the car shook ferociously. The plan was to soar his vehicle into the sky for one mile. At over 250 mph, he gunned his winged Lincoln towards the longest recorded jump in history, a feat that Evel Knievel couldn’t even claim. On this cloudy day in 1976, Kenny Powers was ahead of the clock. His career hinged on hoisting heavy cars into the atmosphere cutting them through the air, he excelled at jerking into a pirouette mid-flight. With 30 G’s of force sinking his body into the rocket-powered Lincoln Continental’s driver’s seat, and the ramp quickly approaching, stuntman Kenny Powers controlled time - it’s something he strove for. ![]() The photos in this piece, from Beverly Powers’ personal collection, have never been published or seen before. This is the first of many original long-form pieces I’ll be publishing online through Medium and my IdeaHouse Studios blog. I’m publishing it concurrently on my blog and here, on Medium. ![]() Several outlets wanted to publish it, but due to bad timing and other factors, it’s never been released online. (Author’s Note: This is a piece I worked on for quite some time. But, just as quickly as he ascended towards the skies in his stunts, so too was his decline drastically swift due to a life of substance abuse and negligence. Like his fictional counterpart, Kenny lived a high-octane life, fueled by drugs, debauchery and death-defying stunts. Not the Kenny Powers you know from Eastbound & Down, but the real Kenny Powers - The Stuntman.
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