In True Lies, a helicopter swings in to rescue a woman from a limousine on a broken bridge. The woman dangling beneath it was Jamie Lee Curtis, and she was really up there, hanging on a wire over the water in the Florida Keys.

Wired In at Base Camp

Curtis described the shot in a 2022 social media post that marked the film's anniversary. To get it, she wrote, the crew had to wire her to the helicopter at base camp.

She said the photo was taken just days before her 35th birthday. The film, directed by James Cameron, reached US theaters in July 1994.

Twenty Minutes Over the Water

Once she was strapped in, the helicopter did not simply lift off and land. According to Curtis, it flew 20 minutes over the water to reach the Seven Mile Bridge, the long span in the Florida Keys where the film's wreckage scene takes place.

Her post names the people in the frame. Joel Kramer, who doubled for Arnold Schwarzenegger, hangs from the skid. Cameron leans out of the passenger side with the camera. Chuck Tamburo was the pilot.

The One Thing She Asked For

Curtis said she had one requirement for the sequence: somebody had to have wire cutters in the helicopter in case it had to ditch over water.

The cutters were there so she could be separated from the wire if the aircraft went down.

"I saw manatees and it was late afternoon."

That is how she remembered the flight, and she called it a glorious ride on a wire, thanks to Cameron and Schwarzenegger.

Jamie Lee Curtis, close portrait, smiling, in recent years — Jamie Lee Curtis. Photo: Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0

Who Else Gets Credit

Curtis was careful to share the credit. In the same post she also named her stunt double, Donna Keegan, as deserving credit for another sequence in the film, the limousine scene.

The helicopter shot is one the audience can watch today: a woman in a black dress swinging beneath an aircraft, over real water, with a real person on the end of the wire.

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