Toni Vaz, actress and stunt performer, passes away at 101

The leap of faith paid off with an early role as an extra in Joseph M. Newman's Tarzan, the Ape Man for MGM. Released in 1959, the film featured Vaz in a scene opposite the studio's Leo the Lion

Toni Vaz, a screen veteran, has passed away at the age of 101.

As per a representative for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, Toni breathed her last on October 4. No cause of death was provided, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

She moved to Los Angeles from the East Coast in the 1950s to pursue a career as an actress and stuntwoman, which may have been a surprising career choice to some as her mother did not allow her to watch movies until she came of age. The leap of faith paid off with an early role as an extra in Joseph M. Newman's Tarzan, the Ape Man for MGM. Released in 1959, the film featured Vaz in a scene opposite the studio's Leo the Lion.

With a credit under her belt, Vaz moved on to Arnold Laven's Anna Lucasta, starring Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Jr., and Henry Koster's The Singing Nun. She segued into more stunt work as one of the first Black women to dive headfirst into the profession. She doubled for legendary Cicely Tyson on the Mission: Impossible TV series and went on to appear in more than 50 films and TV shows in a career that found her traveling the world and captured on film dangling from helicopters and other impressive feats, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

More recently, Vaz was featured in MPTF's Reel Stories, Real Lives series with a segment delivered by NAACP ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Image Award winner Angela Bassett.

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