George Frederick Bernard Powell is an English actor, boxer and stuntman, best known for his roles in the movies "Willow," "First Knight" and "Legionnaire."
Born on August 15, 1928 in Camberwell, England, he was the brother of Dennis "Dinny" Powell, who was also a stuntman. Nick-named "Nosher" as an infant by his mother, Powell started out as a boxer, later working as a stuntman in several films in England, often credited variously as Nosher Powell, Freddie Powell, Frederick Powell or Fred Powell. He had an extensive but mostly uncredited career in stunt work and acting. In 1969, he portrayed the role of the powerful thug Lord Dorking in "Randall and Hopkirk." In 1971, he was a stuntman for Benny Hill, Bob Todd and Lesley Goldie in a fight sequence on The Benny Hill Show.
In his memoirs, he claimed to have turned down an offer to be the getaway driver in the movie, "The Great Train Robbery." As a boxer, Powell was a heavyweight boxing champion in the worlds of unlicensed fighting and the professional arena. He had worked as a sparring partner for Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali amongst others. The last fight of his career was against Menzies Johnson which Nosher won over eight rounds.
According to his autobiography, Nosher had a total of seventy-eight fights with fifty-one as a professional with nine losses, though he was never knocked out. A separate resource lists Nosher as losing sixteen times as a professional with nine of those losses being by KO, two by TKO and five on points.
Nosher was married to Pauline Wellman and had two sons, Greg Powell and Gary Powell, who were also stuntmen. He died in his sleep on April 20, 2013 in London.
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