Motorcycle sport documentary film maker par excellence, Peter Starr died on 3 July in Colorado, USA, aged 80. His 1979 film Take it to the Limit has gone down in motorcycle history as a masterpiece of insight into machinery, riders and tracks.
Born Graham Wallace in Coventry in 1942, he fell in love with motorcycles as a schoolboy securing a job with Triumph’s export department in nearby Meriden. While at Triumph, he tried his hand at road racing, including the 1964 Barcelona 24-hour race riding a 500 Triumph twin.
At the Triumph factory, he met American Triumph dealer Bud Ekins, a leading Triumph rider who mentored Steve McQueen and occasionally visited the factory. Wallace expressed a desire to work in the States, and Ekins said he would support him if he found himself in financial difficulty.
Wallace took the plunge in 1965 finding work as a radio DJ in Jacksonville, Florida. His love of music and his timing were spot on. The English pop invasion of America was in full swing, and Wallace’s English accent was perfect for the job. But the radio station wanted a trendier name. Taking his inspiration from Beatle Ringo Starr, Graham Wallace became Peter Starr.
He progressed to record producing for four years, but in the 1970s, the pull of motorcycling won him back. He could see the potential in filming motorcycle sport in America and talked Hodaka motorcycles and Pennzoil into financing a documentary on an ISDE qualifying event in Oregon. Black Rock aired on Los Angeles TV and then across America.
In 1977 he filmed Mike Hailwood riding the Isle of Man TT Mountain course at the Manx GP as a ‘marshal’ on a Yamaha TZ750. This played a large part in making Hailwood realise he could competitively return to TT racing, which he did in 1978, winning the TTF1 race.
Starr had an enthusiastic and persuasive character that swept people along. On minimal budgets, he performed cinematic miracles portraying the thrills of racing. He was the first to mount helmet cameras and the first to fit a camera on a bike in an AMA national race – Laguna Seca in 1980.
His full-length film Take It To The Limit was a hit because it was a heady mix of action, current pop music and comment by leading riders portrayed on screen. It was an exciting new treatment, Starr infusing the film with his love of music and movement.
In 1984 he scored a national TV series, The Peter Starr Motorcycle Show, running for 13 episodes. He persuaded giant brewer Stroh’s to sponsor national dirt track championships in 1985 and 1986, making one-hour programmes at each round. In 1985 he was the first to provide live video coverage at an AMA national mile flat track.
Over a 20-year period he made more than 40 films on motorcycle sport and was rated by Hollywood’s Variety Daily as the world’s top motorcycle race film producer, winning 14 international awards.
From 1991 to 1996, he performed as a stunt rider, making more than 50 commercials and working on films including Batman and Robin, Apollo 13 and Lethal Weapon 3.
In 2004 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he fought without the aid of surgery, drugs or radiation. He spent more time on magazine articles and writing his first book Taking It To The Limit: 20 Years of Making Motorcycle Movies, published in 2010. This was followed by Motorcycle Traveler charting his adventures riding through 12 countries.
He was inducted into the Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2011, and the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2017.
An indefatigable workaholic who sacrificed his private life for his art – he had girlfriends but never married – Peter Starr will be remembered for his ability to get his audience into his screen action. He was working on his third book when he died – My Life as Peter Starr, by Graham Wallace.