Bobby “Stock Still” Jenkins, arguably the world’s most well-known dead body, has died at the age of 62. “When I found him lying face down in his breakfast, I just thought he was doing it again. Pretending to be dead when he really wasn’t,” Mrs. Grace Jenkins, Bobby’s wife of 35 years said. “I’m still not absolutely sure, but he’s been in the ground three days now and nothing yet.”
In a 2016 interview, Bobby sat down with 60 Minutes to reminisce about his career. ”I’ve played everything from a slab cadaver to a dead terrorist to a massacre victim. I’ve been on every mystery and detective series since 1970. I have been the victim of 145 serial killers, 123 lone gunmen and 14 sexual deviants. I’ve been killed by my wife, my boss and casual strangers numerous times. The police have accidentally shot me 5 times and I’ve been run over by cars, trucks, buses, tanks, trains and planes more times than I can count. ”
When asked about how he got his start he said, “My dad was a fall down drunk from Boston. I was about 5 years old when I found him dead in the back yard. I laid down next to him and pretended I was dead too. My mother, bless her heart, came outside and put her hands up to her face and said, “Oh, my. You both look so dead.” Bobby always called her his biggest fan.
Bobby talked about his reputation for keeping things lively on the set. ”One time Jessica Fletcher, from Murder She Wrote, was identifying a corpse on the slab next to mine. Nobody believes me but I really thought she was facing the other way when I grabbed her from underneath my sheet. I was just going to grab her ass her but when I heard that shriek I knew instantly I’d got some bush instead. She jumped a mile and knocked over a tray of autopsy tools. The director could hardly yell “Cut” he was laughing so hard.”
Leslie Stahl, who had flown down to Las Cruces to do the interview chuckled. “I guess people just don’t expect that sort of thing from a dead body.”
“Well, that’s what made it so funny. I goosed every woman who ever played Miss Marple. Julie McKenzie wouldn’t come near me. But I finally got her when she was bending over looking for a clue at a crime scene where I had been stomped to death. Its a well kept secret that I was the one who made Kyra Sedgwick leave The Closer. I suspect Kevin Bacon got tired of having to come down to the set and threaten to kick my ass.”
When Miss Stahl asked him about his famous run in with Denzel Washington, Bobby laughed. “He’d just beat me to death and when they moved in for a good shot of my pulverized face, Denzel got pissed and yelled, ‘Hey, I did all the work and that guy is just lying there, stealing my scene.’ He said it was either him or me and I was kicked off the set. He black balled me right off the big screen.”
When asked for some Hollywood dirt, Bobby was hesitant to get specific but confided one story. “On an episode of McMillan and Wife I was lying face up on the hood of a car after having committed suicide by jumping out a 23rd floor window. Rock Hudson was looking me over but he kept rubbing himself on my hand. I couldn’t believe it, the guy had a hard on. I’m sure Rock had heard about me having fun on the set and it was like he was saying, ‘Do me. Do me.’ He asked me out to dinner after the day’s shoot but I told him it just didn’t feel right.”
With dead old people being in such demand these days, Leslie asked him why he retired. “Technology pushed me out of the business. Entertainment is getting more and more graphic these days. I was asked by the producers of Bones if I would mind being disemboweled. I just couldn’t see it. The must have really wanted me on their show because they came back with an offer of a simple decapitation. I declined and that’s when the fake mutilated bodies started showing up everywhere and suddenly I was a ‘has been’.”
Bobby “Stock Still” Jenkins will now join the ranks of Vladimir Lenin and Roy’s poor horse, Trigger as the most beloved really dead dead bodies of all times.
Thanks for sending that along. Looks like ol’ Chuck Lamb is enjoying himself. I was surprised with the pay rate. Looks like it could be career material.
Have you ever caught them breathing? The ones who can stay dead, eyes open with the camera right in their face are pretty good. You can see the pupils dilate and constrict.
I always wondered how much they paid the dead bodies? I suspect many of them are from the production staff who got caught leaning against a wall goofing off and doing nothing. I read somewhere that they don’t have to pay you if you have no lines to say.
Funny remark about the heroin. I hadn’t thought about that.
They have tricks, just like with the eye drops to make them appear to be crying. For playing dead I think it’s heroin.
Sounds like a perv who probably got killed off by his wife. He must have had incredible breath control, though. I always watch those bodies in fascination waiting for the slightest movement of the rib cage.