METHUEN — Rosine “Ace” Hatem has appeared as a stuntwoman in over 100 movies that starred people like Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood and Jim Carey.
But the most satisfying production she has been part of may be the 100th birthday party that is being held for her father, Tuffic Hatem, on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at the Senior Activity Center.
“I want him to see how he’s loved,” Hatem said.
The event is a dual celebration that will also salute the 100th birthday of Violet Jessel, a Haverhill resident and former yoga instructor at Methuen’s Senior Activity Center. Her birthday is on Feb. 12, and his is on Feb. 19. The party will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but reservations for lunch are full.
Jennifer Loiselle, activity director at the senior center, invited Mayor Neil Perry and the Methuen City Council to the party at a council meeting in January, and said that the mayor and city council of Haverhill were also being invited.
“We believe that sharing in the festivities with our community leaders will further emphasize the unity and sense of togetherness that makes our city great,” she said.
While Hatem tells people that her most difficult stunt was “surviving Hollywood for 40 years,” it may also include her ability to take care of her parents while maintaining a career in Los Angeles.
“I started coming back when my mom got sick, 13 or 14 years ago,” Hatem said.
Hatem moved to Los Angeles in September 1980 after transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles, with her sights set on getting into movies.
She had resolved on that career as a youngster, when she was the only girl taking classes at Larry Giordano’s Methuen Karate Association. That was where she discovered that she loved to fight, and where she earned the nickname “Ace” after hockey Hall of Famer Ace Bailey.
In Los Angeles, she took a break from UCLA and instead enrolled in a stunt school, where she learned how to do high falls and to stage fight scenes.
She then spent five years working at gyms while trying to break into the movie business.
“I did it the hardest way,” Hatem said.
That meant finding out where films were being shot, then showing up on set and asking for work, where people sometimes tore up Hatem’s resume and threw it in the trash.
“I was so tenacious, and so naive,” she said.
But Hatem eventually worked for people like stuntman “Judo” Gene LeBell, who she said is “one of the toughest men alive,” and whom she credits with helping her get her first job as a stunt double, for Ruth Buzzi.
Hatem’s ambition was eventually rewarded with jobs that included the original “Point Break” in 1991, “Three Kings” and “Man on the Moon” in 1999, “Spider-Man” in 2002 and “Spider-Man 2” in 2004, “Ghostbusters” in 2016 and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in 2022.
Hatem won work as a stunt actress in “Million Dollar Baby” with Clint Eastwood in 2004, which she said was the highlight of her career, where she appears as a boxing opponent for the character played by Hilary Swank.
“I convinced the stunt coordinator,” Hatem said. “They were looking for someone really mean. I said, ‘Look in my eyes.’”
But before long Hatem was also flying home to make protein shakes for her mother, Diana, and checking in on her at nursing homes.
After her mom died in 2014, Hatem focused her attention on her father, whose recent challenges have included two cases of COVID-19 and a fall that required 18 staples in his scalp.
“He looked like Frankenstein,” Hatem said.
It might have been her father, in fact, who provided her with the toughness needed to succeed in Hollywood.
He had gone to work at an early age after his father died during the Depression, when the family lived on Chestnut Street in Lawrence.
He scavenged cardboard for $2 a ton, cleaned out mills, and drove people to work at four in the morning for 10 cents a ride, like an early version of Uber, Hatem said.
For a while he delivered ice – the tongs he used to carry the huge cubes still hang from a beam in his home in Methuen.
Among other manual labor jobs, Tuffic dug graves at St. Anthony’s Maronite church.
“I dug graves from the age of 10 until I was 86,” Tuffic said. “When I turned 70, I started using a backhoe.”
He shares his daughter’s affection for “Million Dollar Baby,” and said it was his favorite of her films.
About two years ago, Hatem sold her house in Los Angeles and moved back to Massachusetts so she could be near her father.
Moving home has worked out because it corresponded with slowdowns in film and TV production caused by the pandemic, then by the striking Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists from July to November last year.
Hatem also admits that, at 63, she isn’t in demand the way she used to be for punishing stunts, although the business is safer than it used to be.
“There were a lot more ‘thumpers’ back in my day,” Hatem said. “You knew you were going to get bumps and bruises falling down stairs or taking a car hit.”
But Hatem is working as a stunt double on several projects, including “The Old Man,” a thriller series on FX Networks that stars Jeff Bridges.
“I just got a call to work as a wife that gets shot and killed and has a couple of lines,” Hatem said. “I get a lot of stunt acting ones that don’t need big stunts, stair falls or car hits. I’m OK with that. I just want to work.”
She can fly standby wherever she needs to go, and stays with friends when she goes to LA, so living in Methuen or Boston is no impediment to her career.
“I can get a call to work in Italy, Florida, LA, I just need a couple of days to fly back,” Hatem said.