David (Dutch) Van Dalsem; Ran ‘Rent-a-Gang’ Film Extras

David Henry (Dutch) Van Dalsem, a retired state prison guard who organized Rent-a-Gang to turn ex-cons into biker extras for Hollywood, has died. He was 51.

Van Dalsem died Monday at Lancaster Community Hospital of cardiac arrest, his wife, Robyn, said Tuesday.

A guard at Soledad state prison in the 1970s, Van Dalsem retired in 1980 because of a stress disability.

He started the successful Rent-a-Gang group to provide menacing-looking bikers for films. His business enabled some members of biker gangs, such as the Hells Angels, Vagos or Heathens, to go straight once they got out of prison.

“The attitude you see in that look,” the bearded 240-pound Van Dalsem told The Times in 1987, “belongs in Vietnam, belongs in a prison yard or in front of a camera, no place in between. When I get through lookin’ like that, I go home and change my daughter’s diapers, just like everybody else.”

“It’s more fun to go out and get along with people, make a movie, get patted on the back,” he said, “than it is to ask: ‘Officer, did you have to hit me with that nightstick?’ ”

Among the group’s films are “Cobra,” “Over the Top,” “Into the Night,” “Lost in America,” “Ruthless People” and “Doc Hollywood,” and the less successful “Hamburger, the Movie.”

The Rent-a-Gang television credits include such series as “Cagney and Lacey,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Simon & Simon,” “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” and “L.A. Law.”

The group also has appeared in several rock videos, such as Molly Hatchet’s “Satisfied Man.”

In addition to his wife, Van Dalsem is survived by his two children, Robert, 7, and Janelle, 6.