The Thrills of Spills : Performers find many advantages to working in live stunt shows at Universal Studios theme park.

They’re faster than speeding bullets! Mightier than underwater explosions! Able to leap out of burning warehouses, fight off evil spirits and nab the bad guys in a single show!

Call them Superstuntmen, these actors named Carl T. Cannady and Victor Bowie, who as Crockett and Tubbs in a stunt-show version of “Miami Vice” try to outwit, for the umpteen-hundredth time, renegades introduced to the crowd as “that Caribbean crime boss and his band of sleazy smugglers!”

Welcome to a tropical Florida lagoon--Hollywood-style--complete with jet skis, a speedboat, a make-believe helicopter, simulated gunfire, live explosives and so much high-risk flash and splash that a public-address announcer warns the Universal Studios Hollywood crowd of 3,000: “Please! Do not attempt any of the stunts you see in the show!”

And meet Cannady and Bowie, whose work in one of three Universal live shows with stunt actors--each running 15 or 20 minutes--is so much more than flips and fractures, spills and sweat.

It compels them--and others who work nearby in shows such as “The Adventures of Conan” and the “Wild, Wild, Wild West Stunt Show”--to act several times a day, without retakes, without getting hurt, without hurting someone else and, above all else, without putting people to sleep.

“A lot of what you see here is different from other stunt work because in the movies and TV, they’re strictly doing stunt work doubling people,” says Cannady, 31, who calculates that he has played Sonny Crockett in the “Miami Vice Action Spectacular” performance more than 4,200 times, spanning nearly 10 years (and not counting absences caused by injuries such as torn cartilage and cracked ribs).

“Out here,” he says, “you can’t just feel rage--you’d better be able to show the rage.”

Adds Bowie, 29, a veteran of six years on the show: “You can relate it to theater. You have to keep it fresh. It’s not like the movies, where you make a mistake and start over.”

Meanwhile, on a nearby indoor set, Karen Sheperd brandishes a heavy aluminum sword in the “Conan” stunt show as treasure-hunting, dragon-slaying Red Sonja. She performs with a slash and dash befitting her credentials as an erstwhile top-rated black-belt martial arts performer, having starred in such video dramas as “Eliminator Woman” and “Mission of Justice.”

“I may not be doing Shakespeare out there, but I still have to act,” she says. “I still have to convince that audience that I’m Red Sonja, that I have to kill that dragon. . . .

“So I get to exercise my craft--fighting and acting. And I have to stay in shape. If I gain a pound, I’m out.”

Indeed, for Cannady, Bowie, Sheperd and others who cling to their day jobs at Universal while piling up or seeking other credits in film, TV and home video, stunt acting has galloped light years from its role as a staple of old shoot-’em-up Westerns.

Today, the demands of live stunt shows are more challenging and multidimensional than just falling off logs or horses.

As John Grantham, 34, who coordinates stunts while on horseback in “Wild, Wild, Wild West,” points out: “We’re all in a very unique, gray area. Are we actors who are physically endowed enough to do stunts? Or are we stunt people who have the ability to act? Certainly we need to be both. I get so many acting jobs because they let me double myself, or they know I can handle dialogue. It’s really a nice payoff.”

What’s more, live stunt acting can enhance the ability to act on film, TV or the stage, says Sharon Adams, 33, who as wisecracking Ma Hopper in “Wild, Wild, Wild West” cracks a whip, dives off a crumpling balcony and tumbles into a well, among myriad other stunts.

“When you work with an audience all the time, you get a good idea about what’s working and what’s not working,” Adams says. “You get a better sense of timing because you’re working in front of 2,000 people four or five times a day.”

No two roads are alike, it seems, to auditions for jobs in Universal’s stunt shows.

Adams says she could have pursued pre-law at USC, but chose to study acting for 10 years in New York. Similarly, when Grantham studied pre-law at the University of Mississippi, he heeded a professor’s advice to take classes in speech and theater. Sheperd briefly attended the University of Oregon, where her father still is a professor, and moved to Colorado to take up martial arts.

Bowie and Cannady parlayed athletic backgrounds in Ohio and Florida, respectively, into their careers on the “Miami Vice” stunt show. Cannady, who holds a bachelor of fine arts in acting and directing from Florida Atlantic University, says, “To play in ‘Miami Vice,’ I had to come to L. A.!”

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He laughs and adds, “Legally, I’ve played Crockett longer than Don Johnson did. . . . Of course, Don took all the money.”

“And,” Universal spokeswoman Cheryl Difatta teases Cannady, “Don took Melanie Griffith!”

Working in Universal’s stunt shows, some actors say, brings job stability and full-time paychecks attractive enough so they don’t have to wait tables or sit at home, waiting for the phone to ring.

Stunt-show actors’ yearly base pay is said to average from $5,000 (for part-timers) to $45,000 (not counting extra earnings for special performances and other appearances). Some actors say the company grants leaves of absence--for as long as two or three months--if they land on-location work in film, TV, video or in other entertainment.

“It’s the best job a performer in our position could have--we’re getting paid to do what we love to do,” says Grantham, who returned not long ago from a three-month circus tour of Japan.

Moreover, live stunt acting has given women actors such as Sheperd and Adams more visibility for women, in an industry long dominated by males. Sheperd says her goal of pioneering as an “action actress” in Hollywood’s “A” league--major feature films--seems more attainable now.

“They’ve taken women actors with somewhat of a name and then doubled them,” says Sheperd, now in her mid-30s. “And when that happens, the action is cheapened. But the day of the action actress is going to happen. People are getting a little more brave with it. There are now more women who are starting to direct and produce. I hope it happens in my lifetime.”

Meanwhile, there’s always the emotional rush of the next performance at Universal, the roar of the crowd and that regular paycheck.

“Here, it’s like not even coming to a job,” Adams says. “It never feels like you’re working.”

Bowie, of the “Miami Vice” show, agrees. “Where else,” he asks, “can you ride a speedboat and jet skis in one day?”

His companion, Cannady, nods as he kicks back, relaxing between shows.

“We’re getting to play cops and robbers,” he says. “As long as we play by their (the studio’s) rules on their playground, they’re going to pay us.”

He mops his brow, gearing up for his 4,200th-and-something show.

“I couldn’t push a pencil for a living,” he says. “This is kinda fun!”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: Stunt shows at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Location: Lankershim Boulevard off the Hollywood Freeway, Universal City.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Stunt shows occur several times a day.

Price: Stunt shows are included in admission. $29 for 12 and older, $23 ages 3 to 11 and 60 and older, free children under 3.

Call: (818) 508-9600.