Like having Jeff Bridges in duplicate

Reporting from San Diego — 

When Jeff Bridges won lead actor honors at the Golden Globes last month, he thanked the usual suspects: his loving wife, his agent, his “Crazy Heart” director, his publicist. And then he said something a bit less predictable: “I want to thank my stand-in, Loyd Catlett. We’ve done over 50, 60 movies together, man. Thank you, Loyd.”

“When he said my name, I froze for a moment: ‘He just said my name,’ ” said Catlett, who had been watching the show at his San Diego home. “I didn’t expect it. It was some form of recognition and thank-you.”

Catlett, 56, isn’t accustomed to being in the spotlight. In fact, for the past three decades, he’s made his living by staying directly to the side of it while one of his closest friends basks in the limelight. As Bridges’ stand-in, Catlett watches the actor rehearse and later emulates his movements and dialogue when the director of photography needs to map out a scene before shooting.

Ever since the former rodeo rider and the Oscar-nominated actor met in 1971, Catlett has been a part of the stunt team on every one of Bridges’ movies -- often as his actual stunt double. He helps Bridges go over his lines and even has been known on occasion to oversee Bridges’ team of hairdressers or drivers.

As far as the actor is concerned, it’s a tougher job than it sounds. “It can be very exhausting at times,” Bridges said. “He has to stand under the lights as they run through all the moves. He can second guess what I’ll do in situations. Loyd really knows how I move since he’s been doing this for such a long time.”

‘Last’ came first

The pair met when they were both cast in “The Last Picture Show.” It was a big break for Catlett, who was just out of high school and had been living in Wichita Falls, Texas, working for the rodeo riding saddle broncs and bulls.

“The rodeo is just another form of spotlight and stage,” he said recently while sitting at a restaurant overlooking the San Diego harbor near the home he shares with his girlfriend and his teen son. (He also has a grown daughter.) “But when you’re riding these animals, you don’t even see the audience,” he said in an accent still tinged by his Southern upbringing. “You’re just trying to deal with 2,000 pounds of force, and by the time you get off, they’re all applauding and you tip your hat.”

But he also occasionally took to the stage in local plays and after one such performance was approached by a casting agent working on a film slated to shoot in the area. Catlett auditioned at a local Ramada Inn and was soon given the role of Leroy, a rebellious cowboy in “Picture Show.”

“He was a good little actor, and he and Jeff hit it off during the picture,” said director Peter Bogdanovich. “I know Jeff liked him right away because he just felt comfortable with Loyd.”

On set, the director instructed the other young actors to observe Catlett, who had the mannerisms and speech patterns of an authentic Texas local.

It wasn’t long before Catlett was, as he says, “bitten by the bug.”

“I thought, ‘Wow . . . I wanna do this,’ ” he said, laughing. “It was just like the rodeo but with more lights.”

So he moved to L.A., where he worked at a restaurant and a gas station, took acting classes and paid $40 a month to live in a one-room apartment “with a bunch of winos and derelicts” in a run-down building a block from the Hollywood Bowl. He eventually got evicted and began housesitting for actors John Hillerman, Ellen Burstyn and even Bridges.

“It was a pretty good deal,” he said with a shrug. “They always say that pot will get you through the times with no money better than money will get you through the times with no pot.”

Just hanging out

He and Bridges often hung out together, playing music or going sailing. And then in 1980, Bridges asked Catlett to come along on a trip to Europe to work as his stand-in on “The American Success Company,” which was filming in Germany.

The two looked enough alike at the time and these days share the same head of thick gray-white hair and squinty blue eyes.

“I knew he loved movies and showbiz and all of that and was familiar with what we needed to do,” Bridges said. “But I really dug hanging out with him, and it just seemed like a natural fit.”

It’s a relationship that has benefited both. Last year alone, the pair worked on four movies together: “The Open Road,” “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” “Tron: Legacy” and, of course, “Crazy Heart.”

“It was great through all of these movies to have a constant -- somebody who’s been through all of the experiences with me. He’s my right-hand man,” Bridges said.

Catlett has had his own roles in a few films since “The Last Picture Show,” as in 1994’s “Blown Away,” in which he played Bama. Still, Bridges feels his friend’s potential as an actor is not often recognized.

“He’s a very good actor, but being a stand-in can kind of have a stigma to it,” he said. “It’s a double-edged sword. Working with him, I can put him up for different parts I’m involved in. And I think most often, actors don’t really have a deep relationship with their stand-in. But we’re like brothers really.”

Catlett, with an easy grin and hefty Texan charm, insists he doesn’t mind being behind the scenes.

“Is it hard to be with my friend and watch his career take off and me, as an actor, not have that momentum?” he asked. “It would have been, maybe in another situation. But not with Jeff, because he has never made me feel as if I wasn’t an equal part of his career and success.”

He paused, taking a bite out of an oversized hamburger he had ordered and staring out at the window as boats floated by.

“Being an actor is a good fantasy in a lot of ways, but it’s not an easy row to hoe,” he said. “Jeff Bridges has kept me in the game. I really just can’t see life without him. Maybe I’m in his shadow, but it’s a warm shadow.”

amy.kaufman@latimes .com