CODY - Jesse Wayne has had his head blown off. He was set aflame, nicked by a speeding train, bitten in the ear by a dog and hit by a flying cabbage.

The stuntman has been killed more times than he can count, but Wayne lives to tell the story in "It Sounded Like A Good Idea At the Time: Memoirs of a Hollywood Stuntman."

Wayne, 63, lives in Cody and is publishing his autobiography, which chronicles 40 years of being a "fall guy" in Tinseltown.

"You can get away with anything when you're young," Wayne said. "I healed quickly."

Cody is an ideal place to settle for the cowboy-booted, quick drawing, fancy gun-handling stuntman, he said. Wayne did his time being thrown through saloon windows and falling off barns for $6 a day in the live Western shows that started him "stunting."

"Now, I charge $2,500 for falling off a barn," he said.

Wayne, with his diminutive 5-foot-4 frame, cut a decisive swath beneath the 6-foot ideal Hollywood stuntman. He has been in 400 productions, ranging from "Breakfast At Tiffany's" to "Spaceballs." His size allowed him to double for women and children caught in unfortunate cinematic situations.

"At some point, you're just a body. You're a piece of meat, flying through the air," Wayne said. "But stunt work was like living out a fantasy for me - you could be a cop, a mobster, a cowboy, anything."

Wayne was two of the Three Stooges - Moe and Larry. He was Kurt Russell, Red Buttons, Sir John Mills, Don Johnson and Frankie Avalon. He donned dresses to be Barbara Stanwick and Helen Hayes, feathers to be Woodsy the Owl, and fur to be an orangutan in the "Battle for the Planet of the Apes."

What's more, Wayne looks so much like Mickey Rooney that even movie actor John Wayne (no relation) got them mixed up. Wayne was Rooney's stunt double for 27 years, starting when he was 18 years old.

"I would still be Mickey Rooney's stunt double if we had the work," he quipped.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Wayne knew his calling right away.

"My first pre-showbiz stunt occurred involuntarily as an altar boy serving a 7 a.m. Catholic Mass when my foot caught the hem of my cassock and propelled me headfirst down the three altar steps. Embarrassed, I immediately looked toward the two pews of nuns from a nearby convent. My first audience hadn't made a sound, but each nun sported a grin from ear to ear."

Throughout the following years, Wayne mixed with a lot of the Hollywood greats, and counts Jerry Lewis, Bill Cosby and Jimmy Stewart among his favorite people to work with. He has done all of the stunts, specializing in fights, car work, stair falls, bicycles, "high work," horse work and falls.

Some of the work was painful, he admits. But in 40 years, Wayne counts only four injuries: second- and third-degree burns, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured heel and a broken ankle. But there were plenty of uncounted minor cuts, burns and bruises.

In the 1968 movie "The Mini-Skirt Mob," Wayne was set ablaze in a fire suit covered in rubber cement. He was trying to keep his face into the wind when one side got scorched.

"I heard the scream, then I realized it was me," Wayne said.

Then there was an accident on the set of "Rollercoaster" in 1976, when all of the stunt people bailed out of a rolling car, sustaining injuries. Wayne was the only one who stayed on board and crashed into the pillows.

"Someone asked me afterwards if I saw my life flash in front of my eyes. I said I saw Mickey Rooney's life," Wayne said.

But his story isn't all comedy and adventure. Wayne saw plenty of sobering things in Hollywood - including the effect of the drug scene on the business.

"It caused a lot of problems, especially the coke," Wayne said. "I drank like everyone, but not at work."

Hollywood has changed over the years, in more ways than he ever imagined, Wayne said.

"More stuntmen have been killed, maimed or injured in the last 35 years than in the first 60 years of filmmaking. The stunts aren't any harder, but nowadays, Hollywood people don't want to learn from anyone. They want to be independent," Wayne said. "I learned that you do your shot so that you can get up and walk away. You have to be able to work the next day."

Now, Wayne is working on a comedy script and is looking forward to getting his book published. He also wants to learn how to herd cattle.

"It's just like I told both of my wives: Nothing lasts forever," Wayne said. "But at least I have the memories."