"What do you do, sir?"  "I blow myself up."

That's what Lincoln native James "Crash" Moreau told America's Got Talent Host Nick Cannon back in 2013 when he was featured on the show, blowing himself up.

Yes, as Moreau said in the YouTube video interview below, he was "A little guy from Maine, who most people in my hometown don't even know who I am," but many people across the world did indeed know who he was, because of his thrilling stunt performances and the internet.

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For more than 50 years, Mr. Moreau lit himself on fire, blew himself up, and drove things like tanker trucks filled with fuel into school buses. He traveled the United States and Canada as part of various thrill shows, including Joey Chitwood's Auto Daredevils, where he got his start.

He performed at carnivals, state fairs, and was filmed for television shows and movies.

Mr. Moreau was known to people in his hometown of Lincoln as Billy or Jimmy, but across the world, he was known as "Crazy Crash Moreau" or "The Maine Maniac", according to his obituary in this morning's Bangor Daily News.

Mr. Moreau said that his most satisfying stunt was for a movie filming back in 1974, when he took an "old demolition derby car with a gas tank in the back seat and a battery in the front seat", and rolled it over. The only thing that Mr. Moreau was wearing was his cowboy boots and his crash helmet.

James "Crash" Moreau died of natural causes at the age of 73 on September 14 in Old Town. He had no regrets and did what he originally wanted to do since he was only 17 years old, and that was "blowing himself up."

RIP, sir.

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