Bill Ash escaping activities. He ended the war as a flight lieutenant. In August 2015, the BBC reported: "When Ash died aged 96 last year his obituaries noted that he was said to have been the model for Virgil Hilts, the lean, leather-jacketed airman played by Steve McQueen in the 1963 film "The Great Escape"". The character Hilts, nicknamed "The Cooler King" because of the time he spends in the prison camp's punishment block (which the prisoners call the "cooler") for his persistent escape attempts, steals a motorbike and tries to escape to Switzerland but is caught while using it to jump
The Great Escape (U.S. TV series) The Great Escape (U.S. TV series) The Great Escape is a reality television series on TNT that premiered on June 24, 2012, at 10:00 pm EDT. The competition series, hosted by Rich Eisen, features three two-person teams each week who are dropped "into the middle of their own epic action/adventure movie" and competing for a cash prize. The show is produced by Imagine Television directors Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and "The Amazing Race" producers, Bertram Van Munster and Elise Doganieri. The series finished airing on August 26, 2012 and was cancelled in October 2012. TNT ordered a pilot episode