Walt Sehnert

Defying the odds

Monday, July 17, 2017

Carla Wallenda, Karl Wallenda, Raymond Chitty, and Richard Guzman (Carla’s husband), ca. 1965

Public Domain

Most of us live relatively calm lives, even drab. We do not knowingly risk our lives in everyday pursuits. (We drive the interstate, eat too much, and smoke, all risky endeavors, but that doesn’t count). Policemen, firemen, and military personnel regularly risk their lives in doing their jobs, but they do this in the line of duty. But there are those who do not believe that life is worth living unless they are brushing up against disaster at every turn. I think of the sky divers, race car drivers, Hollywood stuntmen, people like Evel Knevel, professional football players—- tightrope walkers.

I became intrigued with tight walkers after a fellow came for a celebration to Plainview, where I was growing up. There was great excitement while the fellow and his helpers strung a high wire across the intersection, between two Plainview skyscraper Banks (each all of two stories tall, but the tallest we had in town). Then he proceeded to walk from one of the buildings to the other and back, stopping halfway to sit down, turn around, and bounce a bit, before continuing to the other side. I don’t know how much the city fathers had to pay for the performance, but his reception was great and we were all greatly impressed. For the rest of the summer we boys attempted to copy the performance by trying to walk the cable that circled the park, across the street from our house. Finally, the cable was stretched until it nearly touched the ground between the posts, and the great experiment came to an end. It was fun while it lasted.

The Great Wallendas, headed by their founder, Karl Wallenda, have long been recognized internationally as circus daredevils, famous for performing death-defying high-wire stunts without a safety net. They came to the United States from Germany in 1928, to join the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Circus. In 1947 they developed an unequaled three-tier seven-man pyramid, which they performed on a thin wire, high in the air.

Disaster seemed to follow the family like a shadow. In 1944 Karl’s nephew, Gunther, was performing on the high wire when the worst fire tragedy in circus history broke out. He received wide acclaim for his efforts in rescuing spectators. In 1962 the Wallenda Pyramid fell during the act. Karl Wallenda’s son-in-law, Richard, and nephew, Dieter, were killed. An adopted son, Mario, was paralyzed from the waist down. Gunther was the only one of the seven left standing on the wire. Again he proved a hero when he assisted to safety, the three members who clung to the wire. After yet another accident in 1969, Gunther quit the act, went to high school, eventually got a university degree, and became a history and geography teacher. (He continued to train high-wire performers.)

Angel Wallenda married into the family when she was 17. She developed cancer and had her right leg amputated. She returned later in the year, to become the only person with an artificial leg ever to perform on the high-wire.

Karl’s sister-in-law fell to her death in 1963. Karl’s son-in-law, Chico, was killed in 1972 when he accidentally touched a live electrical wire while performing on the high-wire.

In 1978 Karl Wallenda, at age 73, attempted a walk on a high-wire stretched between two high-rise hotels in Puerto Rico. Conditions were not favorable for his walk, and the manager of one of the hotels tried to cancel the performance. Wallenda, ever the trouper, insisted on making the walk. He fell to his death when winds gusted to more than 30 miles.

The French seem to be particularly daring tightrope walkers. In 1859, the Frenchman, Jean Francois Gravelot, known as the Great Blondin, became the first person ever to cross Niagra Falls on a tightrope. He made his journey over a 3” diameter rope, stretched some 1,100’, between Prospect Park, in Niagra Falls, New York, and Oakes Garden, in Niagra Falls, Ontario, on the Canadian side. The trip took him some 20 minutes, and he carried a 30’ pole, weighing some 40 pounds, for balance. Then he repeated his feat eight more times, the last time carrying his manager, Harry Concord on his back. That time was almost his last time, as for some unknown reason, one of the ropes holding the supports on the American side broke (some said it was cut deliberately by one of Blondin’s detractors) and the tightrope began to sway mightily, testing the limits of The Great Blondin’s skills. He was able to make it safely to shore.

In 1860 Blondin was back again in Niagra Falls. This time his trick was to push a wheelbarrow along the tightrope. Again, he took individuals along for a ride in the wheelbarrow (Harry Concord declined to ride), and again there were great crowds witnessing the event on both the American and the Canadian shores. Evidently his security guards were better in 1860, for Blondin encountered no problems. Blondin continued his high-wire acts for several more years, in America and Europe, and died, in bed, of natural causes in 1897, at the age of 73.

On August 7, 1974 another Frenchman, 27 year old, Philippe Petit, became the first (and only) person ever to walk on tightwire between the famous New York Twin Towers of the WTC. Petit had been planning this walk since he was 19 and had seen an artist’s concept of the towers in a magazine. To prepare for his big walk he had “practiced” by walking on a tightwire strung between the Gothic towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and between the towers on a bridge in Sydney Australia. For both these feats he had been arrested for disturbing the peace.

For several days in August, 1974, Petit and his friends, disguised as workers, or inspectors, smuggled materials to the observation decks of the two towers, which at the time were nearing completion, then hid them and themselves until nightfall. Using a powerful bow and arrow, they succeeded in stringing first a light fishing line between the buildings, then pulled rope and then stretched a strong, thin cable 140’ between the towers, at some 2500# of tension.

When astonished commuters began to arrive for work after 7 a.m. they were treated to the sight of Petit calmly walking on the wire between the buildings. He never did use any protective equipment—-just Petit and his 27’ balancing pole, walking in buffalo skin slippers on a ¾” wire. Tens of thousands of spectators on the ground were mesmerized for almost an hour, as he strolled back and forth, seven times, on his high-wire, some 110 stories above the ground.

When Petit finally stepped off the wire onto the observation deck of one of the towers he was immediately arrested and taken to Police Headquarters. There he was treated more like a celebrity than a criminal. From the Police Chief down, officers posed with Petit for pictures, and people were asking for his autograph. The judge finally got around to passing sentence on Peitit. He was ordered to perform a free show for the people in Central Park, where he ambled on a tightwire from a lakeside to the towers of Central Park’s Belvedere Castle.

Petit was given a lifetime pass to the towers, which he used often in the years after 1974, when he would entertain friends by showing them where he had performed his extraordinary feat. The last visit Petit made to the Twin Towers was one week before Sept. 11, 2001. Petit’s name was preserved on the roof of the observation deck of one tower until the towers fell.

When Philippe Petit heard the news of the destruction of the twin towers he was devastated, and wept, not just for the people who were killed in the destruction of the towers, but for the towers themselves. “It was like losing an old, dear friend”.

Said Karl Wallenda, “Walking the wire is everything. The rest is merely waiting”.

Said Philippe Petit, “When I see 3 oranges I juggle. When I see 2 towers, I walk”.