Charles Blondin

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Charles Blondin

Charles Blondin , actually Jean François Gravelet (* 28. February 1824 in Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais, France; † 22. February 1897 in London , England) was a French tightrope walker . He toured the United States and was the first to cross the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope.

Blondin was married three times and had eight children. In the 19th century, his name became a synonym for high wire act in English.

Early life

Charles Blondin was born Jean-François Gravelet on February 28, 1824 in Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France. He later became famous under other names and nicknames, including Charles Blondin, Jean-François Blondin, Chevalier Blondin and The Great Blondin.

At the age of five he was sent to the École de Gymnase in Lyon and appeared for the first time as "The Boy Wonder" after a six-month training as an acrobat. His extraordinary skill, his grace and the original backdrops of his performances made him a crowd favorite.

On August 6, 1846, he married his first wife Marie Blancherie, thereby legitimizing their son Aime Leopold. Both had two other children together. It is unknown what became of his French family after he went to the United States.

North America

Blondin crosses the Niagara Gorge. (1859)

Its increasing fame in France caught the attention of the manager of the Ravel family, a then well-known Franco-Italian group of artists. In 1851 Blondin accepted the offer to accompany them on a longer tour of the United States. In 1855 he performed with the Ravels at Niblo's Garden in New York City.

Blondin became famous for crossing the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope. To do this, he had a 340 m long, 8 cm thick rope stretched 50 m above the gorge near today's Rainbow Bridge . The premiere of the crossing took place on June 30, 1859 in front of around 25,000 spectators. Several other performances followed, often embellished with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack thrown over, rolling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man (his manager Harry Colcord ) on his back, sitting halfway while he was a Omelette cooked and ate, or standing on a chair with only one leg touching the rope.

During his stay in the United States, he married his second wife, Charlotte Lawrence, with whom he had five children: Adele (* 1854), Edward (* 1855), Iris (* 1861), Henry Coleman (* 1862) and Charlotte (* 1866).

Worldwide success

His Niagara appearances increased Blondins fame worldwide. He performed in China, Japan, Australia and Europe. During a guest appearance at the Royal Portobello Gardens in Dublin, Ireland, a serious accident occurred on August 23, 1860. During the performance, the 50 m high rope tore, which led to the collapse of the scaffolding. Blondin was not injured, but two workers who were on the scaffolding fell to their deaths.

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Charles Blondin moved to London in May 1861 with his second wife and three children who had been born until then. There he performed for the first time in the same year at the Crystal Palace , where he performed somersaults on stilts on a rope that was stretched from the ground over the central transept. In September 1861 he performed at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland.

In 1862 other performances followed at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere in England and Europe. In the 1860s, Blondin was a real box-office magnet and was accordingly well paid. For twelve appearances at the Crystal Palace he received the sum of £ 1,200.

From August to October 1874, Blondin gave several performances in Sydney, Australia.

On September 6, 1873, Blondin crossed the Edgbaston Reservoir , a reservoir in Birmingham . A statue erected in Ladywood, Birmingham in 1992 commemorates his achievement.

Later years and death

After a break of several years, Blondin appeared again in 1880 and played the leading role in the pantomime " Jack and the Beanstalk " in the Crystal Palace, organized by Oscar Barrett , in the 1893-94 season .

In 1888 his wife Charlotte died. In 1895, Blondin married his third wife, Katherine James, after she had cared for him during a back injury earlier that year. Blondin made his last appearance in Belfast, Ireland in 1896.

Charles Blondin died of diabetes on February 22, 1897 in his "Niagara House" in Ealing , London. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery . Even if his widow was much younger, she only survived him by four years and died of cancer in 1901 at the age of 36.

Aftermath

Abraham Lincoln as Charles Blondin

During his lifetime the name Blondin was so closely associated with tight-rope dancing that “Blondin” was often used as a title for other high-wire artists. For example, in Sydney in the 1880s there were at least five people working with variations of the name Blondin. The most famous of them was Henri L'Estrange - "the Australian blonde".

Tightrope walking had become so popular that a reader complained to the Sydney Morning Herald about "the blondin business," which saw people balancing on tightrope at every opportunity. He mentioned someone who walked a tightrope on Liverpool Street with a child strapped to their back.

The Illustrated London News described the tightrope artist Madame Caroline as a "female blonde" after she fell from the rope in 1869 during a performance of Pablo Fanque's circus.

In the run-up to the American presidential elections in 1864 , Abraham Lincoln compared himself to "Blondin on a tightrope who pushed everything of value to America in a wheelbarrow". Frank Leslie's Budget of Fun of September 1, 1864, took up this statement in a cartoon: Lincoln with a wheelbarrow on a wire and two men on his back - Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton - during " John Bull ", Napoleon III. , Jefferson Davis (representing England, France and the Confederate States of America, respectively) and Generals Grant , Lee and Sherman (representing the military) among others watched.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e blonde . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 77 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  2. ↑ Gordon Donaldson: Gravelet, JEAN-FRANÇOIS, known as Charles Blondin In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography , online
  3. ↑ The birthday is also indicated as February 24th in: George Linnaeus Banks: Blondin - His Life and Performances. Routledge, Warne and Routledge, London 1862, p. 20, Google Books
  4. ^ Karen Abbott: The Daredevil of Niagara Falls. In: Smithsonian Magazine , October 18, 2011. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  5. ↑ Niagara Falls Library: Appearance Announcement
  6. ^ The Irish Times . August 24, 1860. Page 3
  7. ↑ Victoria and Albert Museum: Circus performers: Blondin ( Memento from January 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Blondin at the reservoir. In: Birmingham Daily Post , Monday 8 September 1873
  9. ↑ Justine Halifax: Ever wondered what the Ladywood Middleway statue is? Retrieved January 15, 2020
  10. ^ Register of Marriages for Brentford registration district, Oct – Dec 1895, volume 3a, p. 235: Gravelet, Jean Francois, & James, Katherine
  11. ↑ a b Ken Wilson: Everybody's Heard of Blondin . Forward Press, 1990, p. 92, ISBN 9781871044355
  12. ^ Niagara Falls Library: Grave of Jean François Gravelet - Blondin
  13. ^ Mark Dunn: L'Estrange, Henri . In: The Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved January 15, 2020
  14. ^ Dangerous Sports . In: The Sydney Morning Herald . February 19, 1880. Retrieved January 15, 2020
  15. ^ Thrilling Accident . In: The Illustrated London News. Bolton 1869. Retrieved January 15, 2020
  16. ^ The Political Blondin . Retrieved January 15, 2020

Web links

Commons : Charles Blondin  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Blondin, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gravelet, Jean-François (real name); Blondin, Jean-François; Chevalier Blondin; The Great Blondin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French high wire dancer
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais, France
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1897
Place of death London , England