Karl Wallenda

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Karl Wallenda in his winter quarters in Sarasota, Florida

Karl Wallenda (born January 21, 1905 in Magdeburg , † March 22, 1978 in San Juan , Puerto Rico ), also known as The Great Wallenda , was a German-American circus acrobat and tightrope artist . He gained fame as the founder / patriarch of the Flying Wallendas , a circus troupe that still performs dangerous stunts - mostly without a safety net. Great-grandson Nik Wallenda is also a high wire artist.

Life

Beginnings in Germany

Karl Wallenda was born into a circus family in Magdeburg in 1905 . His father was a catcher in a group of aerialists that his mother was a member of. The Wallendas had already toured the country in the 18th century and provided entertainment at fairs with dancing bears , trapeze art and juggling . Karl made his first appearances as a clown at the age of five. As a teenager, he reportedly responded to an ad seeking someone who could do a handstand . The acrobat Louis Weitz man entered with the young Karl then a high wire and told him to carry on his shoulders a handstand. When the boy refused, Weitzmann is said to have threatened to shake him off the rope. After a successful attempt, the circus performer finally took him under his wing.

The Great Wallendas

Wallenda (above) with two of his protégés on the famous pyramid

Over the years, Wallenda's willingness to take risks - he always appeared without a safety net - and the young man developed his own show. Among other things, with Brother Hermann on his shoulders, he conquered the high wire on a bicycle . His probably greatest innovation, the “pyramid”, premiered in Milan in 1925 and was instantly considered a sensation. John Ringling soon became aware of him and his colleagues and invited them to New York , where Karl Wallenda emigrated by ship in 1928. The engagement in the circus of the Ringling Brothers was the hour of birth of the Great Wallendas , who earned a standing ovation for their first appearances in the States . Later the name Flying Wallendas established itself , which Karl rejected, however, as he suggested trapeze acrobatics.

In 1947, under the direction of the head of the family Karl, the group developed a three-story pyramid with seven people. Four men moved directly over the rope, carrying two more on poles, which in turn balanced a chair on which a girl was sitting. When the pyramid collapsed in Detroit in 1962, the troops' first serious accident occurred . Karl's nephew Dieter Schepp, who fled from East Berlin , and another man fell 12 meters to the ground and were killed in the process. His adoptive son Mario also fell and remained paralyzed from the waist down. Karl himself suffered a broken pelvis and a double hernia , but according to his own statement, he returned to the rope just 24 hours later.

Solo successes

One of his tightrope acts took Karl Wallenda across the Tallulah Gorge in Georgia.
The Veterans Stadium crossed Wallenda twice: in 1972 and the 1976th

In addition to his career as a circus performer, which he managed from the Ringling winter quarters in Sarasota ( Florida ), Karl Wallenda caused a sensation in later years with numerous individual activities known as skywalks . His most daring stunt took him on July 18, 1970 over the Tallulah Gorge in the southern Appalachians . The 300 meter long balancing act, more than 200 meters above the valley floor, was recorded by TV cameras and commented live by Wallenda via microphone . Halfway through , in front of numerous spectators, including Governor Maddox , he performed a headstand that has become his trademark . In an interview in 1973, Wallenda admitted that when crossing the gorge, he felt the first and only real fear.

Many other high-wire crossings followed, including various sports arenas, including the Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia , which Wallenda honored with a performance twice. After 1972 he crossed the home ground of the Phillies again in 1976, balancing more than 50 meters above the field, wearing a baseball cap and two flags on his balance pole. In 1974, the 69-year-old Wallenda set a world record for the longest distance covered on a high wire. He crossed the Kings Island theme park in Ohio over a distance of 548 meters. It was not until 34 years later that grandson Rick broke the record at 609 meters at the same location. People were at the end of 1976, Karl Wallenda earn around 12 Skywalk in 10,000 dollars per appearance.

death

On March 22, 1978, Karl had a fatal accident while performing in San Juan ( Puerto Rico ). To boost local ticket sales, he had planned to cross a rope between two beach hotels in the Puerto Rican capital. Halfway through, a sea breeze accelerated to 30 knots and the 73-year-old crouched. Shortly afterwards, he lost his footing and fell 36 meters with the balance bar onto a parked taxi. By the time he arrived at the hospital, “possibly the most famous circus performer in the world,” as an ABC News obituary put it, had already succumbed to severe internal injuries.

While the media initially saw the unfavorable wind as the cause of the accident, the Wallenda family is still convinced today that the high wire was not attached correctly. Terry Toffer, husband of Karl's granddaughter Delilah, later reported that he tried to prevent Karl from doing what he was doing after he sustained a cervical fracture while training in November 1977 . Karl then fired Terry. The patriarch, who could look back on a 58-year career as a high-wire artist, was the family's fifth fatality after accidents in 1962, 1963 and 1972.

family

Karl Wallenda was married twice. He married his first wife Martha, née Schepp, in 1927 before emigrating to the States. In the same year the couple had a daughter, Jenny (1927-2015). After seven years of marriage, the two divorced and Karl married one of his students, Helen, née Kreis (* 1910 in Ingolstadt , † 1996 in Sarasota ), who stayed by his side until his death. With Helen he had a biological daughter, Carla (* 1936), and an adopted son, Mario (1940-2015). Grandson Rick grew up with them too. Helen, who ended her active circus career in 1960, is said to have been unable to watch her husband's stunts out of concern for him.

The Wallendas' circus tradition was continued by Karl's grandsons Tino (* 1950) and Rick (* 1955), who each run their own company due to disputes within the family. The most famous offspring of the family is currently Karl's great-grandson Nik Wallenda (* 1979), who caused a worldwide sensation, especially with his skywalks over Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon . Nik paid homage to his great-grandfather with some actions. In 2011 he and his mother Delilah crossed a tightrope at the place where Karl had fallen to his death 33 years earlier. The two of them balanced towards each other and performed a spectacular crossover in the middle. In 2015, Nik commemorated his legendary ancestor with his own crossing of the Tallulah Gorge.

Just a month before Karl Wallenda's death, the television film The Great Wallendas with Lloyd Bridges and Britt Ekland in the leading roles was shot.

Outstanding performance

  • 1925: First performance of the high-wire pyramid in Milan
  • 1947: The “pyramid” is increased to seven people
  • July 18, 1970: High rope crossing of Tallulah Gorge in Georgia (305 m wide, 228 m high)
  • August 13, 1972: High-wire crossing of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia (195 m wide, 51 m high, repeated on May 31, 1976)
  • September 15, 1973: High rope crossing of the Rubber Bowl in Akron (183 m wide, 21 m high)
  • March 31, 1974: High wire crossing of Cleveland Stadium (174 m wide, 38 m high)
  • May 25, 1974: High-wire crossing of Kings Island Amusement Park in Ohio (548 m, world record to June 4, 2008)
  • November 13, 1974: High wire crossing of the highest circus tent in Europe in Clapham Common in London (91 m wide, 21 m high)
  • November 22, 1976: High rope crossing near Tower Bridge in London (107 m wide, 30 m high)
  • January 31, 1977: High rope crossing between the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc Hotels in Miami Beach (219 m wide, 52 m high)

Note: Original values rounded in ft .

Trivia

  • At the end of his greatest achievements, Karl Wallenda enjoyed a glass of martini .
  • A joint appearance by Wallenda and motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel at JFK Stadium ( Philadelphia ) was advertised in 1973 with the slogan “See them before they die !!”.
  • The wrong year of birth (1904) is engraved on Karl's headstone in Manasota's Memorial Park in Bradenton .
  • The grave photo shows Wallenda in his typical magenta circus costume.
  • Michael Jennings dedicated the poem A Dream of Falling to him in 1983 , which appeared in the Johns Hopkins University newspaper.
  • The college rock band Vigilantes of Love paid tribute to Wallenda in 1995 in the song Baalam's Ass with the line "You will feel like the great Wallenda (...) as he stepped out over Tallulah gorge".

literature

  • Ron Morris: Karl Wallenda: A Biography of Karl Wallenda. Sagarin Press, Chatham 1976, 182 pp. ISBN 978-0-915298-04-4 .

Web links

Commons : The Flying Wallendas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Billy Cox: Chasing the Ghost. Sarasota Herald Tribune, accessed September 2, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Baalam’s Ass - Lyrics. parting-shot.com, accessed on September 3, 2017 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c d “Sit Down, Poppy, Sit Down!” A last warning before Karl Wallenda fell to his death. In: Time 4/3/1978, Vol. 111, Issue 14, p. 27 Preview (English).
  4. ↑ a b Christine Kensche: A pitch of life. WeltN24 , June 15, 2012, accessed September 2, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c J.Y. Smith: Leader of 'The Great Wallendas' Dies. The Washington Post , March 23, 1978, accessed September 2, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Chicago Daily Tribune . Volume CXXI, No. 27, January 31, 1962 edition, pp. 1-2. Online (English).
  7. ↑ a b c d ABC News - “Death of Karl Wallenda” (1978). The Museum of Classic Chicago Television, March 22, 1978; accessed September 2, 2017 .
  8. ↑ a b Alice Gomstyn, Gail Deutsch & Ed Lopez: Wallenda Family Legacy: Nik Wallend's Long Line of Amazing Ancestors. ABC News , June 14, 2012, accessed September 2, 2017 .
  9. ^ A b Wallenda attempts high-wire walk over Kings Island. The Columbus Dispatch, July 5, 2008, accessed September 3, 2017 .
  10. ↑ a b People . Edition of December 20, 1976. Online .
  11. ↑ Billy Cox: Nik Wallenda stars in 'Life on a Wire'. Sarasota Herald Tribune, June 21, 2011, accessed September 5, 2017 .
  12. ^ Frank Fitzpatrick: Remembering Karl Wallenda's tightrope walk across Veterans Stadium, 40 years later. The Philadelphia Inquirer , August 28, 2012, accessed September 4, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Mark J. Price: Local history: Wallenda patriarch walked a tightrope across Rubber Bowl in 1973. June 15, 2012, accessed on September 4, 2017 (English).
  14. ↑ Video Vault: Karl Wallenda's 1974 walk across Cleveland Stadium on a wire. (No longer available online.) Newsnet5.com, January 21, 2013, archived from the original on September 5, 2017 ; accessed on September 4, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.news5cleveland.com
  15. ↑ Karl Wallenda, Tightrope Walker, crosses over Europe's largest circus tent wire, Mary Chipperfield's, currently pitched at Clapham Common, London, Wednesday 13th November 1974. Alamy, accessed September 4, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Michael Jennings: A Dream of Falling (In Memory of Karl Wallenda). (PDF) In: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 91, No. 3. Johns Hopkins University , 1983, accessed September 18, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Wallenda, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American circus acrobat and tightrope artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1978
Place of death San Juan , Puerto Rico