Mario Wallenda

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Mario Wallenda (born May 6, 1940 - April 12, 2015 ) was a member of the Wallenda family of artists. He survived a fall from a high wire, seriously injured.

Life

Mario Wallenda was born to Phillip Kreis and Marian Mohlman. The couple had married on the tightrope in Pontchartrain Beach , New Orleans . After Marian Mohlman died giving birth to her son, Karl Wallenda and his second wife Helen adopted him at the age of three days. Karl Wallenda had already directed the "Great Wallendas" in the 1920s. After the entire troop fell from the rope in Akron , but remained unharmed, its members were referred to as the "Flying Wallendas".

A pyramid of seven in 2006

Mario Wallenda grew up with his adoptive sister Carla - Karl Wallenda had another daughter named Jenny from his first marriage - and was trained as an acrobat from childhood. One of the highlights of the Flying Wallendas was a pyramid made up of seven people on a high wire, the top man or woman of which was carried in a chair.

On January 30, 1962, there was an accident at this number at the Detroit Coliseum . On this day Dieter Schepp, a cousin of Wallenda who fled the GDR in 1961, Mario Wallenda, Richard Faughnan and Gunther Wallenda formed the base of the pyramid. On the second level stood Karl Wallenda and his older brother Herman, Jana Schepp took the top position.

Dieter Schepp lost control and the pyramid collapsed. Both Schepp and the two men who had stood on the rope behind him fell into the depths. Schepp had let out a warning cry. The other men in the troop managed to hold on to the rope and also to save Jana Schepp from falling until a safety net was put in place. The artist fell into this and suffered injuries that were not life-threatening. Dieter Schepp and Richard Faughnan, the husband of Wallenda's daughter Jenny, died in the fall, Mario Wallenda survived but remained paralyzed .

From 1963, however, the pyramid feat was again included in the Flying Wallendas program. Karl Wallenda also suggested in 1962 that his adopted son should return to the high wire. He wanted to push him over the rope in the wheelchair and do a handstand on Mario Wallenda's shoulders in the middle of the rope. However, he refused because in case of doubt he would not have been able to keep his balance.

It was only much later, shortly before retirement, that Mario Wallenda, who married a nurse in 1963 and lived with his wife Linda in Sarasota , Florida , returned to the rope. On the so-called "sky cycle", an electric bike, he rode over a rope that was stretched 40 feet between two cranes.

A few years earlier, a similar project, with which Mario Wallenda wanted to appear at the Special Olympics , had been rejected as too risky. After Mario Wallenda's nephew Tino Wallenda was contacted about the matter by those in charge of a TV show who in turn had something to do with Guinness , the idea was taken up again. The bike was built, and in 2001, Mario Wallenda's ride over the wire for the television show was recorded in Sarasota. But Wallenda no longer made a permanent number out of this appearance. On a second attempt at the bike, which was made years later, Mario Wallenda experienced an anxiety attack on the wire. Jenny Wallenda, who wanted to manage her adoptive brother, was unable to sell the number, and so the "sky cycle" stopped in Wallenda's garage. Plans so that z. Mario Wallenda no longer put into practice, for example , crossing the Grand Canyon .

After Mario Wallenda's death, the last surviving member of the 1962 troop was Jana Schepp.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Mike Saewitz, A Flying Wallenda returns to high wire , January 5, 2005 at www.blueridgenow.com
  2. ↑ According to JY Smith, Leader of 'The Great Wallendas' Dies , March 23, 1978 in The Washington Post ( online ), the young woman's real name was Christiana Schepp, was a niece of Karl Wallendas and the wife of Dieter Schepp. Gregory Jaynes, on the other hand, named Dieter Schepp as Wallenda's nephew in his article Wallenda Is Killed In Fall From Wire of March 23, 1978 in The New York Times ( online ) and stated that Christiana was his sister.
  3. ↑ Wallenda Family - the Flying Wallendas on www.circusesandsideshows.com
  4. ↑ a b c Mario Wallenda, highwire artist - obituary , in: The Telegraph , April 17, 2015 ( online )
personal data
SURNAME Wallenda, Mario
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American tightrope artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1940
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 2015