Getty ImagesFrom the 1920s to the 1970s, Karl Wallenda and his family of daredevil performers astonished audiences the world over with their high-wire stunts but not without enduring tragic accidents along the way.Karl Wallenda began performing stunts when he was just six years old. He trained to walk on a high wire, cycle across a tightrope, and balance as one of a seven-man pyramid. For him, it seemed, nothing was impossible.Then, on March 22, 1978, the world watched in horror as Karl Wallenda fell to his death. As he attempted to walk across a high wire strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the 73-year-old Wallenda lost his balance, teetering on the wire for 30 heart-stopping seconds before plummeting 10 stories.This is the full story of Karl Wallenda, from his astonishing feats to his tragic death.How Karl Wallenda Became A Legendary Tightrope Walker And All-Around Daredevil PerformerState Library and Archives of FloridaThe Flying Wallendas perform their famous pyramid act in the 1960s.Karl Wallendas ancestors started performing as a traveling circus troupe in the streets and cafes of Germany as far back as 1780. The family consisted of acrobats, jugglers, clowns, aerialists, and animal trainers. They took their act through small towns and villages across Europe, performing in public squares and wherever else they could gather a crowd. They mostly relied on donations from their audiences in order to keep the troupe going.Karl Wallenda was born into this circus family in Magdeburg, Germany in 1905. He started performing with his family at just six years old, and leveled up to doing stunts in beer halls by the time he was only 11. Wallendas most impressive stunt at that age was stacking chairs and then doing a handstand on top of them.After more years of training with his family, Wallenda answered an ad to support the wire-walker Louis Weitzmanns circus troupe with their tightrope walking acts. Wallendas main job there was to walk out behind Weitzmann onto the wire and perform a handstand on his feet as Weitzmann laid down.That experience propelled Karl Wallenda to create his own act in 1922, enlisting his brother Herman, girlfriend Helen Kreiss (who eventually became his wife), and school friend Joseph Geiger, all of whom had circus training.Known as The Great Wallendas, the group toured Europe for several years, performing tightrope walking and high-wire bicycling, and perfecting a four-man pyramid act.Eventually, they were noticed by American circus entrepreneur John Ringling during their act in Cuba, and he immediately hired the Wallendas to perform at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1928, they debuted to a 15-minute standing ovation at New Yorks Madison Square Garden. The group remained Ringling headliners for much of the next two decades.The Wallenda FamilyThe Flying Wallendas peform at the Circo Zoppe.After all four members fell during a wire slip at a show in Akron, Ohio in 1962, a reporter dubbed the group The Flying Wallendas because of how gracefully the members fell they looked, he thought, like they were flying.The Flying Wallendas soon gained international fame for their impressive acts, which were developed almost entirely by Karl Wallenda. One of the most death-defying stunts he came up with was the three-tier, seven-person chair pyramid, in which the group walked the tightrope with the top member balancing high above in the air, often on a chair.As the acts fame continued to grow, so too did Karl Wallendas family, as he had gotten married and had several children along the way. All of them eventually joined the family business, along with their respective significant others and their own children. As the middle of the 20th century came and went, the Flying Wallendas were only getting bigger in every sense of the word.When The Flying Wallendas Daredevil Stunts Turned DeadlyWhen successful, the acts created and popularized by the Wallenda family were astounding. But when they were unsuccessful, their reputation wasnt the only thing at risk so were the lives of the performers.The Flying Wallendas perform their death-defying seven-person pyramid.In 1936, Willie Wallenda, Karl Wallendas brother, died after falling during a high-wire bicycle ride, even while using a net. It was this accident that supposedly pushed Karl Wallenda to stop using nets altogether, insisting that no safety measures would be taken during any performances from there on out.The biggest tragedy in The Flying Wallendas career occurred during a performance at the Shrine Circus in Detroit in 1962, when their signature seven-person pyramid caused mayhem after the frontman faltered and the entire group collapsed.In the fall, Wallendas son-in-law, tightrope partner, and nephew were all killed. Wallendas son Mario was paralyzed from the waist down, and his niece sustained a head injury after bouncing out of the safety net. Karl Wallenda himself suffered a broken pelvis.Despite the tragedy, Wallenda insisted that the remaining performers do their act the very next night, embodying the classic mentality of the show must go on.I feel like a dead man on the ground, Karl Wallenda had told his wife. I can handle the grief better from up there. The wire is my life. We owe it to those who died to keep going.A year later, Karl Wallendas sister-in-law, Rietta Grotofent, also fell to her death after attempting to perform a headstand on a fiberglass swaypole. And in 1972, another one of Wallendas son-in-laws, Chico Guzman, plunged to his death in Wheeling, West Virginia after being electrocuted when the balance pole he planned to pass to Karl Wallenda struck a live wire.The seven-man pyramid act was only performed twice more after the 1962 disaster: in 1963, and again when it was recreated primarily by Karl Wallendas grandchildren for the 1978 TV movie The Great Wallendas.Despite all of the tragedies associated with his act, Wallenda soldiered on, continuing to perform with smaller groups, and even by himself as a solo act.His most increasingly popular act was doing Sky Walks, including walking between buildings and across stadiums. Wallenda walked Busch, Veterans, JFK, and 3 Rivers Stadiums, as well as the Astrodome, among many others.Wallenda made history several times, performing a 700-foot high-wire walk and handstanding across Georgias Tallulah Gorge in front of an audience of 30,000 people, and also breaking a world high-wire record by walking 1,800 feet across Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio.Georgia State ParksKarl Wallenda walking across Tallulah Gorge in 1970.He performed stunts into his 70s, taking on every challenge with the same excitement hed had all his life.The Final Walk: Karl Wallendas Death And The Legacy He Left BehindWith a career that spanned more than half a century, Wallenda was far from retiring when he headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1978. He was there to perform and promote a circus act he would be performing with his granddaughter.Wallendas final stunt, a walk between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel, was captured on live television by a local film crew. When he got about halfway across the wire, he started struggling with his balance. For 30 agonizing seconds, he wavered as the crowd watched in horror then he fell 10 stories, struck a parked taxi, and died.A later investigation revealed that a combination of high winds and the fact that the wire had been improperly secured was what led to Karl Wallendas death.Daily NewsKarl Wallendas death on March 22, 1978 left onlookers horrified.If theres any such thing as dying happy, my father died happy, Mario, Karl Wallendas son who had been paralyzed in 1962, later told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He went out in a blaze of glory.Though hes long gone, Wallendas legacy lives on through his great-grandson Nik Wallenda. Nik followed in his great-grandfathers footsteps, and continues to perform alongside his siblings, hoping to honor the legacy that Karl Wallenda spent his life building.In fact, Nik has since outdone his legendary ancestor. He holds 11 Guinness World Records, including performing the longest and highest bicycle ride (at 250-feet long and 135-feet high), and the highest tightrope walk while blindfolded.In 2011, Nik, alongside his mother Delilah, recreated the same walk that had led to Karl Wallendas demise some 33 years prior. The duo walked a tightrope between the two towers of the 10-story Condado Plaza Hotel in Puerto Rico.Nik claimed he wasnt scared during the performance, but was instead honored to be able to conquer this once-deadly challenge: To be able to walk in his exact footsteps is an extremely huge honor, and I did this for him as much as I did it for my family to get some closure too.Everything about Karl Wallendas astonishing life and career surely makes it seem as though he would have been proud of his great-grandsons historic achievement.After this look at Karl Wallenda, read about daredevil Wu Yongning, who eventually died during a stunt. Then, see vintage photographs from the early days of circuses.The post The Story Of Karl Wallenda, From His Daring Stunts To His Tragic Death appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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