Wallenda, Angel

▪ 1997

      (ELIZABETH PINTYE WALLENDA; b. March 20, 1968—d. May 3, 1996, Sayre, Pa.), Gunther (b. 1927—d. March 16, 1996, Sarasota, Fla.), and Helen Kreis (b. Dec. 11, 1910, Germany—d. May 9, 1996, Sarasota), U.S.- and German-born U.S. high-wire performers, were members of the Great Wallendas, an internationally known daredevil circus act famous for performing death-defying stunts without a safety net. Helen, the last member of the original troupe, joined the Wallendas when she was 16. The act toured Europe before moving to the U.S. in 1928, when it began an association with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that continued intermittently through 1946. Helen and Karl Wallenda, the founder of the group, were married in 1935. Until she retired in 1956, she was balanced at the peak of the seven-person pyramid, a formation that was the most famous and the most dangerous of the Wallendas' acts. Gunther, Karl's nephew, began training on the wire at age five, though he was already part of the act. In 1944, in what became the worst circus tragedy ever, a fire broke out in a circus tent in Hartford, Conn., midway through the Wallendas' act; Gunther helped rescue a number of the spectators. In 1962 in Detroit the pyramid fell, and two members were killed and one left paralyzed. Gunther was the only one left standing and was able to help rescue three who were clinging to the wire. He quit the act suddenly in 1969 following an accident during a rehearsal. He graduated from high school, got a university degree, and became a history and geography teacher, though he continued to train high-wire performers. Angel married into the family in 1985, when she was 17, and began training on the wire. Soon, however, she became ill with cancer. In 1987 her right leg had to be amputated, and in 1988 parts of both lungs were removed. Nonetheless, later that year she returned to the act, becoming the only person with an artificial leg ever to walk a high wire. The cancer recurred, though, and she gave her final performance in 1990.

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