Wallenda's comeback quest 'an adrenaline high'

Published: Monday, January 3, 2005 at 2:52 a.m.

SARASOTA COUNTY -- Using a seat on a pulley, a handful of young men hoisted Mario Wallenda from his wheelchair to a high wire 40 feet above the ground.

Up on the wire sat Wallenda's "sky cycle," a two- wheeled, motor-powered contraption that he was about to ride across the wire. Down below, his friends and family watched in silence.

The mid-December performance was Wallenda's second since a famous circus accident that killed two members of the Flying Wallendas and left Mario Wallenda paralyzed from the waist down.

Now, at the age of 64 -- nearly 43 years after the accident -- he's trying to get back in the family business.

He's having a hard time finding an audience for his comeback shows.

Wallenda wanted to perform in the Special Olympics a few years ago, but the risk of a fall was enough to scare the nonprofit group away, according to Wallenda and his family.

Family members trying to find a show for Wallenda say that promoters are hesitant to book his new act because they're worried about how a crowd might react.

Promoters are afraid audiences will think they're making fun of a disabled person, a fear that Wallenda's family finds unfathomable.

"We look at it as a major accomplishment," said Wallenda's nephew, Tino, also a performer. "He's accomplished that impossible feat that nobody ever thought could be done."

Mario Wallenda says there's no way he would fall.

Nothing disastrous will happen, Wallenda tells people. The idea is not to fall.

Asked why it's worth the risk to go back onto the high wire, Wallenda will give a different answer every time.

First, he'll say that he has nothing else to do but putter around in his garden. Then, he'll say that he's gotten to the age where he does not care anymore. He'll also say that he thought it would be cool, that's all.

Wallenda doesn't really expect non-circus people, or "towners," as he calls them, to understand.

"It's an adrenaline high," he said.

And he hasn't been getting enough of those since he retired from a contact lens lab in 2002.

He did woodcarving, but it didn't last.

He also tried lapidary -- cutting and polishing stones. Boring. He tried painting, but he was no good.

He built model airplanes, also a bore.

When he's feeling poetic, he says he wants to perform again because he'd rather be a live hero instead of a dead martyr.

And then there's the excitement of performing, a high that he's missed since he was a young adult.

Grounded for 42 years

As a teenage performer and the adopted son of Karl Wallenda, one of the well-known daredevils in the business, Mario Wallenda always knew there was a possibility of falling.

But he figured that anyone who fell either got better in six months or died. Either way, the problem didn't last.

When he fell at age 21 -- only seven years into his short career -- he did not die and he did not recover. Wallenda was paralyzed below the waist after a seven-person human pyramid collapsed on Jan. 30, 1962, in a circus performance in Detroit.

According to news reports, the accident occurred when Karl Wallenda's nephew, Dieter Schepp, lost his footing on the bottom tier of the pyramid. Schepp and Karl Wallenda's son-in-law were killed. Three other Flying Wallendas saved themselves by grabbing the wire.

Mario Wallenda says he doesn't remember what happened in Detroit. But he still thinks about the profound effect the crash has had on his life.

"I've been sitting down for 42 years now," he said.

He spent eight months recovering at hospitals. He met his future wife, Linda, at one of the hospitals, where she was a nurse.

In a family that cherishes comebacks -- the Wallendas re-staged the pyramid in Detroit a few years ago -- Mario Wallenda could have returned to performing almost immediately after the accident.

Not long after he left a hospital, his father, Karl, wanted to make him part of an act by pushing him across a high wire in his wheelchair. When the two were high above the ground, Karl suggested, he could do a handstand on his son's shoulders.

Mario Wallenda did not like the idea. He thought his father was simply using him for publicity, and he was not ready to take another chance with his life.

He wanted to get married, and moved with Linda back to Sarasota, where he grew up as part of a famous circus family in a famous circus city.

He got a job in a contact lens lab, something his aerialist family members might describe as "groundwork."

The idea of going back on a high wire did not surface again for years.

He never went to the circus.

"Why would I do something to make me feel bad?"

It was about 10 years ago that organizers of the Special Olympics heard about Wallenda, and talked with his nephew, Tino, about a performance.

Wallenda thought it would be cool, and he realized he missed the rush of performing. He got excited.

In the end, the Special Olympics was worried about the liability if "something went wrong," Tino Wallenda said.

Mario Wallenda called the Special Olympics to plead his case.

The idea is not to fall, he said.

The answer was no.

And the act went on the back burner for a few more years before Tino was contacted again -- this time by a TV show connected to Guinness World Records.

A friend built the sky cycle. Wallenda learned as a child that he must look forward and not move his upper body to avoid falling. The same applied with the sky cycle. Wallenda knew that he had to be careful not to bounce around in his seat, which could push the cycle's wheels off the wire.

After just one practice session, Wallenda had his first run in the sky cycle videotaped for the show in 2001. He said he had a "ball" on the high wire on the sunny, clear day outside The Tabernacle church on DeSoto Road in Sarasota. It was easy, he said.

He savored the rush of performing -- "It was more fun than a barrel of monkeywomen."

He was still working at the lens lab, but said he was forced to retire the next year because he could not drive to the lab's new location in Clearwater.

It didn't take long for Wallenda to get restless.

His wife remembers him falling off his lawn mower twice, running it into a tree, and even rolling it once while trying to do a lawn-mower jump.

"If there's anything that's risky, he's the first one out there to do it," Linda Wallenda said.

Sky cycle, or 'psycho cycle'?

He now rides around the cluttered yard of his Sarasota home in a motor-powered wheelchair, tending to the dogs and a miniature horse he owns.

Big-time boredom, according to Wallenda.

The December performance outside a pavilion east of Interstate 75 was the first since 2001.

It didn't go well at all.

Wallenda felt like he might slip out of his sky cycle and into the darkness, which he imagined as a big black hole, a bottomless pit.

"It scared the daylights out of me," he said.

Still, Wallenda triggered buttons on a balancing pole and propelled the sky cycle across the thin wire and back.

Sure, people clapped.

But Wallenda knew that he looked frightened and cautious as he crossed. His sister, Jenny Wallenda, could see it.

He wasn't selling his act, wasn't making it look fun and easy.

He was scared.

The sky cycle now sits in the dusty garage of his Sarasota home, and his sister, acting as his agent, hasn't been able to book another act.

His nephew, Tino, thinks Wallenda's quest is about meeting a challenge.

"To a certain point, you want to overcome tragedy and come back," he said. "You want to be a victor over tragedy."

Wallenda wants to do the act a few times a month or year and get paid for it. He talked about going across the Tallulah Gorge in Georgia or the Grand Canyon.

His wife understands that he wants to do this, but she does not like it. She calls the sky cycle his "psycho cycle."

"No matter what I would say, it wouldn't make any difference," she said.

Wallenda said his wife thinks he's trying to go out in a blaze of glory.

But she's wrong, he said. He does not have a death wish, not even a subconscious one.

The idea is not to fall.

This story appeared in print on page BV1


Comments are currently unavailable on this article

▲ Return to Top