12 famous and Strange daredevils

Evel Knievel
Robert Craig Knievel (October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007), better known as Evel Knievel (pronounced /ˈiːvəl kɨˈniːvəl/;), was an American motorcycle daredevil and entertainer famous in the United States and elsewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s. Knievel's nationally televised motorcycle jumps, including his 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho, represent four of the twenty most-watched ABC's Wide World of Sports events to date. His achievements and failures, including his record 37 broken bones, earned him several entries in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Alain Robert aka The French Spiderman
Alain Robert (born as Robert Alain Philippe on 7 August 1962), is a French rock and urban climber, from Digoin, Saône-et-Loire, Bourgogne, France. Known as "the French Spider-Man" (after the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man), or "the Human Spider", Robert is famous for scaling skyscrapers.

Steve Truglia
Steve Truglia is a Stunt coordinator, Stunt performer and Action Unit Director in the UK. He is also an experienced Television Presenter. He is a registered Full member of the UK Equity Stunt Register as a Stunt Action Co-ordinator, and has been on the register since 1996. Truglia is an official stunt judge for the British Advertising Awards and is a life member of the World Stunt Academy. He is an experienced after dinner and motivational public speaker, and a television presenter with appearances on many TV shows and news channels in the UK.He is an extreme sports expert and has over 2400 parachute jumps to his credit.

Tony Jaa
Tatchakorn Yeerum (Thai: ทัชชกร ยีรัมย์; or formerly Panom Yeerum (Thai: พนม ยีรัมย์; IPA: [pʰanom jiːrɑm]) (born February 5, 1976 in Surin province, Isaan, Thailand), better known in the West as Tony Jaa, in Thailand as Jaa Panom, is a Thai martial artist, actor, choreographer, stuntman and director. His films include Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, Tom-Yum-Goong (also called Warrior King or The Protector) and Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning.

Travis Pastrana
Travis Alan Pastrana (born October 8, 1983, in Annapolis, Maryland) is a motorsports competitor and stunt performer who has won championships and X Games gold medals in several events, including supercross, motocross, freestyle motocross, and rally racing. He currently appears in the television show Nitro Circus.

Johnny Knoxville
Bam Margera
Brandon Cole "Bam" Margera (born September 28, 1979) is a professional skateboarder, television and radio personality, and daredevil. He released a series of videos under the CKY banner and came to prominence after being drafted into MTV's Jackass crew. He has since appeared in MTV's Viva La Bam and Bam's Unholy Union, both Jackass movies, and Haggard, which he co-wrote and directed.

Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini (March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926, born Erik Weisz later spelled Ehrich Weiss) was a Hungarian American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer. He also was a famous skeptic who set out to expose frauds purporting to be supernatural phenomena.

Steve McQueen
One of the American greats. Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen (March 24, 1930 – November 7, 1980) was an American movie actor nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. His other popular films include The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillon, and The Towering Inferno. In 1974 he became the highest paid movie star in the world. Although McQueen was combative with directors and producers, his popularity put him in high demand and enabled him to command large salaries.

He was an avid racer of both motorcycles and cars. While he studied acting, he supported himself partly by competing in weekend motorcycle races and bought his first motorcycle with his winnings. He is recognized for performing many of his own stunts, especially the majority of the stunt driving during the high-speed chase scene in Bullitt. Additionally, McQueen designed and patented a bucket seat and transbrake for race cars.

Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE (born Chan Kong Sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.

In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1970s and has appeared in over 100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons and video games. Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred.

Bud Ekins
Bud Ekins (May 11, 1930 – October 6, 2007) was one of the foremost stuntmen of his generation. Born James Sherwin Ekins in Hollywood, California, he is known to most as the actor who jumped the fence on a disguised Triumph TR6 Trophy 650cc motorcycle in The Great Escape, and who drove the Ford Mustang 390 GT in Bullitt. He also coordinated the stunts for the popular 1970s motorcycle cop show CHiPs.

Helen Gibson
Helen Gibson (August 27, 1892 – October 10, 1977) was an American film actress, vaudeville performer, radio performer, film producer, trick rider and rodeo performer; and is considered to be the first American professional stunt woman.
Tags: Spiderman, Skyscrapers, Stunts, Daredevil, Circus, Spider-Man, Robert

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Sreange Animal Stunts Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before!

A famous stuntman uses his hands to balance nimbly on the tusks of an elephant. A lion perches less steadily on the back of a moving horse. A pair of bears rides in similar bareback style, while another of their species gets in the ring with a wrestler. Put the words stunt and animal together and you’re already on contentious ground. Yet whether such practices can be considered cruel or not depends on when, where and how the stunts were executed. And what point of view you take.

Take all-action Thai movie star Tony Jaa. Could the finest stuntman of his generation and martial arts master stand accused of cruelty towards the elephant whose tusks act as the equivalent of a gymnast’s parallel bars?

In a tuskle: Tony Jaa in a stunt with an elephant from the film Tom-Yum-Goong
As a child, Jaa gave baths to his family’s elephants and flipped off their backs into the river, while his style of Muay Thai has moves that imitate the colossal creatures. He later got his stunt doubling break in a commercial that required him to grip an elephant’s tusks and somersault onto its back. If anyone was going to do it, the elephant would probably have picked Tony.

Bearing all: Exhibition bear wrestling match in Ohio
It’s debatable whether the 650-pound ursus in this next image of bear wrestling – still performed in movies and exhibition bouts today – would be voluntarily so compliant with human whims. Although human wrestlers and bear owners claim the animals are not hurt – and even say they are having fun – there is outcry among animal rights groups keen to ban the sport across the US on grounds that it is not only barbaric but absurd, and should be confined to the dustbin of history.

Old skool chokehold: Wrestling bear stunt in an old publicity shot
It’s a question of when working with animals becomes working against animals – but it’s a thorny one. Elephants have long been taught to do our bidding, and being intelligent enough to be trained for a variety of acts, they’ve traditionally been a major attraction in circuses around the world.

Elephant power: Modern circus trick with two women being held aloft
However, increasingly there is grass roots resistance to any kind of capture, confinement and use of wild elephants, which are thus subjected to highly unnatural conditions – and sometimes show their distress by turning on their keepers or handlers.

Four legs good, two legs bad: Bassie and Adrian, a popular duo on old Dutch TV
Animals do admittedly appear a lot less often in contemporary circuses than they used to, but traditional circus companies still exist, with the animals historically used in acts such as big cats, elephants, horses and bears performing some of the same tricks they have done for decades if not centuries.

Circus tradition: Leopard training in 1906 and Roman standing act circa 1914

The use of animals in the circus has been controversial for some time, particularly as animal welfare groups have documented many cases of explicit animal cruelty, with training methods nowadays alleged to include beatings and other forms of physical abuse just as they always have.

Strange couple: Lion on a horse’s back in a show held in a Chinese zoo
Notwithstanding the use of such inhumane instruments as electric shock prods and hooks behind closed doors, in China what many might see as cruel animal stunts are positively on parade. In one of the country’s more notorious zoo, spectators have been treated to a bizarre display as a 420-pound lion leaps onto and rides around the ring on a horse’s back, kept moving by the steady crack of the trainer’s whip. The horse at least must surely be terrified.

Biting the dust: A stunt man gets dragged in a scene from the indie film Atanasia
Yet again, though, there are controversial practices on show closer to home. In America, a cultural tradition as deep-rooted as the rodeo is under fire from animal rights groups. Stock events like bull and bronco riding and steer wrestling may look innocuous to many – more likely to cause harm to man than beast – but critics maintain rodeos are cruel to the animals involved.

Yee-haw: Steer wrestling rodeo events in full swing

Such flak is nothing new for rodeos – though conditions have improved, with vets now present at all rodeos and competitors in general said to provide decent care to the animals they work with. Even so, there is concern among some animal welfare organisations about the use of metal or electric cattle prods and tail-twisting, while others simply oppose all rodeos and rodeo events full stop.

Catching air: Bucking bronco at the Georgia National Rodeo, one of the biggest
Again, it’s a tricky area, not simplified by popular misconceptions such as the idea that bucking broncos are wild, terrified animal – when in actual fact they aren’t feral but have learned to buck off their riders. The question may be a deeper, philosophical one. Is coercing animals into performing activities for our entertainment inherently cruel? But if it were to be stopped, where would the line be drawn?

Tags: Notorious Zoo, Circus, Roots, Wrestlers, Wrestling, movie star, The Ring

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Amazing moment Daredevil stunt performs by high priest father 80ft above ground without a safety net

A priest performed a dangerous tight-rope stunt with no safety equipment 80ft above ground after a last minute hitch in plans for his charity fundraiser.

Father Jerome Lloyd was supposed to be carried along the rope on the back of a circus performer in scenes reminiscent of Frenchman Charles Blondin in 1859.

Blondin made it across a high-wire suspended 160ft above the Niagara Falls with his manager on his back.

Unfortunately, Father Lloyd's stunt had to be adapted at the last minute after professional tight-rope walker Chico Marinhos was unable to lift the 12.5st priest.



Father Lloyd said Zippos Circus performer Marinhos was unable to stand up once he was on his shoulders as he had nothing to lever himself up with upon the Big Top.

Father Lloyd, who was raising money for charity, said there was nothing else they could do other than for him to walk across the rope himself by holding on to Marinhos' shoulders as he crossed it in front of him.

He said of the stunt in Hove, East Sussex: 'It did actually feel fine. I wasn't really at all nervous as I'm not scared of heights.



'The only thing I was concerned about was that I would make Chico nervous.'

Father Lloyd, 43, a missionary priest from the National Catholic Apostolic Church, carried out the stunt wearing his traditional soutane and saturno.

He was raising money for the Sussex Beacon charity, which provides specialist care and support for people living with HIV.

In June Columbian Marinhos carried out another of Blondin's stunts by walking the high-wire and cooking himself an omelette halfway across.

Zippos Circus is at Hove Lawns in Hove until August 23.

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