Karl Wallenda was born near Magdeburg, Germany, the son of Englebert Wallenda, a trapeze artist and animal trainer, and Kunigunde Jameson, a dancer and slack wire artiste. A fourth-generation performer, Karl spent his childhood traveling with the Wallenda Circus, his father's arena show, and after his parents divorced, the Grotefent Circus, his mother and stepfather's arena show.
He learned the basic skills of an acrobat and became a master balancer. By the time he was ten, Wallenda had developed his own handstand and balancing act, which he performed in the beer halls of Magdeburg throughout World War I to help support his mother and younger stepsiblings. Wallenda obtained his formal education by attending what he estimated to be 160 different schools between 1911 and 1920, as his family's arena show rarely stayed in the same town for more than two weeks.
Following World War I, Wallenda was employed as a coal miner, the only noncircus job he ever held. In 1921, he answered an ad placed by funambulist Louis Weitzmann for a young handstander. From Weitzmann, Wallenda learned to walk the high wire. During the eight months they worked together, their trademark trick consisted of Weitzmann's performing a headstand on the wire while Wallenda did a handstand on Weitzmann's feet. They also performed a number of publicity skywalks above natural and man-made spans. By 1925, Wallenda had formed the nucleus of his own high wire troupe, the Great Wallendas, and had added the high pole to the list of aerial acts he could perform. Under Karl's direction, the original four-member troupe made high wire pyramids their trademark. By 1947, the year they premiered the three-tiered, seven-man pyramid, the Great Wallendas had expanded to twenty-three members capable of performing seven different aerial acts. In about 1940, Wallenda became a naturalized American citizen. Wallenda performed with a number of German circuses including the Circus Malve, Circus Strassburger, Circus Gleich, and his own Wallenda Circus, prior to receiving a contract with the Cuban Circo Santos y Artegas in 1927. While working in Havana that year, the Great Wallendas' performance was seen by the American John Ringling, who offered them a one-year contract with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Wallenda planned on returning to Europe at the end of that first season. Instead, his troupe remained with Ringling Brothers for sixteen out of the next eighteen seasons, increasing in size as Wallenda persuaded family members to come to the United States and work with him. More than thirty men and women walked the high wire with Wallenda during his career, and at least two-thirds of them were members of his family. Wallenda, who believed the true circus artiste always created his own routines, took his stunts one step beyond what was considered the ordinary realm of possibility. He conceived his famous seven-man, three-tiered pyramid during the winter of 1938 and spent the next eight years assembling a crew willing to attempt the dangerous trick. In 1946, Wallenda presented the idea to John Ringling North, who felt it was too dangerous and refused to support him. At the end of that season, Karl and his troupe left Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and began work on what he referred to as "the world's greatest high wire achievement, " the seven-man pyramid. Once the trick was perfected, circuses clamored to book the Great Wallendas. In order to support his twenty-three member troupe, Karl created six additional aerial acts for them to perform. With so many acts at his disposal, Karl decided to open Circus Wallenda, a one-ring, European-style spectacle with aerial and ground acrobatics, clowning, big cats, and a baby elephant, to tour the United States. Circus Wallenda worked winter dates in Florida before opening its touring season in January 1947. Twelve months later it closed in debt. During the next dozen years, Wallenda managed to book the seven-man pyramid in a number of circuses, performing it without mishap until Jan. 30, 1962. During that afternoon's performance at a Shrine Circus in Detroit, Karl's nephew Dieter Schepp lost control of his balance pole and fell to the arena floor, pulling two other troupe members off the wire with him and leaving the rest of the troupe clinging to the wire. The accident resulted in the deaths of Schepp and Richard Faughan, Wallenda's son-in-law, and in the paralysis of Wallenda's adopted son, Mario. The Great Wallendas performed the pyramid only three more times, at Ft. Worth in 1963, for the DuPont Show, and in 1977 for the NBC movie The Great Wallendas. Each time film crews recorded the feat. In 1966, Karl attempted to retire from the high wire but, convinced that "the rest of life is just time to fill in between doing the act, " he kept getting lured back for "one final walk. " During the 1970's he performed a number of skywalks across a variety of natural and man-made spans, including Tallulah Gorge in Georgia, the Houston Astrodome, Philadelphia Stadium, Maryland's Capital Center, and London's Clapham Commons. In 1978, while walking between two hotels in San Juan, P. R. , Wallenda fell 120 feet to his death.
Wallenda married Martha Schepp, a ballerina who did not perform in his troupe, in 1927, shortly before the birth of their daughter and the troupe's first foreign tour. After his divorce in 1934, Wallenda married Helen Kreis, the troupe's top-mounter, on July 18, 1935. They had a daughter and adopted a son. All three of Karl's children, and later his grandchildren, followed him on to the high wire.
