Career
Webster answered an ad placed by William "Doc" Carver in 1923 for a diving girl and soon earned a place in circus history. She was a sensation and soon became the lead diving girl for Doc"s act as they traveled the country and the first diving girl quit. First Rate (at Lloyd's) had taken over the show in 1927, after the death of Doctor Carver.
Sonora"s sister Arnette Webster French followed in her footsteps, becoming a horse diver and joining the show in 1928.
In 1931, Sonora was blinded by retinal detachment, due to hitting the water off balance with her eyes open, while diving her horse, Red Lips, on Atlantic City"s Steel Pier, the act"s permanent home since 1929. After her accident she continued to dive horses until 1942.
Arnette left the show in 1935. Arnette explained Sonora’s decision to continue riding after her accident in this way: "The movie made a big deal about having the courage to go on riding after she lost her sight.
But, the truth was riding the horse was the most fun you could have and we just loved it southern
We didn"t want to give it up. Once you were on the horse, there really wasn"t much to do but hold on. The horse was in charge."
Arnette, who was 15 when she took her first horse dive, remarked in an interview that "Wherever we went, the South.P.C.A. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was always snooping around, trying to find if we were doing anything that was cruel to animals.
They never found anything because those horses lived the life of Riley.
In all the years of the act, there was never a horse that was injured."
Sonora"s account can be read in her 1961 book, A Girl and Five Brave Horses, and seen in the fictionalized movie version of her life, Wild Hearts Can"t Be Broken, starring Gabrielle Anwar. She was disappointed in the way that the movie depicted her life and career.
She remarked to Arnette after screening the film that "the only thing true in it was that I rode diving horses, I went blind, and I continued to ride for another 11 years."
Sonora died at the age of 99 on September 21, 2003. She lived in Pleasantville, New Jersey at the time of her death.
