25 Tightrope walkers

S Bannister was an early British equestrian performer and tightrope walker.

Barbette was an American female impersonator, high-wire performer, and trapeze artist born in Texas on December 19, 1898. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Berta Beeson (1899–1969) was the stage name of Herbert "Slats" Beeson, a cross-dressing circus performer known as "The Julian Eltinge of the Wire."

Charles Blondin was a French tightrope walker and acrobat. He toured the United States and was known for crossing the 1,100 ft (340 m) Niagara Gorge on a tightrope.

Gisela Antonia Brož (Brosch), also sometimes referred to as Gisela Madigan, was an Austrian-American circus performer, tightrope dancer, and clown. Her parents were shoemaker Joseph Brož and his wife Maria. She went to convent school in Siebenbürgen and at the age of 15 she got to know the Madigan circus family, including John and Laura, who at that time toured with Circus Krembser in Vienna. Gisela became their foster child and got to learn tightrope dancing, along with the couple's two-year-younger daughter Elvira Madigan, on the slack wire.

Harry M. Colcord was the manager of the distinguished stuntman Charles Blondin, most famous for being possibly the first person to go across the Niagara Falls by piggyback on another person, in this case Blondin, on August 17, 1859. He was from Chicago.

Con Colleano was an Australian tightrope walker. He was the first person to successfully attempt a forward somersault on a tightrope and became one of the most celebrated and highly paid circus performers of his time. He was known as "The Wizard of the Wire" or "The Toreador of the Wire".

David Dimitri is an internationally acclaimed tightrope acrobat who has been praised for his unique style.

Richard Ellis was a British-Maltese photographer who was one of the pioneers of photography in Malta during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in St.Luke's, East London, he travelled throughout Europe as a circus performer before settling down in Malta at the age of nineteen. Within a few years he had opened a studio in Valletta, and he became a renowned photographer. His archive of tens of thousands of photographs still exists, and his work is significant for both its historic value and technical quality. His work is now in the public domain according to the law of Malta.

Pablo Fanque was a British equestrian performer and circus proprietor, the first recorded non-white British circus owner in Britain. His circus was popular in Victorian Britain for 30 years, a period that is regarded as the golden age of the circus.

Henri L'Estrange, known as the Australian Blondin, was an Australian successful funambulist and accident prone aeronautical balloonist. Modelling himself on the famous French wire-walker Charles Blondin, L'Estrange performed a number of tightrope walks in the 1870s, culminating in three walks across Sydney's Middle Harbour in 1877. He remains the only tightrope performer ever to have walked across a part of Sydney Harbour. L'Estrange was an early balloonist, and attempted a series of flights in the early 1880s – one being successful, one ending in Australia's first emergency parachute descent, and the last culminating in a massive fireball causing property damage, personal injury and a human stampede. He tried to return to his original career of tightrope walking but, with new forms of entertainment, humiliating falls and other Blondin imitators, he found success elusive. Public benefits were held in his honour to recoup financial losses and he dabbled in setting up amusement rides but ultimately he faded from public attention and was last recorded to be living in Fitzroy, Victoria in 1894.

William Leonard Hunt, also known by the stage name The Great Farini, was a well-known nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canadian funambulist, entertainment promoter and inventor, as well as the first known white man to cross the Kalahari Desert on foot and survive. He also published under the name Guillermo Antonio Farini.

Jade Kindar-Martin is a highwire walker and circus performer.

Friedrich Paul Kühne is a German slackliner and multiple highline world record holder best known for numerous first free solo crossings of some of the world's tallest and most renowned highlines. He is also credited with the invention of various acrobatic highline tricks.

Andy Lewis, is a professional performer and speaker, stunt/safety coordinator, Tandem BASE jump master, slackliner, and internationally recognized extreme sports athlete. Lewis started a Tandem BASE Jumping Company in 2018 called “BASE Jump Moab,” and is currently running it professionally. Lewis is most famous for his efforts as a slackliner. Lewis has completed numerous accomplishments as a highliner and trickliner, and is also a distinguished BASE jumper and rock climber. He has created new "slack" vocabulary, new slackline disciplines, and is an ambassador to the sport.

Elvira Madigan, artist name for Hedvig Antoinette Isabella Eleonore Jensen, was a circus performer.

Bird Millman O’Day was one of the most celebrated high-wire performers of all time. During the “Golden Age of the American Circus,” she was a premiere attraction with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Didier Pasquette is a noted French tightrope walker.

Stephen Peer (1840-1887) was a tightrope walker who, though he completed the feat successfully many times, fell to his death while walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 1971, Sydney harbour bridge as well as his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, on the morning of 7 August 1974. For his unauthorized feat 400 metres above the ground – which he referred to as "le coup" – he rigged a 200-kilogram (440-pound) cable and used a custom-made 8-metre (30-foot) long, 25-kilogram (55-pound) balancing pole. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire.

Madame Saqui was a noted French tightrope walker or "rope dancer." For a time she had her own theatre, which she had re-decorated. She continued to perform into her seventies. In her day, she was something of a celebrity and is mentioned in the novel Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Maria Spelterini was an Italian tightrope walker who was the only woman to cross the Niagara gorge on a tightrope, which she did on July 8, 1876 as part of a celebration of the U.S. Centennial. She used two and a quarter inch wire and crossed just north of the lower suspension bridge. She crossed again on July 12, 1876, this time wearing peach baskets strapped to her feet. She crossed blindfolded on July 19, and on July 22 she crossed with her ankles and wrists manacled.

Karl Wallenda was a German-American high wire artist and founder of The Flying Wallendas, a daredevil circus act which performed dangerous stunts, often without a safety net. He was the great-grandfather of current performer Nik Wallenda.

Nikolas Wallenda is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feats, but was best known as the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls. Wallenda walked 1,800 feet on a steel cable over Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, his longest walk, on March 4, 2020.

Marietta Zanfretta was an Italian tightrope dancer who found success in the United States. One of the greatest female tight-rope dancers in the world, she was known for performing en pointe on the tightrope, a rare feat.