BLONDIN

born Feb. 28, 1824, Hesdin, France died Feb. 22, 1897, Little Ealing, near London, Eng. pseudonym of Jean-Franois Gravelet French tightrope walker and acrobat who owed his celebrity and fortune to his feat of crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope 1,100 feet (335 m) long, 160 feet above the water. When he was five years old he was sent to the cole de Gymnase at Lyon, and after six months' training as an acrobat he made his first public appearance as the Little Wonder. He crossed Niagara Falls a number of times, first in 1859, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, and sitting down midway to cook an omelette. In 1861 he appeared in London at the Crystal Palace, turning somersaults on stilts on a rope stretched across the central transept, 170 feet (52 m) from the ground. His final performance was given at Belfast in 1896.