Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit
Philippe Petitis a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, on the morning of August 7, 1974. For his unauthorized feat1,350 feetabove the ground, he rigged a 450-poundcable and used a custom-made 26-footlong, 55-poundbalancing pole. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire. The following week, he celebrated his 25th birthday. All charges were dismissed in exchange for him doing a...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPerformance Artist
Date of Birth13 August 1949
CityNemours, France
CountryFrance
If a leaf fell from a tree, I'd stop juggling and play with the leaf. I went to my prop bag and got a little bandage and stuck the leaf back on the tree. People loved it.
Many people use the words 'death defying' or 'death wishing' when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me: 'So do you have a death wish?' After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them in the nose. It's indecent. I have a life wish.
It is very normal for people on the ground to look at somebody apparently walking in midair and thinking first that person is crazy and thinking secondly that person risks his or her life.
What I think tailors the creativity of most people are the rules that we learn from the age we are very small - in school, our parents.
The practical answer is, no it would be totally impossible for young or foreign people to get access to roof of a building that stands in the heart of a giant city and to put a cable across.
You can always find a way to do something. Now, of course, when I do the action, it's an action that inspires people, it's a gift to people, it's not the other way around, I do not take something, I do not hurt people. Yes, I think today would be more than impossible and yet part of me would think that I continue to think that nothing is impossible.
When a loved one disappears, you continue to live with the accompaniment of that person. One has to find a balance between joy and sorrow.
It would be very, very dangerous for a wire walker to experience fear while he is balancing on the wire. Fear has its place on earth, before and maybe after a high-wire walk, but not during for me.
I started very early, from five or six years old, to climb. To climb trees, to climb rocks everywhere I could. At some point, of course, I used a rope.
An intellectual challenge presents itself? I am in bliss. Instantly, it brings forth the notion of triumph.
Everybody wanted me to be rich and famous on my art. And I said no to all the commercials and all the seedy offers.
I've been arrested many times for illegal high wire walking and illegal street performing.
I wanted all my life to give my world into other arts - books, plays, movies - but I didn't want to sell out.
I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.