Aerialist Carla Wallenda dies at 85

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Carla Wallenda, a member of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act and the last surviving child of the famed troupe’s founder, has died at the age of 85.

Her son, Rick Wallenda, said on social media she died Saturday in Sarasota, Fla., of natural causes. She was the daughter of Karl Wallenda, who had founded the troupe in Germany before moving to the United States in 1928 to great acclaim. She was the aunt of aerialist Nik Wallenda.

Carla Wallenda was born on Feb. 13, 1936, and appeared in a newsreel in 1939 as she learned how to walk the wire, with her father and mother, Mati, looking on.

She spent her younger years traveling the country as her father’s troupe performed in the Ringling Bros. circus. She had a brother, Mario, and a sister, Jenny — all performed in the act.

She began appearing in the family’s show in 1947, but not on the high wire at first, according to her biography on the family’s website. In 1951, her father told her she could join the high-wire act if she could do a headstand on top of the family’s seven-person pyramid. She was able to join the high-wire act later that year.

Her husband, Richard Guzman, died in 1972 when he fell 60 feet during a performance in West Virginia. Her father died in 1978, falling while walking a wire across a street in Puerto Rico.

Still, she would not be deterred from performing.

“Accidents can happen anyplace,” she told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2014. “I have to make a living and this is the only way I know or want to.”