10 Most Bizarre Ways To Become Famous

Thanks to 2008’s award-winning documentary film Man on Wire and last year’s The Walk, a fictionalised dramatisation of the events of August 7th 1974 starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and directed by Robert Zemeckis, Philippe Petit is far better known today than he was forty-two years.

For those of you who’ve been living in a hole in the ground, Phillippe Petit is a French high-wire artist, who, at the age of twenty-four, became famous for walking on a high-wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The unauthorised stunt was developed and undertaken much as heist experts would conduct a casino robbery (I know things. I’ve seen both good Ocean’s Eleven films, and about half of the !*$% one) - guerilla style. A 450lb cable was rigged between the two buildings 1,350 feet above the ground, and a 26 foot balancing pole used for the feat. Not content with making a single trip, Petit walked back and forth along the wire, spending 45 minutes in the air and making eight passes along the tightrope.

The performance - because that’s what it was, an artistic performance - drew far more admiration than it did official condemnation. Although charges were brought to bear, Petit arranged with the authorities that they would be dropped provided that he delivered a performance for the children of the city in Central Park, which he was very happy to do.

So deeply did the performance affect him that Petit moved to New York, where he’s lived ever since. He’s been the artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and performed on the high-wire all across the world, teaching others the art as he did so.

Not content with learning just one hard-to-master skill, over the years the man has also become an expert horseman, fencer, rock-climber, carpenter and bull-fighter. That’s Philippe Petit: making everyone else look lazy and spineless since 1974.