13 Facts About Con Colleano

Con Colleano 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.

Con Colleano was known as "The Wizard of the Wire" or "The Toreador of the Wire".

Con Colleano was born Cornelius Sullivan in Lismore, New South Wales on 26 December 1899, the son of Cornelius Sullivan, and Julia Vittorine Sullivan, nee Robinson, a woman of partial Bundjalung descent, whose father was an Afro-Caribbean man from St Thomas in the Danish West Indies.

Con Colleano's father made a precarious living from sideshow "take-on-all-comers" boxing and gambling.

Around 1907, when Colleano was seven years old, the family settled in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, then a newly established opal mining field and a fertile ground for the father's talents.

In 1919, Con Colleano managed to achieve the foot-to-foot forward somersault he had been attempting for some time and which was destined to secure his subsequent career.

Con Colleano's siblings appeared at The Tiv as "Eight Akabar Arabs".

Con Colleano's act now involved well-executed bullfighting movements in the ring, Spanish dance moves on the wire, and in conclusion, the dangerous forward somersault.

Into the 1940s Colleano continued performing in the US and appeared on television on the Texaco Star Theater in 1952.

Con and Winnie had no children; Con was the uncle of American actor Bonar Colleano and the great-uncle of American actor Jack Stehlin.

Con Colleano died at his home in Miami in 1973 survived by Winnie who later returned to Australia.

Con Colleano's father was white; his mother the daughter of a West Indian father and part-Aboriginal mother.

In South Africa, Con Colleano first used his Spanish toreador act; to identify as an Australian or being of African descent would likely have proven unhelpful at the box office.