Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on the morning of 7 August 1974.
33 Facts About Philippe Petit
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Philippe Petit performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire.
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Since then, Petit has lived in New York, where he has been artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, a location of other aerial performances.
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Philippe Petit has done wire walking as part of official celebrations in New York, across the United States, and in France and other countries, as well as teaching workshops on the art.
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In 2008, Man on Wire, a documentary directed by James Marsh about Philippe Petit's walk between the towers, won numerous awards including the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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Philippe Petit was the subject of a children's book and an animated adaptation of it, released in 2005.
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The Walk, a film based on Philippe Petit's walk, was released in September 2015, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit and directed by Robert Zemeckis.
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Philippe Petit became adept at equestrianism, juggling, fencing, carpentry, rock-climbing, and bullfighting.
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Philippe Petit was born in Nemours, Seine-et-Marne, France; his father Edmond Philippe Petit was an author and an Army Pilot.
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Philippe Petit loved to climb, and at 16, he took his first steps on a tightrope wire.
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In June 1971, Philippe Petit secretly installed a cable between the two towers of Notre Dame de Paris.
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Philippe Petit became known to New Yorkers in the early 1970s for his frequent tightrope-walking performances and magic shows in the city parks, especially Washington Square Park.
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Philippe Petit performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and saluted watchers from a kneeling position.
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Philippe Petit conceived his "coup" when he was 18, when he first read about the proposed construction of the Twin Towers and saw drawings of the project in a magazine he read in 1968 while sitting at a dentist's office.
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Philippe Petit was seized by the idea of performing there, and began collecting articles on the Towers whenever he could.
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Philippe Petit traveled to New York on numerous occasions to make first-hand observations.
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Philippe Petit took note of the clothing of office workers so that some of his collaborators could pose as white-collar workers.
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Philippe Petit observed what time the workers arrived and left, so he could determine when he would have roof access.
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Philippe Petit had already identified points at which to anchor two tiranti to other points to stabilize the cable and keep the swaying of the wire to a minimum.
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Philippe Petit performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and knelt to salute watchers.
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Philippe Petit said later that he could hear their murmuring and cheers.
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The district attorney dropped all formal charges of trespassing and other items relating to his walk on condition that Philippe Petit give a free aerial show for children in Central Park.
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Philippe Petit performed on a high-wire walk in the park above Belvedere Lake.
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Philippe Petit autographed a steel beam close to the point where he began his walk.
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Philippe Petit's high-wire walk is credited with bringing the Twin Towers much-needed attention and even affection, as they initially had been unpopular.
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On stage with Marsh to accept the Oscar award, Philippe Petit made a coin vanish in his hands while thanking the Academy "for believing in magic".
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Philippe Petit has made dozens of public high-wire performances in his career.
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Philippe Petit briefly headlined with the Ringling Brothers Circus, but preferred staging his own performances.
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Philippe Petit says he has never fallen during a performance.
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Philippe Petit regularly gives lectures and workshops internationally on a variety of topics and subjects.
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Philippe Petit single-handedly built a barn in the Catskill Mountains using the methods and tools of 18th-century timber framers.
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Philippe Petit has created an ebook for TED Books, entitled Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist.
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Philippe Petit divides his time between New York City, where he is an artist in residence at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and a hideaway in the Catskill Mountains.