Wire-Walker Stopped When He Was 66

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30534, 1 September 1964, Page 18

Wire-Walker Stopped When He Was 66

Three wire-walkers and acrobats appearing in “The Roaring 20’s” at the Majestic Theatre are using skills taught them by a man who stopped wire-walking only when he was 66,

All Germans, they are the pupils of Richard Feller, of Leipzig. Mr Feller carries with him circus programmes from before World War I showing him and his younger brother and two sisters performing on the wire. In those days the girls carried parasols and the men rode a tandem. Today the girl in the act, Doris Dudopp, wears a leotard

and the two men ride a motor-cycle on a moving wire. However, the motorcycle was ioo heavy to bring on tour and the showpiece of their act in Christchurch is a see-saw which straddles the wire and bounces little Heinz Schwemer high in the air to land on Gerhard Gudopp’s shoulders. “Maybe that’s why I’m so short,” said Mr Gudopp after rehearsal yesterday. He joined Mr Feller’s troupe in 1945 when Mr Feller was still a wire-walker himself. Now 72, Mr Feller stopped wirewalking at 66. Heinz Schwemer joined the act in 1957, and Doris Gudopp made up the trio three years ago. She and Gerhard were married in Tokyo nine months ago.