ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605060073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
Angel Wallenda, a member of the Flying Wallendas who continued to walk the high wire despite losing a leg to cancer, died of the disease Friday. She was 28.
Wallenda, who died at a hospital in Sayre, had married into the Wallenda family, the celebrated aerialists who followed the motto: ``Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.''
Her former husband, Steven, and their 9-year-old son, Steve Wallenda II, are the last direct descendants of modern-day patriarch ``Karl the Great,'' who fell to his death in 1978 from a cable strung between two hotels in Puerto Rico.
The Wallendas traced their high-wire heritage to the 1600s and were known for walking wires strung between skyscrapers, over canyons and between speeding cars.
Born Elizabeth Pintye to Hungarian immigrants, Wallenda was 17 when the dark, handsome Steven Wallenda picked her out of the crowd to assist at a performance. Weeks later, she became Angel Wallenda and joined her new husband on the high wire.
In 1987, she was diagnosed with bone cancer, and her right leg was amputated just below the knee. But she re-learned to walk the wire, inching along on her one good leg and an artificial limb.
Later, the cancer spread to her lungs, and doctors found it inoperable.
She was forced to quit after a final performance in 1990.
Her marriage broke up as her illness progressed.
They were divorced and she later remarried.
She is survived by her husband, Adil Shaikh, her son and a daughter.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB