The circus has always been a place to showcase remarkable and unimaginable skills. Perhaps one of the most unusual stunts performed was achieved in the early 1900s by Alexandre Patty, the man who walked on his head.
Patty and his brother Felix were acrobats in France—students in the Paris Latin Quarter—when, as one newspaper put it, Alexandre shared “his ability to reverse the order of nature by walking upside down.”
“At first it hurt some,” he told reporters in 1905 while still in Paris, “and then I thought I would give it up. But I stuck to it and it doesn’t hurt anymore and I don’t know what a headache is.”
Patty, as seen in the images here, used no head protection and did not cover the stairs with any padding, aside from a thin carpet. He noted that any cushioning would throw off his balance. He practiced for three years before debuting the act in front of an audience in June 1904. Alexandre may have had help from his father, John, who was also a gymnast and specialized in feet juggling and head balancing.
Patty’s acrobatic stunt, which began atop a twelve-foot table and led down nine 8-inch steps, generated excitement around campus and news quickly spread of his strange talent. He soon cashed in on it, particularly with a Ringling Bros. Circus booking in 1907 to perform across America.
With Ringling Bros., they presented “an exhibition of hand-balancing and acrobatic feats,” which was highlighted with Alexandre’s ability to walk “up and down a flight of steps on his head”—as seen in the photos above.
Among his other feats was drinking water while standing on his head and standing on his head on top of his brother’s head.
Though it’s not how most people use their head to earn money, it proved successful for Patty. By 1908, he reportedly earned “more money than the average metropolitan bank president.”
Billed as “The Man Who Walks on His Head,” Patty continued performing for decades around the world with the circus and in vaudeville. He was also featured in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
“It is one the most remarkable exhibitions of abnormal physical accomplishments I have ever seen,” said a Minneapolis physician after witnessing the act in 1905.
Acrobats have always pushed the limits of what the human body is capable of, but Patty’s astonishing feat has yet to be duplicated or expanded upon.
