Kitty O'Neill: Why a Google Doodle is celebrating the stuntwoman's 77th birthday today
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The doodle, illustrated by deaf Washington DC-based artist Mia Tjiang, shows a silhouette of O'Neill standing in front of a rocket-powered car in a racing outfit and jumping from a helicopter with Kitty O'Neill preparing to jump Google from one. A helicopter during a photo shoot of Wonder Woman (Image: Getty)
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Today's Google Doodle celebrates American stunt performer Kitty O'Neill on her 77th birthday.
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The doodle, illustrated by deaf Washington D.C.-based artist Mia Tjiang, shows O'Neill in racing gear standing in front of a rocket-powered car and a silhouette of him jumping from a helicopter.
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O'Neill himself was deaf from childhood, when he was only a few months old when he contracted a fever.
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She once held the title of "World's Fastest Woman" when she broke the former women's land-speed record by nearly 200mph. Here's everything you need to know about him.
Who was Kitty O'Neill?
O'Neil was born on this day in 1946 in Corpus Christi, Texas. His father was an officer in the United States Army Air Force, and he died in a plane crash at a young age. His mother was a native Cherokee.
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By the age of two it was clear that O'Neill had become deaf due to a childhood illness, and so his mother taught him to speak and read lips. This led to her mother becoming a speech therapist.
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O'Neill's bold side emerged when he was young. He competed in the 10m platform and 3m springboard diving as a teenager and was denied a chance to compete for a place in the 1964 Olympics when he broke his wrist and contracted spinal meningitis.
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This led him to focus on more extreme sports, including water skiing, skydiving and hang gliding, and helped him transition to a career in stunts and racing.
O'Neill's stunt career
In the 70s O'Neil began competing in motorsport events including the off-road Baja 500 in Mexico and the Mint 400 in Las Vegas.
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While racing he met stuntmen including Hal Needham and Dar Robinson. She decided to become a stunt performer herself and in 1976 secured a role with Stunts Unlimited, the leading US agency - becoming the first woman to do so.
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O'Neill worked as a stunt double in films and TV series, including The Bionic Woman (1976), Wonder Woman (1977–1979), and The Blues Brothers (1980). His career inspired Mattel to produce an action figure of him in 1978.
While filming for Wonder Woman, O'Neill set the record for the tallest free-fall by a woman by leaping 39m from the 12-story Valley Hilton in Sherman Oaks, California. He later broke that record by falling 55 meters from a helicopter.
O'Neil's most notable achievement came in 1976, when she broke the women's land speed record by driving a rocket car called the "SMI Motivator" to a speed of 512.7mph.
He wanted to break the overall record - and indeed the car was capable, with a top speed possibly exceeding 700mph. However, sponsors wanted Needham to break the record to promote an upcoming action figure and prevented O'Neill from going faster. Needham never actually drove, and the action figures never sold due to the negative publicity surrounding the decision, but O'Neill was still not allowed to try to break the record.
A biopic about O'Neil's life, titled Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story, was released in 1979.
He died of pneumonia in November 2018 in Eureka, South Dakota at the age of 72.
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