Bird Millman O’Day was one of the greatest high-wire performers of all time. She gained fame and drew audiences with the exploits she performed with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in the early decades of the 20th century. She grew up in Cañon City, Colorado, where she walked on a wire strung between fence posts to entertain the neighborhood children. She began performing with her parents, known as “The Millman Trio,” when she was three. She performed her first stunt on a pony. She then moved on to trapeze. At age 10, Bird gave her first solo wire performance after her father fell 40 feet from a wire and was treated for injuries at a hospital. Bird realized she was destined to be a wire walker.
Bird performed on a wire strung between opposite buildings on Broadway in New York City in 1917. She performed the stunt hundreds of feet above the audience to promote U.S. War Bonds. In addition to performing on circuses, she also appeared in silent films, such as ‘The Deep Purple (1920)’ and ‘The Law of the Yukon’ (1920)’. She performed in ‘The Ziegfeld Follies of 1916′,’ Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic of 1920′, and ‘The Greenwich Village Follies of 1921’.
In 1924, Bird married Boston millionaire Joseph O’Day. In 1929, Joseph O’Day lost his investments in the stock market crash and died in 1931. Bird, who suffered several injuries during her career, could no longer perform. Without money, she returned home to Cañon City and lived on a chicken farm with her mother. Bird Millman O’Day died of cancer in Cañon City, Colorado, on August 5, 1940, at age 49. Her mother donated one of Bird’s shoes to the Royal Gorge Regional Museum shortly after her death, still on display. On March 14, 1941, a newspaper article referred to it as the “shoe that danced around the world.”
Bird’s legacy is not forgotten in her hometown. A bronze sculpture is displayed at Coldwell Banker at Seventh and U.S. Fifty in Cañon City, and a painting of her is on display at the Cañon City Public Library. In 2002, local writer August Mergleman wrote, directed, and starred in the play “Bird Millman.”
