She was born Lillian Ossage, but the name the world came to know her by was Lillian La France — a name she chose herself when she entered the world of motorcycling. That choice said everything about who she was. She didn’t inherit her daring. She built it from scratch, on her own terms, far from the quiet life she left behind in Kansas.
In 1916, Lillian ran away from Kansas to join a traveling carnival. She was young, restless, and driven by what she later called a lifelong wanderlust. Carnivals in that era were full of performers willing to risk injury for a crowd’s applause, and Lillian fit right in. She didn’t just watch the action — she became the action.
By the 1920s, she had established herself as one of the very few female stunt riders working in the United States. She was billed as the world’s top female stunt rider, a title backed up by real skill and real nerve. She rode motorcycles and drove four-wheel vehicles with equal confidence, making her a rare double threat in the world of carnival performance.
The centerpiece of her act was the Wall of Death — a cylindrical wooden structure, often called a silo-motordrome at the time, where riders would race their motorcycles horizontally along the inside walls at high speed. Centrifugal force kept the bike pinned to the wall, and one mistake meant a violent fall. Crowds packed the viewing platforms above, looking straight down at the riders circling below.
Lillian began riding the Wall of Death when she was 30 years old, in 1924. She performed under her skull and crossbones logo, a fitting symbol for a woman who described herself plainly as “the girl who flirts with death.” In her own words: “It was the thrill of risking my life that made me take to drome riding.”
She didn’t stop at motorcycles. Lillian became the first person to drive a scaled-down midget car up the wall of a motordrome. This was a major technical challenge. A car’s wider wheelbase and heavier frame made the stunt far more difficult to execute than a motorcycle run. She pulled it off, adding another first to her name.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she was one of the most recognized female Wall of Death performers in the country. Female riders were rare in this field. The physical demands were extreme, the danger was constant, and the culture of the time pushed women away from this kind of work. Lillian ignored all of that.
She spoke openly about her motivations. “From childhood, I was inspired by wanderlust,” she said. “I was always alone, dreaming of adventures — how to ride a pony out West, to follow my calling to fame. This was my secret. I shared it with no one.” Those words point to someone who had mapped out a different kind of life long before she ever threw a leg over a motorcycle.
The Wall of Death drew massive crowds during the carnival circuit’s peak years. Spectators paid to lean over the railing and watch riders defy gravity just feet below them. The noise was deafening, the smell of exhaust filled the air, and the riders never slowed down. For Lillian, that environment wasn’t a nightmare — it was home.
Her decision to change her last name to La France marked the moment she fully committed to this life. It separated her from the girl in Kansas and announced the performer she intended to become. Stage names were common in carnival culture, but hers carried a specific weight — it was the name of a woman who had chosen speed, risk, and spectacle over convention.
Riding the Wall of Death was not a casual skill. Riders had to maintain a precise speed to keep the bike from sliding down the vertical surface. Too slow, and gravity wins. The walls of a standard motordrome were completely vertical, offering no banking or incline to assist. Every lap was a calculated physical act.
Lillian performed this act repeatedly, show after show, at carnivals across the country. The traveling nature of carnival life meant constant movement — new towns, new crowds, and the same dangerous cylinder waiting to be ridden. She lived out the wanderlust she had described dreaming about as a child.
She wore her skull and crossbones branding with purpose. It wasn’t just decoration. It told the audience exactly what kind of show they were about to see. Death was not a metaphor in her act — it was a real possibility built into every performance, and she leaned into that reality rather than downplaying it.
The midget car achievement stood out even among the many things she accomplished. Driving a four-wheeled vehicle on the vertical wall required adapting an entirely different machine to a stunt built around motorcycles. No woman — and very few performers of any kind — had attempted it before her. She did it first.
Lillian La France operated at the intersection of extreme athleticism, showmanship, and raw courage. She rode professionally during two full decades when female stunt performers were almost nonexistent, building a reputation that made her one of the most popular acts of her era.
She ran away from Kansas at a time when few women had the means or the nerve to step outside the life expected of them. What she found on the other side was a vertical wooden wall, a roaring engine, and crowds watching from above — exactly the adventure she had kept secret since childhood.
