From the first-ever Hollywood stuntwoman to the first lady of drag racing, these seven intrepid women stunned audiences with their death-defying feats. With their gutsy performances in traditionally male-dominated fields, they’re known for breaking barriers, setting records—and getting our adrenaline pumping.
Helen Gibson: Rodeo Performer & Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman
Born Rose Wenger in Cleveland, Ohio, Gibson joined a Wild West show in 1910, at the age of 18, learning to pick up a handkerchief from the ground while riding a galloping horse. In the show’s off-season, she started working in silent films and rode in Los Angeles rodeos, where she met and married cowboy Hoot Gibson. At the time, men in drag typically performed stunts for female actors, but Gibson became the first-ever professional Hollywood stuntwoman when she doubled (and later replaced) Helen Holmes in the long-running serial Hazards of Helen, performing such feats as leaping from the roof of a building onto the top of a moving train car (a stunt she would call her most dangerous). Her star power had dimmed by the 1920s, but Gibson did bit parts and stunt-double work in Hollywood for three more decades, appearing in her last film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, in 1962.
READ MORE: What Are the Most Insanely Daring Stunts Since Evel Knievel?
Lillian La France: Motorcycle Stunt Racer
Around 1916, young Agnes Micek fled her conservative Catholic family in Kansas to join a traveling carnival. After reinventing herself as Lillian La France, she started racing motorcycles and four-wheeled vehicles in the so-called Wall of Death motordrome attraction in 1924. As one of the most popular stunt-motorcycle riders—male or female—in the 1920s and ’30s, she wore aviator goggles, jodhpurs and a jersey with a skull-and-crossbones design, and was known as “The Girl Who Flirts with Death.” In 1998, La France was the subject of a documentary film, Advice to Adventurous Girls.
Rosa Richter, a.k.a. 'Zazel': Human Cannonball
In April 1877, while performing at the Royal Aquarium in London, 14-year-old Rosa Richter climbed into the spring-powered metal device patented by Canadian showman William Leonard Hunt, known as the Great Farini. In front of a large crowd, young “Zazel” was launched somewhere between 30 and 70 feet into the air (estimates vary), becoming the first-ever human cannonball. An accomplished aerial acrobat and tightrope walker—and sometime opera singer—Zazel went on to perform in P.T. Barnum’s circus, and later in Barnum & Bailey, appearing in France and the United States. Her death-defying career ended in 1891, after she fell and broke her back while performing in New Mexico.
READ MORE: 7 Death-Defying Historic American Daredevils
Debbie Lawler: 'Queen of the Motorcycle Jumpers'
When Debbie Lawler broke an Evel Knievel motorcycle-jumping record in February 1974, at the age of 21, the American press was riveted. While there had been a handful of women who raced motorcycles, there hadn’t been any female daredevils professionally jumping them—much less upstaging the brashest stunt rider of the era on national TV. Newspapers labeled her the “female Evel Knievel,” a “motorcycle madam” and “tigress on a cycle.” And they marveled at how such a petite, feminine former fashion model could engage in such a macho, danger-filled sport. “The crowd expects to see a 300-pound tattooed lady with chains hanging down her back,” Lawler told People magazine in 1974. “They don’t expect me.” Her February ‘74 stunt, broadcast live on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” earned Lawler a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records with a 101-foot leap over 16 Chevy pickup trucks, breaking Evel Knievel’s indoor jumping record of 15 cars. And while Knievel reclaimed the record not long after, the diminutive 5’ 2” Lawler became a cause célèbre, billed as “the flying angel” and the “queen of motorcycle jumpers.” Even after she crash-landed a record 140-foot jump at Ontario Motor Speedway in March ‘74, breaking her back in three places, she continued to perform, inspire and produce daredevil shows of her own. Later that year, toymaker Kenner Products produced the Debbie Lawler Daredevil Jump Set to inspire young girls; it’s now a collectors’ item.
READ MORE: Evel Knievel's Last Jump: What Made Him Quit?
Kitty O’Neil: Racer & Stuntwoman
Though an illness robbed Kitty O’Neil of her hearing as a infant, she didn’t let it slow her down; instead, she embraced her love of speed by racing motorcycles, speed boats and rocket-fueled cars. In the 1970s, she started working as a Hollywood stuntwoman, performing daredevil feats in movies as well as on TV shows like The Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman. In late 1976, O’Neil set a new women’s land-speed record, driving the SMI Motivator, a three-wheeled, rocket-powered vehicle, at speeds averaging 512 m.p.h. (and at times topping 600 m.p.h.) in Oregon’s Alvord Desert. She wanted to go for the overall land-speed record as well, but was prevented by the vehicle’s manufacturer, who had contracted with a male stunt driver. At the time O’Neil died in 2018 at the age of 72, she was still the “world’s fastest woman.”
Shirley Muldowney: Drag Racer
Shirley Roque embraced the newly popular sport of drag racing in the late 1950s, as a teenager in Schenectady, New York, where she met and married local hot rodder Jack Muldowney. While the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) dragged its heels in letting her compete in its elite events, Shirley racked up amateur victories, finally becoming the first woman to race in the “Top Gas” category in 1968. Muldowney continued advancing through the NHRA ranks despite widespread opposition, surviving several car fires and a serious crash in 1984, when the front tire on her dragster failed at an event in Montreal, causing her to hit a wall at over 250 mph. Undaunted, the “First Lady of Drag Racing” (also known as “Cha Cha”) recovered to race again, winning her 18th NHRA event in 1989. After four decades of competition, Muldowney retired in 2003.
READ MORE: What Drove Evel Knievel to Keep Battering His Body?
Debbie Evans: Motorcycle Racer & Hollywood Stunt Woman
Born and raised in California, Evans began riding motorcycles at the age of six. As a teenager in the late 1970s, she was the best female motorcycle trials rider in the country. Her fearless skill on her bike earned Evans her first stunt role at 19, jumping a motorcycle over a 30-foot ravine in the movie Deathsport (1978). She would go on to do stunt work in more than 200 movies and TV shows, including The Fast and the Furious franchise, in which Evans (doubling for star Michelle Rodriguez) drove a Honda Civic under a moving semi-truck, among many other thrilling feats. In 1998, after 18 years away from competitive motorcycling, Evans returned to compete at the first Women’s Trials World Championship, finishing eighth. She was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2003.
