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Sonora Webster Carver
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sonora Webster Carver (1904 in Waycross, Georgia - 21 September 2003 in New Jersey) was an American entertainer, most notable as the first female horse diver. Webster answered an ad placed by "Doc" William Frank Carver in 1924 for a diving girl and soon earned a place in circus history. Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower and sail down along the animal's back as it plunged into a deep pool of water directly below. Sonora was a sensation and soon became the lead diving girl for Doc Carver's act as they traveled the country.
Sonora fell in love with and married Carver's son, Al, who eventually took over the show in 1927, after the death of his father. It is said that Sonora's sister, Arnette, began diving in 1930 at the age of sixteen along with their friend, Josephine DeAngelis, who was, like Sonora, 23 years old when she took her first dive.
In 1931, Sonora was blinded (retinal detachment due to hitting the water off-balance) while diving her horse, Red Lips, on New Jersey's Steel Pier, the act's permanent home since 1928. She nonetheless continued to dive horses until 1942.
Sonora's account can be read in her 1961 book, A Girl and Five Brave Horses, and seen in the slightly fictionalized movie version of her life, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, starring Gabrielle Anwar.
She died at the age of 99 in New Jersey, on September 21, 2003.[1] She lived in Pleasantville, New Jersey at the time of her death.[2]
- ^ "Sonora Carver, 99, Whose Feats As a Horse Diver Inspired a Film", The New York Times, September 25, 2003. Accessed December 3, 2007.
- ^ Sims, Gayle Ronan. "Horse-diver Sonora Webster Carver, 99", The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24, 2003. Accessed December 3, 2007. "Sonora Webster Carver, 99, the first woman to dive off Atlantic City's Steel Pier while riding a horse - a stunt she continued for 11 years after she was blinded during a performance - died Sunday at Our Lady's Residence in Pleasantville, N.J."