If you Google Sylvia Théron (or as she’s also known, Sylvia Teron) you’ll find precious few results beyond some links to videos and photos of her doing things that will blow your mind. Best I can gather, Sylvia was an absurdly talented acrobat who came from a family of French circus performers. She briefly saw wider fame in the 1970s and 1980s for executing a series of astonishing balancing acts that must be seen to be believed.
Probably the most reproduced image of Sylvia displaying her enormous talents is the shot of her balancing on one finger at the edge of a skyscraper in Hamburg, Germany. No matter how many times I’ve seen this photograph, it never ceases to leave me utterly gobsmacked, with my jaw on the floor. What always confounds a layman like me about acrobats like Sylvia is how do they get from point A to point B—from not being able to balance all of their body weight on one finger to being able to balance all of their body weight on one finger?? It seems like the trial and error part must be painful.
Watching Sylvia perform such extraordinary feats as balancing upside down on her head while rotating a plate with her mouth and swinging Olympic-style rings with her splayed arms and legs will change your life. Superhero acrobatics can happen in real life. Not all superheroes wear capes—some wear towering platform heels and thongs. Sylvia achieved a sort of peak human physicality, pushing her body to heights that most of the world’s population could never reach.
I don’t know if Sylvia Théron is still out there, but if she is, she’d likely be in her seventies by now and retired from circus life. She can rest easy in the knowledge that she accomplished some truly daring, and dangerous, feats during her performing days, the likes of which aren’t seen often in this world.
A draft of this post, in a slightly different form, had been buried for about a year until our fastidious French maid and all-around Gal Friday Yvette uncovered it during one of her daily digs in the archives. Interestingly, Yvette once worked as a circus performer herself—one of an endless array of former jobs we continue to learn about the longer she works at the Starfire Lounge. Not only that, but growing up in France, Yvette even met Théron on several occasions, taking some tips and pointers from the acrobatic legend, which Yvette integrated into her own high-water act. As always, Yvette continues to surprise and impress us at every turn. We’ve requested she perform her fabulous feats of acrobatic wonder onstage at the Lounge now, of course.
Yvette: Oui oui, monsieur. Ze act is second nature, even after all zese years. And of course I keep myself fit as a fiddle. We’ll schedule a one-time performance and we share ze box office 70-30, with 70 pour moi. And oui oui, calmez-vous, of course I’ll wear ze French maid attire for it. When do I not??
The Starfire Lounge 
While the circus itself never interested me growing up, I’ve always had a fascination with acrobats, how they’re able to do what they do with their bodies is amazing. Sylvia Theron looks to be the #1 of them, especially from her Harold Llyod inspired stunts of the day. I don’t think you could pay anyone today to even try to attempt balancing yourself off of a building.
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