Target Girl - Notable Real Life Target Girls

Notable Real Life Target Girls

Like magicians' assistants, target girls have often suffered the injustice of not receiving the same recognition and billing as their co-performers. Those that have received equal billing have generally been part of husband and wife acts, which are common in this field. Acts that involve a domestic partnership as well as an on-stage one have tended to have greater longevity than pairings where a thrower recruits an assistant as an employee. It has been suggested that this is because the off-stage domestic ties serve to keep the partnership together in the face of the tensions that can occur within such acts. The lack of individual billing for target girls adds to the difficulty of picking out notable examples. The following is therefore a small selection who are distinguished by particular features of their careers rather than a definitive "hall of fame".

• Elizabeth Collins is almost unique in having effectively ended up with top billing in the knife throwing act she formed with her husband Martin Collins. The couple met and married in their native Hungary at around the time of the outbreak of World War 2 and began performing together as "Elizabeth and Collins". For their signature stunt they developed an extremely demanding trick that involved Elizabeth spinning on a "wheel of death" target while her husband balanced on a tightrope and threw knives at her. After the war they settled in Britain and toured clubs and theatres around the world. They were one of the first impalement acts to break into television. Elizabeth retired from performing in the early 1960s and was replaced by their daughter who was also named Elizabeth (although additionally known as Agnes). Elizabeth and Collins performed on The Ed Sullivan Show three times and appeared as themselves in an episode of the 1960s spy series The Avengers.
• Helga and Sylvia Brumbach are a mother and daughter who have both been part of a family act that is regarded by many other artists as setting the standard in their field. The Brumbachs, also known as Los Alamos, began with Fritz Brumbach as a knife thrower and whip cracker and his wife Helga as target girl. Later daughter Sylvia joined the act as a second target girl and then son Patrick became a thrower. Fritz and Helga have since retired but Patrick and Sylvia continue the act. Fritz is a Guinness World Record holder for rapid throwing around a live target.
• Irene Stey married into an old established Swiss circus family when she wed Rolf Stey. The couple worked as a knife act called "Two Tornados" between 1965 and 1985 and are notable for being one of only two acts to repeat the combined "wheel of death" and tightrope stunt developed by Elizabeth and Collins. After retiring as a target girl Irene continued in the circus business with an equestrian act.
• Barbara Braun began performing with her husband Sylvester as the "Wizards of the West" in the early 1940s. Sixty years later the couple were honoured by the International Knifethrowers Hall of Fame with the "Knife Throwing Pioneer Award" and the title "Wild West Duo of the 20th Century".
• Montana Nell was the performing name of Pearl Collins who, between 1929 and 1950, toured with her husband Robert Collins in a western arts act under the billing of "Texas Slim and Montana Nell". She was born Pearl Miller and grew up on a farm, which helped her become a highly proficient horse rider. In 1923 she married a man called Seamor Russell with whom she had a daughter named Doris. Seamor died of an illness in 1925 and Pearl went on to marry Collins in 1929. When Doris was 16 she joined her parents' show as a trick rider and sharp shooter named "Little Miss Peggy". Pearl and Robert Collins were posthumously honoured by the International Knifethrowers Hall of Fame in 2006.
• Claude Chantal Blanc is an experienced Swiss aerial and tight wire artist who is unusual for working as part of an all-female knife throwing act named Risk Ladies. The thrower was Caroline Haerdi, who currently works in partnership with a male thrower named Arno Black; she as the thrower and he as the target.
• Tina Nagy Is a dancer and aerial artist who featured as a target girl in the 2007 season of the NBC television series America's Got Talent. Nagy, who is of Hungarian descent but grew up in Connecticut, performed with knife thrower The Great Throwdini. Her interest in the impalement arts began through working as a target girl for bullwhip artist Robert Dante. She has sought to produce a performance artform that combines dance and whip cracking.
• Ekaterina Sknarina is a model, actress, contortionist, aerial artist and former international gymnast. She was born in Russia and competed at world championship level for the Russian rhythmic gymnastics team. She later trained as an aerial artist with Cirque du Soleil. After re-locating to New York she began working as a contortionist in the burgeoning new burlesque scene. She also began working as a model and appeared in magazines including FHM, One World, and GQ. She added the role of target girl to her portfolio after meeting knife thrower The Great Throwdini. In 2005 she was one of the stars of the off-Broadway show Maximum Risk, during which she helped set two world records for the number of knives thrown around a human target in a minute. She was Miss Coney Island 2007. She appears in the movie Across the Universe (2007) and was featured in promotional posters for it.

• Tonya Kay is a "danger artist", dancer, film actress and TV personality. She has performed with knife thrower Jack Dagger on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, History Channel's More Extreme Marksmen and Nippon Television's Dream Vision in Japan. She performs solo as a "danger artist", throwing knives herself as well as cracking whips, fire dancing, aerial stuntwork, stilt dancing and grinding sparks off a metal bikini. She has been featured on Showtime's Live Nude Comedy, Comedy Central's Secret Girlfriend and NBC's America's Got Talent. She performed for three years in the stage show STOMP, played Madison Square Garden with Panic At The Disco and was a part of the Las Vegas based De La Guarda aerial stunt company.