John Ciampa

John Ciampa (1922–1970) was an Italian-American entertainer and acrobatic stuntman who performed under the stage names the Human Fly, the Flying Phantom, and the Brooklyn Tarzan. By profession a bricklayer, Ciampa pursued a parallel career in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, appearing in circus productions and on Broadway.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Ciampa developed an early fascination with the acrobatic screen performances of Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., as well as with the character of Tarzan of the Apes as portrayed by Elmo Lincoln and later Johnny Weissmuller. These influences led him to climb trees and buildings in his neighborhood from a young age, a habit he continued into his teenage years and adulthood. By 1942, his buildering and freestyle tree-climbing had attracted enough local attention to earn him a feature in a Paramount Pictures newsreel, released in conjunction with the film Tarzan's New York Adventure.

During the late 1940s, Ciampa performed with Larry Sunbrock's Rodeo and Thrill Circus, first in New York City and then on tour through various cities in the United States and Canada. His act distinguished itself from conventional circus acrobatics by relying on improvised climbing and leaping stunts using scaffolding and circus rigging rather than rehearsed apparatus work such as trapeze or trampoline. Audiences were frequently unsettled by the apparently spontaneous and dangerous character of his performances. In 1947, Ciampa was arrested after scaling the exterior of the Astor Hotel as a publicity stunt for the Sunbrock Circus, with onlookers having feared he was attempting suicide.

In 1950, Ciampa made his Broadway appearance in Pardon Our French, the Olsen and Johnson comedy production. Billed as "Ciampa, the Swinging Ape," he performed in a gorilla costume on some occasions, leaping between theater boxes and running along balcony railings high above the stage. When the production traveled to Boston, local safety ordinances required him to lower the height at which he executed his stunts.

Footage from the 1942 Paramount newsreel documenting Ciampa's climbing feats was later incorporated into the 1977 documentary film Gizmo!, though he was not credited. In that sequence, Ciampa is seen at a spaghetti dinner with his family before going outside to climb a tree, leap between buildings, scale a drainpipe, and ascend a narrow alleyway by bracing his hands and feet against opposing walls — a feat he repeated with a young boy on his back — before waving to the camera from a rooftop. The documentary ran his footage alongside unrelated material featuring the uncredited German stuntman Arnim Dahl, creating subsequent confusion about the identities of the two men.