Who was Kitty O’Neill, who overcame deafness to become a successful stuntwoman and world speed record holder?

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Considered ‘the fastest woman in the world’, the stuntwoman was a pioneer when participating in successful films and series in the 1970s and 80s. O’Neil is honored on the Google homepage of the day. Google via BBC Stuntwoman Kitty O’Neil is honored this Friday (03/24) on Google’s home page. She became famous in the 1970s when she did the stunts for actress Lynda Carter in the TV series Wonder Woman. O’Neil also voiced Lindsay Wagner in the science fiction series The Bionic Woman. Other works by her include “Os Bons e os Maus” (1977), “Desta Vez te Agarro” (1980) and “O Dueto da Corda” (1980). O’Neil was born on March 24, 1946 to an American Indian mother and an Irish father. The deafness that accompanied her throughout her life appeared in the first months of her life, when she was affected by a series of illnesses. Throughout her life, the stuntwoman never saw hearing impairment as an impediment to doing what she wanted. She went so far as to say that deafness has become an important “asset” for her work and personal life. ‘The World’s Fastest Woman’ O’Neil’s success as a stuntwoman propelled her into the world of car racing. In the sport, she set a women’s land speed record in 1976 – which remains intact to this day. She entered the record books traveling at an average of 823 km/h in a rocket powered vehicle called The Motivator. O’Neil’s success was so great that she got her own version of the Barbie doll. She was also the first woman to join the Hollywood stunt agency Stunts Unlimited in the US. Actress Stockard Channing played her in a TV movie called “The Victory of Silence”, from 1979. In the production, O’Neil herself is her own double. O’Neil was the stunt double for actress Lynda Carter on the original Wonder Woman TV show. Getty Images via BBC O’Neil’s career has also been without setbacks. While filming for a TV show in 1978, she overturned a rocket-powered Corvette while trying to set a speed record in the Mojave Desert. After retiring in the 1980s, she moved to Eureka, South Dakota, also in the US, where she died of pneumonia in November 2018, aged 72. In an interview conducted in 2015, she said that “it felt good” to be one of Hollywood’s stunt doubles and that she “wasn’t afraid of anything”. Those who paid tribute after her death included Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who praised her for “innovating in stunts and racing”.

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