O’Neil in the Alvord Desert in Oregon in 1976 beside the rocket-powered SMI Motivator, the vehicle in which she shattered the land-speed record for women.Ms.

According to her contract, she was not supposed to exceed 400 miles per hour (640 km/h). Kitty O'Neil, Deaf Daredevil and World's Fastest Woman, Dies at Age 72. She was a pretty reckless driver.”In 1978, Ms. O’Neil wrecked a rocket-fueled Corvette funny car while trying to set a quarter-mile speed record on a dry lake in the Mojave Desert, in El Mirage, Calif. She had pushed the car past 350 m.p.h.

On a 5/8th mile straightaway in Oregon, she hit 512.71 mph. Kitty O'Neil, a deaf Hollywood stuntwoman, daredevil and protege of Hal Needham who doubled for Lynda Carter on 'Wonder Woman' and set a land-speed record as the fastest woman driver ever, has died. The cause was pneumonia, said “She seemed never to have fear,” Mr. Michaelson said in a telephone interview. But O’Neil used them as inspiration—if she could conquer deafness, cancer, meningitis, then she could do just about anything. As a teenager, Kitty became a competitive 10-meter By 1970, O'Neil had taken up racing on water and land, participating in the O'Neil's runs reportedly used 60% of the available thrust, and O'Neil estimated that she could have exceeded 700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h) with full power.Restrained by her contract, O'Neil struggled with sponsors at the time. O’Neil credited her hearing impairment with helping her maintain focus, and spoke and read lips well enough that some directors were unaware she was deaf… Thank you for this introduction to a true inspiration, my daughter is deaf and I want to be able to share the stories of women like this with her as she gets older. She took up hang gliding, scuba diving, water skiing and sky diving. At age five, O’Neil simultaneously developed the mumps, measles, and smallpox.

Her father, John, was an oil wildcatter who died when Kitty was young.Kitty loved speed from an early age.
She told the students there that they should not regard their deafness as an impediment to success.“Deaf people can do anything,” The Tribune quoted her as saying. You Can Mark 'Fire Tornado' Off Your 2020 Apocalypse Bingo CardRyan Reynolds asks rampaging Canadian teens to please not kill his momSaturday Night Social: Joyce Carol Oates…Please……No Feet on Main……2020 Honda Civic Type R Touring: The Jalopnik ReviewBaseball Bozo Zach Plesac Lists All The Rules He Broke, Then Accuses The Media of 'Mistreatment'The Death of Bon Appétit Is Proof Media Companies Have No Idea What Makes Videos Work Kitty Linn O’Neil was born on March 24, 1946, in Corpus Christi, Tex. But she found her métier in faster, more dangerous pursuits astride motorcycles and at the helm of rocket-fueled cars.Being deaf, she often said, helped deepen her concentration, whether she was racing a dragster or leaping off buildings. Her women's absolute land speed record stood until 2019. Those perilous worlds melded for her in the 1970s after she met the stuntman Ronald Hambleton, known as Duffy, while competing in a motorcycle race in Valencia, Calif.The two lived together, and with help from Mr. Hambleton and Her success as a stuntwoman brought her into racing at extreme speeds, and to the Alvord Desert, where Bill Frederick, who built devices for stunts, had spent $500,000 to develop the Motivator.Two days after Ms. O’Neil broke the women’s land-speed record, which had been set by Lee Breedlove in 1965, Mr. Frederick hoped that the Motivator would break the land-speed record of 630.4 m.p.h., which Mr. Needham was supposed to challenge the record, but he was away directing a film, leaving Ms. O’Neil to race the Motivator. Frederick recognized that he had been caught in the middle of a gender fight.“When they saw the female getting all the publicity, they got real uptight,” he told The Los Angeles Times soon after the dispute began.Ms. But I said someday I’m going to be famous in sports, to show them I can do anything.”Kitty O’Neil, Stuntwoman and Speed Racer, Is Dead at 72Kitty O’Neil leaping from a hotel balcony in a stunt for the “Wonder Woman” television series.

At age five, O’Neil simultaneously developed the mumps, measles, and smallpox. The half-Cherokee Kitty suffered through an enormous amount of adversity early in her life. The cause was pneumonia, said “She seemed never to have fear,” Mr. Michaelson said in a telephone interview.

“I’d never say to her, ‘Kitty, are you scared?’ Not Kitty. But I’ve been in a car with her many times, and she scared the heck out of me. Deadspin. And, working as a stuntwoman, she crashed cars and survived immolation.In one stunt, as a double for Lindsay Wagner, she flipped a dune buggy on the television series “The Bionic Woman”; in another, she leapt 127 feet from a hotel balcony onto an inflated airbag as Lynda Carter’s stunt double on “Wonder Woman.”Ms.
Kitty O’Neil, the deaf stuntwoman who wanted to go faster Pneumonia was the one challenge Kitty O’Neil couldn’t surmount; the daredevil recently died at age 72. A deaf stuntwoman and daredevil who became the world's fastest woman has died at the age of 72. She was a few months old when a high fever caused by measles, mumps and smallpox destroyed nerves and led to her deafness. For several days in a row in 1976, 28-year-old Kitty O’Neil strapped herself to a rocket and careened about the Mojave Desert at speeds reaching upwards of 600 miles per hour.