Ouch!

Snare drums roll. Spotlights lattice the darkness and zero in on a trim brunette and a dangling hook. She thrusts the hook into a ring knotted in her hair, and while spectators watch in disbelief the rope tautens, and slowly she is lifted up and up through the elephant-scented air until she is dangling 73 ft. high. Then she calmly starts juggling three pastel Indian clubs, all the while hanging by her hair.

Ringling Bros.' hairborne Rapunzel, Chrystine Holt, 21, is the new sensation of the 1964 circus. She came by her talent somewhat naturally. Her father juggles while he hangs by his teeth.

Chrys was born in Germany and started show business at the age of five, helping her father in the family juggling act. When he fell and broke his back two years ago in Hamburg, the circus owner asked her to go on in her father's place. Up she went, hair first, three balls dancing from her hands.

She weighs 129 Ibs. She has not had a haircut in 15 years, and when she is not using it professionally her hair reaches past her waist. Her mother binds it. "She knows just how to make the knot, but I don't," says Chrys. "It's her secret." Does it hurt? "Yes, but you get used to the pain." Does she do anything special to lessen the strain? "I eat vitamin pills--A and B--and I brush my hair a lot," she says. "And I wash it once a week like everybody else." What kind of shampoo? "That's another secret."

Maybe LePage's?

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