news Man Jumps From CN Tower With No Parachute (Thirty Years Ago)



Almost thirty years ago, stuntman Dar Robinson leapt from the crown of the CN Tower with no parachute, no airbag, and only a thin wire looped around his torso to keep him from splattering on the sidewalk below. Today, we can relive that jump thanks to this excellent documentary video―uploaded by YouTube user Retrontario and posted today at 1♥T.O.―which, for no apparent reason, is narrated by Chuck Norris.



Robinson jumped from the CN Tower on two separate occasions. The first, in 1979, was for an action movie called Highpoint, in which Robinson was doubling for Christopher Plummer. Robinson wore a parachute for the original jump. It was, at the time, the highest such leap by any stuntman. According to Toronto Star articles from the time, he received $250,000 to do it.

The second jump, in 1980, is the one shown in the video above, staged not for a movie but for a documentary on Robinson which eventually aired on ABC.

The video above is not from the 1980 documentary itself. It’s a segment on the MAKING OF the original documentary, from a second, completely separate documentary on Robinson, filmed in 1987. The occasion for the second documentary was Dar Robinson’s death, in 1986, after he (unintentionally) rode a motorcycle off a cliff during a routine stunt for another now-obscure eighties action movie.

Here, with more information on Dar Robinson’s untimely demise, is another YouTube clip―which, for no apparent reason, is hosted by Bill O’Reilly:



Still, to have lived to leap from the tallest free-standing thing on the planet not once but twice, and to have recorded it all in a video that remains stunning despite narration by Chuck Norris? Not bad.



This article originally stated that Dar Robinson was paid $250,000 to perform his second jump from the Tower—the one featured in the video—in 1980; in fact, that sum was for his first, in 1979.