Genre: Information/Explanation

Rossa Matilda Richter Zazel posing with her cannon , at the Royal Aquarium , in 1877 Rossa Matilda Richter ( 1863 – 1937 ) was a circus performer and actor ( stage name , Zazel ) who became the first recorded human cannonball in 1877 , at the age of 14 , launching herself from a spring-style " cannon " . Richter was a child actor and got into circus-style performances as a trapeze artist . On 10 April 1877 , she incorporated a new stunt , the human cannonball . The first such performance was at the Royal Aquarium in London when she was 14 . She was fired out of a spring-style cannon , traveling 6.1 metres ( 20 ft ) and landing in a net . According to the Guinness Book of World Records , Richter was the first human cannonball , though the distinction has been contested by others who claim Ella Zuila and George Loyal , also known as " The Australian Marvels " , performed the act a few years prior . The cannon was invented by William Leonard Hunt , a Canadian daredevil known as " The Great Farini " – U.S. Patent , No. 115 , 837 was issued on 13 June 1871 to " William Farini , now of London , England certain new and useful Apparatus for Projecting Persons and Articles into or through the Air " ; and , further , U.S. Patent , no . 214 , 663 was issued on 22 April 1879 to " William Leonard Hunt , of Westminster and Improvement in Theater Appliances " – and used rubber springs to limit the distance she would travel , employing a gunpowder - based explosion only for effect . According to P. T. Barnum , who had traveled to London to see the performance , Zazel pleaded with him to take her away . Though she was the star of the act and took the physical risks , Hunt was keeping most of the money the act brought in . Poster advertising one of Zazel's performances at the Royal Aquarium Richter went on tour with Barnum's Circus , performing in France and throughout the United States . She married Barnum's manager , George Oscar Starr ( 1849 – 1915 ) – later , manager of The Crystal Palace – she was his second wife . In 1891 , Richter nearly died in an accident during a show in New Mexico , when either the net was incorrectly placed ( causing her to miss it and hit the ground ) or the net catastrophically failed . She broke her back , effectively retiring her from her career as a human cannonball , and she spent several months in a suspended full body cast . Written in 1938 , by Robert Stevenson and Roland Pertwee , directed by Stevenson , and released in 1939 , the British comedy film Young Man's Fancy was centred on Ada , an Irish human cannonball . The character of Ada was written especially for Anna Lee by Stevenson , her husband , and is " based on Zazel , the original ' human cannon ball ' , who thrilled London audiences in the nineties by being shot from a cannon " – however , " for the purposes of the film ... the period has been put back to the seventies .