Emilie Sannom’s penchant for hair-raising stunts and feats of derring-do at one point earned her the label “The Number One Daredevil of Denmark”. The Danish actress and aerial acrobat performed in some 85 films, beginning in 1909, the last of which, La fanciulla dell’aria, was released in 1923. The film was produced in Italy by Sannom’s fellow Dane Alfred Lind and, like most of Sannom’s cinematic oeuvre, is today presumed lost. Only a short fragment is known to survive and is contained in the compilation titled Filmens Vovehals (available online on the Danish Film Institute’s website). While the aerial footage showing Sannom parachuting from a Fokker biplane onto a church spire may seem spectacular, inspirational even, it is also poignant in light of Sannom’s own fate. It was while performing just such an aerial stunt in the Danish seaside town of Grenaa on 30 August 1931, a month before her 45th birthday, that Sannom fell to her death when her parachute failed to open.

Oliver Hanley