Nick Piantanida

Early life Piantanida was born August 15, 1932, to father Cvito Piantanida (1906–1994), and mother Katarina Piantanida (née Zarnečić; 1913–1995), a family of mixed Croatian-Italian descent. He grew up in Union City, New Jersey. He had a younger brother, Vern. When Piantanida was 10 years old, he experimented with homemade parachutes, harnessing a stray neighborhood cat to one in a test drop off the five-story apartment building where they lived. When a neighbor informed Piantanida's parents of this, Piantanida tested the next parachute himself, jumping off a lower roof and breaking his arm. As he grew older, he took up skydiving with a "dogged determination", according to his brother.

As a young man, Piantanida played basketball in East Coast leagues. After graduating from St. Michael's High School, where he played football, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve and shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army for two years, where he earned the rank of corporal. For this accomplishment he was interviewed on the Today Show. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, New Jersey.

The gondola of the Strato Jump III is preserved and displayed in the Boeing Aviation Hangar at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

Personal life Piantanida was Roman Catholic. He married Janice McDowell in 1963,

A film based on his life, entitled Angry Sky, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2015, and on ESPN as part of the 30 for 30 series on July 30, 2015.