Jessie Graff

Jessica Lauren Graff (born January 12, 1984) is an American professional stunt woman, martial artist and athletics-based television personality.

She is a black belt in Taekwondo, a black sash in Kung Fu, and is trained in five other styles of martial arts.

She is also a championship pole vaulter and a competitive gymnast.

Graff has become well known for her athletic achievements on the obstacle course show American Ninja Warrior.

Jessie Graff was born to Ginny MacColl on January 12, 1984.

At age 6, Graff started taking circus classes.

She started doing gymnastics at age 9 and did competitive gymnastics for 6 years.

She was a member of the Frederick Gymnastic Club for 6 years.

By age 12 she was catching other performers on the trapeze.

She has stated about her time as a 12-year-old trapeze artist, "The rule was I wasn’t allowed to catch anyone who outweighed me by more than 20 pounds."

Graff was a pole vaulter in high school, and graduated in 2002 from Urbana High School, Frederick, Maryland, as a Track Team Leader, honor roll student, and member of the National Honor Society.

She majored in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, and theatre at the University of Nebraska.

In 2004, she set her personal best (PB) in the 5000m run at 15:56.30; she set her outdoor pole vault PB at 4.17 m; and indoor pole vault PB at 4.20 m. Graff held the pole vault record at Georgia Tech and University of Nebraska.

She graduated from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 2007.

She has earned black belts in Taekwondo and Kung Fu.

Graff is 5 ft tall.

Graff started doing stunt work in 2007 and has appeared in several television shows and movies, including X-Men: First Class, Make It or Break It, Another Period, Bridesmaids, Knight and Day, Bad Teacher, John Carter, Leverage, Sons of Anarchy and The Mandalorian.

As a stuntwoman, she has done tumbling on Make It or Break It, trampolined on Another Period and has done many stunts on rooftops, the sides of bridges or buildings and dramatic wipeouts.

She has said she continues to learn new skills from other stunt people who specialize in different areas.

Graff was a contestant on the obstacle course show Wipeout's tenth episode of its first season in 2008.

In that appearance, she fell in the penultimate round and thus did not make it to the Wipeout Zone.

On season 5 (2013) of American Ninja Warrior she became the first woman to qualify to compete in a City Finals course (although she did not complete the qualifier course).

In season 6 (2014) of American Ninja Warrior she did not compete because she had a serious knee injury.

In 2016, she became the first woman ever to complete Stage 1 of the Las Vegas Finals course.

As of 2016, her most recent high-profile stunt work was for the CBS/CW series Supergirl.

In 2017, Graff became the first woman to compete in, and to successfully finish, Stage 2 in Las Vegas, although this was part of the USA vs. The World competition instead of a regular season, and that had no time requirement.

She was the first woman representing the United States in that competition.

Later on in Sasuke 34, she became the first woman worldwide to finish Stage 2 in the Sasuke/Ninja Warrior franchise, only defeated by the Ultra Crazy Cliffhanger in the third stage.

She was the second woman ever to conquer the Stage 1 of the Sasuke course (excluding Kunoichi), after Chie Tanabe in Sasuke 2.

In the summer of 2017 she competed in Sasuke 34, the original Japanese version of ANW.

She was the second woman in the show's history to clear Stage 1 (the first being another stuntwoman, Chie Nishimura of Super Sentai, 19 years beforehand at Sasuke 2.) She also became the first woman ever to clear Stage 2, but failed in Stage 3.

Jessie made her second appearance in SASUKE 37, with number #98.

She cleared First Stage with 31.5 seconds left and she became the only woman to complete the First Stage twice, even though the timer showed zero seconds (due to the fact that production forgotten to tune the timer to its correct value).

She easily beat Second Stage with a time of 16.8 seconds left.

On the Third Stage, she easily made it through the first three obstacles with little trouble, but ended up failing on the first transition of the Cliffhanger Dimension, a similar fall to her attempt at its predecessor, the Ultra Crazy Cliffhanger in SASUKE 34.

This time though, she managed to grab the second ledge but was unable to hold on.

In the first scene of the 2020 feature film Wonder Woman 1984, young Diana takes part in an Amazon athletic contest that resembles Ninja Warrior; Graff portrays a competitor.

She was also one of lead actress Gal Gadot’s stunt doubles.

In 2020, Graff came on The Titan Games season 2, as a professional Titan.

She had a possibility of not competing as she had started stem cell treatment of injured shoulders and neck.