As a child, Ciampa had been fascinated by the acrobatic agility of film stars such as Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and by the character of Tarzan of the Apes as portrayed by Elmo Lincoln and later Johnny Weissmuller.
Inspired by his screen heroes, Ciampa began to climb trees and buildings in his Brooklyn neighborhood at a young age, persisting with the activity into his teenage years and early adulthood.
In 1947 Ciampa was arrested for having scaled the exterior of the Astor Hotel as a publicity stunt for the Sunbrock Circus, concerning onlookers who feared that he might have been attempting suicide.
When the show toured to Boston, Ciampa's antics ran foul of local safety ordinances and he was required to reduce the height at which he performed his stunts.
sequence, Ciampa is first seen eating a spaghetti dinner with his family before running outside, acrobatically climbing a tree, leaping between buildings, running up a wall, quickly scaling a tall drainpipe, climbing a narrow alleyway by pressing his hands and feet against opposite walls and then repeating the latter feat with a young boy riding on his back, before waving to the camera from a rooftop.