suzgraham
WHEN YOU are a kid trying to make it in the ski world and you get a call from a Japanese rock star’s agent, you pick up the phone. Suzanne Graham did and heard that The Girl Next Door—one of Japan’s most popular singers—wanted the 22-year-old to be a stunt double for her James Bond themed music video. Convincing her didn’t require the $11,000 check or new parachute or learning that the late Shane McConkey in a ponytail wig got cut in favor of Graham. “I would have done it for $500,” she says. “It was an experience of a lifetime.” As one of the few females in the world hucking herself off cliffs with skis, she finally got her break. Wearing a $7,000 designer ski suit, she was flown around Valdez, AK, by Dean Cummings’ heli operation in search of filmable cliffs to ski off. That’s not all: For the video, she was filmed with a $1 million camera (“Planet Earth” and “That’s It, That’s All” style). “It easily cost at least $150,000 to produce,” she says.
    So who is Suzanne Graham? Born and raised in Salt Lake City, the University of Utah nursing student cut her teeth in the big-mountain circuit as a ballsy skier who loves sending it huge off cliffs. But she transitioned into base-jumping about two years ago when her boyfriend Jesse Hall began instructing her, and is quickly becoming well known within the base jumping and skiing communities. And she’s just getting started. Stunts for the Girl Next Door and sneaking up city buildings at 3 a.m. to jump off is the kind of crazy Graham is. She’s also a celebrity in Thailand—even met the president—but will she tell you this stuff? Hardly. The nicest, most soft-spoken girl in the world truly is the girl next door. She mows the lawn, takes garbage outside, and just happens to be the biggest ski base-jumping star you’ve never met. —Vanessa Pierce