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. After his return to the United States, Piantanida worked in an embroidery factory, played basketball at various colleges, and worked as an
ironworker on the
Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge. ==Skydiving career==