May 7 would have been Owen Hart’s 61st birthday. The youngest of Stu and Helen Hart’s twelve children was born in Calgary on May 7, 1965, and his niece Nattie Neidhart marked the day with a video tribute on social media.
“Today is Owen’s birthday,” Nattie said, holding up an autographed photograph. “This is actually one of my favorite pictures of him. It’s got his autograph on the corner of it, but it was for my grandfather’s promotion, Stampede Wrestling. It reminds me of Owen in happier times, when Owen was full of hope and thinking about all of his dreams and all the things that he wanted to do. And it reminds me of how much Owen loved wrestling.”
Nattie said she still thinks about Owen often. Her husband TJ Wilson, who joined the video, said the Hart family does its best to imitate Owen in their daily lives. “If at the end of the night, if you came pretty close to imitating Owen, you had a hell of a day,” Wilson said.
Nattie added that she wishes she could ask Owen how he stood out in a family full of greats. “It’s really, really important, especially with the Dungeon, for TJ and I to help also keep Owen’s legacy alive, because there was no one like him.”
Across two Hart family memoirs, Bret Hart’s “Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling” and Nattie’s “The Last Hart Beating,” the family has documented a fuller portrait of Owen as a generous brother, an attentive father and uncle, and a husband who put his family above all else.
“I loved his mischievous sense of humor, his directness, his good nature and his integrity,” Bret writes of his youngest brother. “He had a deep respect for both our parents.”
Happy birthday to the King of Harts, Owen Hart, on his 60th birthday.
I love being able to celebrate what an incredible person Owen was. He was deeply loved, and the impact he had on people is something that still lives on every single day. Owen’s spirit continues to shine so… pic.twitter.com/SWNtvZL83t
— Nattie (@NatbyNature) May 7, 2026
A Quiet Act Of Generosity After Cousin Matt’s Death
In her book, Nattie recalls a tragedy that hit the Hart family in 1996. Her cousin Matt, the 13-year-old son of Nattie’s aunt Georgia and her uncle BJ Annis, contracted a rare and aggressive Group A streptococcus infection that progressed into necrotizing fasciitis. Matt died after 12 days in the hospital, the first strep fatality the head of pediatric infectious diseases at Alberta Children’s Hospital had seen in 11 years of practice.
When Nattie and her family arrived in Calgary for the funeral, they discovered that Owen had quietly stepped in to take care of everything.
“Owen, who was now also a WWE Superstar, had paid for Matt’s entire funeral because he didn’t want Matt’s parents to have any additional stress,” Nattie writes. “After the funeral, Owen and his wife, Martha, also paid for Matt’s parents to take a trip to Hawaii to get their mind off things, while my uncle Ross, a high school teacher, minded their kids.”
Owen And Martha Paid Cash For Their House
Bret recalls Owen and Martha visiting the family in late 1989, after Owen’s first European tour. By that point, Owen and Martha had recently bought their first home together and paid for it in full.
“She and Owen had recently paid cash for a brand-new house, which was something the rest of us only dreamed of,” Bret writes. “Both of them had worked very hard, saving every penny.”
Bret writes that Owen walked in and “shook my hand with a big smile that brought about even bigger smiles from my mom and dad.” Owen scooped up Bret’s daughter Beans and laughed, “She’s sure getting big!” The family then sat for tea while Stu turned up the TV to watch footage of the Berlin Wall coming down.
Bret On The Road With Owen
Bret writes that he spent “hours and hours” of 1989 driving across America with Owen, and it was on those long, lonely trips that the brothers truly bonded. Owen was about to marry Martha that July, and Bret writes that Owen “had no doubt that she’d keep him on the straight and narrow.” When some in the Hart family were slow to accept Martha, Owen wasn’t bothered.
“His hopes and dreams, doubts and fears, were much the same as mine,” Bret writes. “It meant a lot to me when Owen told me that he had faith in me, and that I was well regarded by the other wrestlers for being truthful and dedicated.”
On a drive through Eugene, Oregon, the brothers passed a billboard that read, “The wages of sin are death!” The line set Bret thinking about his own life on the road. But his image of his brother was different.
“I smiled at the vision of a place where a guy like Owen would be dressed in white, playing checkers, while another guy gently plucked a harp,” Bret writes.
A Prayer At The Wailing Wall
When the WWF toured Israel in 1991 amid the aftermath of the Gulf War, Bret writes that he visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and stuck a small prayer in the cracks between the stones: “Please God, get me home.” Owen, on the same trip, did the same thing.
“Owen told me he wrote a prayer about getting home safely to Martha and Oje and put it in the Wailing Wall,” Bret writes. “I told him I’d done the same thing.”
Owen Stood Proudly In The Corner Holding Oje
Bret describes the In Your House: Canadian Stampede pay-per-view in July 1997, in which the Hart Foundation main-evented in front of a Calgary crowd, as one of the family’s most memorable shared moments. After his team won the main event, the entire Hart clan flooded the ring.
“Davey high-fived twelve-year-old Harry, and Blade stood next to me, bouncing on the bottom rope,” Bret writes. “Ellie and her girls rejoiced next to Martha while Owen stood proudly in the corner holding Oje, who twirled a tiny Canadian flag.”
Jim Ross’s commentary captured the moment: “The family that has fought together survives together.”
“Owen Always Knew How To Have Fun”
Nattie writes about Owen as the fun uncle around Hart House. As her young cousins Teddy, Matt, and Harry, plus TJ Wilson, built out their Kids Wrestling Association on the family lawn, Owen made it part of his weekly routine to teach them.
“My uncle Owen actually took it upon himself to teach the boys, before Sunday dinners, how to do backflips off the top rope,” Nattie writes. “He always knew how to have fun and was very mischievous, being the baby of the family.”
Stu, Nattie writes, would watch from the kitchen window and worry about Owen teaching the kids how to fly. “Goddamnit! Someone’s going to break their neck out there!” Stu would say from the sink.
The Reg Park Phone Prank At WrestleMania V
The book’s best-known Owen prank comes from WrestleMania V weekend in 1989. Bret had brought Stu and his young daughter Jade to Atlantic City because both Bret and Owen were on the card. On the morning of the show, a call came for Stu, who took it standing in his “long, striped nightshirt” with a big smile.
“Yeah, Reg, how the hell are you?” Stu said.
The caller introduced himself as Reg Park, a respected former bodybuilder. Bret writes that the conversation started friendly. Then “Park’s” tone shifted. “Stu, you were always afraid of me. You never had the balls to try me, or I would have shoved your head up your ass!”
Stu paced the room with the receiver pressed against his cauliflower ear, his jaw set like granite. “Reg, if you wanted to try me, why didn’t you try me?” Bret writes that “even the veins in his sturdy white legs seemed to swell with rage” and that he was certain Stu was about to head down to the lobby and confront Park face-to-face. Jade was wide-eyed wondering why her grandfather was so upset.
Then Stu sat on the bed, slammed the phone down, and a “shy, almost embarrassed smile” broke over his face.
“That was Owen. The little bastard got me!”
Bret Pays Owen Back
After Owen and Martha’s daughter Athena was born in 1995, Bret got the chance to settle the score for years of pranks.
“For all those times he’d pulled pranks on me, I’d told everyone, straight faced, that he named her after Stu,” Bret writes. “It was kind of funny how mad he got when everybody kept congratulating him on the birth of his daughter Stuella. I enjoyed finally paying him back.”
Owen’s Legacy
Owen Hart was the 1994 WWF King of the Ring, a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, a one-time WWF European Champion, and a four-time WWF World Tag Team Champion. He was also the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, in May 1988. He headlined multiple WWF pay-per-views and is widely regarded as one of the company’s best in-ring performers.
He died at 34 on May 23, 1999, following a fall during his entrance at WWF Over the Edge in Kansas City. He left behind his wife Martha and their two young children, Oje and Athena.
Nattie closed her tribute with what she described as the family’s mission. “It’s really, really important, especially with the Dungeon, for TJ and I to help also keep Owen’s legacy alive, because there was no one like him.”
Read More About Owen And The Hart Family
For fans who want to learn more about Owen Hart and his impact on the Hart family, two recent memoirs are essential reading.
Bret Hart’s autobiography, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling, covers the full sweep of his career and includes many of the stories above, plus much more about Owen’s rise through Stampede Wrestling, his time in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, his WWF career, and the brothers’ relationship across decades.
Nattie Neidhart’s The Last Hart Beating: From the Dungeon to WWE, released in 2025, provides a third-generation perspective on Owen as the beloved uncle who shaped the next generation of Harts at Sunday dinners and quietly stepped in for the family during their darkest moments.
