TELEVISION – Up Close and Personal

In the late 1940’s television variety shows filled many of the new medium’s hours with singers, dancers, comedians, and musicians – but few skaters. Black and white films like Henie’s “Sun Valley Serenade” were sometimes shown and The Mickey Mouse Club, Ed Sullivan, and Dinah Shore shows occasionally included a skating act. Los Angeles area skating fans perked up in 1951 for “Frosty Frolics,” a weekly one-hour live TV skating musical show.

 

Ads for the Dec. 22, 1956 telecast of “Sonja Henie’s Holiday On Ice,” urged everyone to buy a new TV set to see it “In COLOR.” In 1958 “Hans Brinker,” an original ice musical, was performed live with movie star skater Tab Hunter and two- time Olympic champion Dick Button. Excerpts from the big touring shows like ”Ice Follies,” “Ice Capades,” and “Holiday On Ice” became highly popular annual TV spectaculars hosted by famous non-skating guest stars like Lorne Green of “Bonanza” and Motown singing stars The Supremes.

 

 

When the Winter Olympics were brought to home viewers in the mid 1950s the beauty, excitement, and drama of competitive figure skating quickly became the main event. Up-close-and-personal segments on the skaters’ lives, triumphs, and tragedies fascinated fans. Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill became household names, their excellent TV specials as professionals in the 1970s and 80s drew large audiences and their wholesome beauty proved perfect for advertisers. They, and many other skaters, gained further fame and career longevity when, in 1979, producer and two-time Olympic champ Dick Button began producing his annual World Professional Figure Skating Championships.

 

Figure skating drew the world to TV sets in 1988 for the Battle of the Brians, (Boitano and Orser) and the competing Carmens (Debbie Thomas and Katarina Witt). Boitano won gold and became the first male figure skater to be presented in his own television special, “Canvas Of Ice.” He later teamed with ladies champion Witt for others, including the Emmy Award winning “Carmen On Ice.” Canadians enjoyed a late 80’s weekly show, “Stars On Ice” and frequent specials starring that nations’ bumper crop of stars including Brian Orser, Elizabeth Manley, and Toller Cranston whose wildly theatrical television ice fantasies perfectly showcased his flamboyant skating style.

 


But on January 6, 1994 a shocking scandal erupted at the World Championships in Detroit. Cohorts of skater Tonya Harding staged an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan to eliminate her from competition. The resulting international front page media furor glued an audience of millions of the inquisitive to their TV sets for that year’s Winter Olympic ladies figure skating events, one of the largest in television history.
 

Those previously merely curious loved what they saw and television schedules quickly became saturated with prime time skating events to give them more. An avalanche of faux competitions ensued including Star Wars, Battle of the Sexes on Ice, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Skating Championship, plus entertainment specials, guest appearances, and biographies. All of them featured a handful of ubiquitous brand-name gold-standard champion skaters who became superstar millionaires. TV dramas were made about the suicide attempt of pair skater Tai Babalonia, and the rags-to-riches trials and tribulations of the orphaned Ukrainian Olympic Champion Oksana Baiul. Another heartbreaking TV movie came from the best selling book “My Sergei,” about two-time Olympic Russian pair champions Sergei Grinkov and wife Ekaterina Gordeeva who was suddenly widowed when young Sergei died in her arms on the ice leaving her partnerless with their young daughter to raise alone.

 

 

All was not scandal and ice-wars, however, Canadian choreographer/producer Sandra Bezic created a tailor made television special titled “You Must Remember This” around Kurt Browning’s awesome talent.  It featured Browning in a superb ice skating version of dancer Gene Kelly’s unforgettable “Singin’ in the Rain” movie masterpiece. Browning, Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Boitano, and Katarina Witt are among the stars who have created their own television specials under the banner of Disson Skating, often to honor - and perform with - great musical stars like Ray Charles and Earth Wind & Fire.

 

Added to the multiplicity of made for TV events were films with stories of skaters, Christmas “Nutcrackers,” and frequent small screen presentations of the touring shows “Stars On Ice” and “Champions On Ice.”

 

 

However, as we well know, life is all seasons and cycles and some of the huge audience began to find other diversions. Then a judging scandal in figure skating events at the 2002 Winter games took more luster off the golden skates. Four years later the numbers of television viewers for figure skating were even more disappointing at the 2006 Winter Games. A core audience has remained but many have drifted away to find new interests.