A New York Times obituary noted that she once summoned Eddie Pec, who was said to be the only person she trusted to sharpen her skates, from New York to Chicago by train to do a job that took only a few minutes. Following the success of Thin Ice, Henie showed her growing business savvy by getting Twentieth Century-Fox to renegotiate her contract. In 1936 she signed with Twentieth Century-Fox, and she starred in 10 popular films, beginning with One in a Million (193637) and Thin Ice (1937). Henie was also successful in Hollywood. "I want to do with skates (in the movies) what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing," she said. Practicing as much as seven hours a day, she studied with teachers in Germany, England, Switzerland and Austria. She had become an American citizen in 1941. In 1968 Sonja was diagnosed with leukemia. Second Fiddle displays Sonja [Henie] as Trudi Hovland, a schoolmarm of Bergen, Minn. who is called to Hollywood because her local swain has sent her photograph to Consolidated Pictures Corp., which has been looking high & low for just such a heroine. Henie went on to win first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year, becoming one of the youngest figure skating Olympic champions. She studied in Oslo together with Martin Stixrud and Erna Andersen who was her competitor and skate club member.[17]. Henie incorporated ballet movements into her skating; she had taken ballet lessons from the age of five and was influenced by ballerina Anna Pavlova. "Remembering Sonja Henie." She was the first woman figure skater to wear short skirts above the knee. After a twirl on the ice with her pupils, Trudi consents. When Geoffrey and Ken track Norden to a small village in the Swiss Alps, they soon find themselves competing over the affections of beautiful Louise (Henie), who has a deeper connection to the missing Nobel laureate than the reporters realize. Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies' figure skater. As a result, none of Henie's properties in Norway were confiscated or damaged by the Germans. She was showcased in the Hollywood Ice Revue, which began in 1938 and continued for twelve years in cities across the United States. The former NCIS star shared the heartbreaking news Saturday that his younger brother Will Weatherly died on Thursday, April 20. Her performance, skating "at home" in Norway's Frogner Stadium, earned her the first of ten consecutive world figure skating titles (and the distinction of being the youngest world champion until Tara Lipinski edged her out in 1997 by a margin of thirty-two days). According to a quote in the New York Times, Henie felt that she was working harder than ever: "When I was in championship competition I was on the ice for exactly four minutes. In 1956, Sonja Henie married for the third time. She was signed by 20th Century-Fox and debuted in One in a Million (1936), in which she played an ice skater. She therefore made the best of it and won her third Olympic medal. At age seven Henie learned to skate from her elder and only brother, Leif. April 08, 1912 Died October 12, 1969 Cause of Death Leukemia Biography Read More Winner of the Olympic Gold medal in figure skating an impressive three times in a row (1928, 1932, 1936), Henie came to Twentieth Century-Fox shortly after her last win and was built up as a popular star. Soon after winning her first world championship, Henie saw a ballet performance by Russian great Anna Pavlova. [10], During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, German troops saw Hitler's autographed photo prominently displayed at the piano in the Henie family home in Landya, Asker. She enjoyed music and dance from an early age, studying ballet and after beginning her competitive skating career, admired the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova after seeing her perform in London.[2]. decided to become a US citizen and supported the USO in their efforts. Paris and London were mentioned, but only Hello London (1958) was made with her own backing, co-starring Michael Wilding and special guest star Stanley Holloway. She incorporated 19 different spins into her programs, and she could spin nearly 80 revolutions. Copy. To get the attention of film executives, Henie's father leased Hollywood's Polar Palace for two performances in May 1936. It would later house all of Henie's skating memorabilia. A male cast member from the Hollywood Ice Review had warmer memories of Henie in a 1996 interview in Films in Review. Henie would make eleven films in Hollywood, with the first six being the most successful. Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: Sports Figures. It was Selma Henie, he said, who ended her daughter's squabbles and made sure that things ran smoothly. While we were in Paris she suddenly became much worse and she was examined by a doctor, he said. success. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. But Henie stopped producing shows after an accident in 1952 prior to a performance. While Irina Slutskaya of Russia has held the record for most European titles among ladies' skaters since 2006, Henie still retains the record of most consecutive titles, sharing it with Katarina Witt of Eastern Germany/Germany (19831988). At the height of her acting career, she was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood and starred in a series of box-office hits, including Thin Ice (1937), Happy Landing, My Lucky Star (1938), Second Fiddle (1939) and Sun Valley Serenade (1941). Sonja Henie, blonde Norwegian figure skater who dominated the rink for a decade and then skated her way to a second fabulous career in films, died Sunday of leukemia. Commenting on the difference between skating in her shows and in competition, Miss Henie once said: "When I was in championship competition I was on the ice for exactly four minutes. [citation needed], Henie is credited with being the first figure skater to use dance choreography, to adopt the short skirt in figure skating, and to wear white boots,[12] which deemphasized the heaviness of skates and produced a lighter and longer appearance of the skater's legs that was "a focal point for judges' and spectators' gaze". ." Sonja Henie was born on April 8, 1912 and died on October 12, 1969. Eight Sonja Henie movies crossed the $100 million domestic gross mark. -- Sonja Henie OSLO, Norway -- She was the first to spin, the first to jump, the first to be crowned a figure skating ice queen. very wealthy family and was encouraged to play sports. Date of Death: October 12, 1969. Sonja Henie was born on April 8, 1912 in Oslo, Norway. Louis, and Van Johnson. Sonja Henie, blonde Norwegian figure skater who dominated the rink for a decade and then skated her way to a second fabulous career in films, died Sunday of leukemia. Two earlier marriages to Americans, Daniel Reid Topping and Winthrop Gardiner Jr., ended in divorces in 1946 and 1956. At 14 she was the Norwegian 1928, '32, '36 Games: Sonja Henie, 3-Time Gold Medalist ullstein bild via Getty Images <em>Eleven-year-old Sonja Henie competes at the 1924 Winter Olympics.</em> Henie, the Norwegian. There, Henie won her second gold medal in figure skating, with 2,302.5 points. She is one of only two skaters to defend a ladies' singles Olympic title, the other being Katarina Witt, and her six European titles has only been matched by Witt. In her film Everything Happens at Night (1939), Ray Milland and Robert Cummings star as rival reporters hot on the trail of Hugo Norden (Maurice Moscovich). She took a largely unnoticed, technically-oriented sport and turned it into a dynamic art form that, along with its star performers, is avidly followed by fans around the world. The year 1937 held some of Henie's greatest accomplishments and one of her greatest losses. The highly-publicized shows were well attended by film stars and filmmakers, including Darryl F. Zanuck of Twentieth Century-Fox. She made one film each with RKO and Universal in the following years, and in 1958 appeared in Hello London, which was only released in England. Did Sonja Henie marry? The family also fully appreciated Henie's interest in sports. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. deals. For a time she had her own company, Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Revue, but an unfortunate bleacher collapse at one of her shows caused the venture to fold. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Miss Henie, ill for the past nine months, died aboard an ambulance plane from Paris to her native Oslo, only minutes before landing. In 1936 she would turn professional and tour with her own ice show. As a wealthy celebrity, she moved in the same social circles as royalty and heads of state and made Hitler's acquaintance as a matter of course. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Both Hans and Selma became deeply involved in Sonja's skating career. Three-quarters of a century later, in 2010 . Henie's brother speaks of her extremely violent temper in Raymond Strait and Leif Henie, Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie (1985). Norway's king and queen attended the funeral service. She was among 250 female stars who were nominated for "50 Greatest Screen Legend" status by the American Film Institute. . She won the first of 10 consecutive world skating titles at Oslo in 1927, captivating the crowd with her ballet style, a white silk and ermine costume and short skirt and a dimpled smile. American figure skater Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. forced her to retire. It was also noted in Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows that before the war started the Henies had visited with Adolf Hitler and that during a 1936 show in Berlin she had given him the Nazi salute and said "Heil, Hitler.". Short skirts and choreography were unknown in figure skating before Henie introduced them in the late 1920s. Mitt livs eventyr, Oslo, Norway: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1938. Although critics complained about her acting skills and thick At the same time, Henie studied ballet in Oslo. [citation needed], After the war, Henie was mindful that many of her countrymen considered her to be a quisling. In addition to her film career at Fox from 1936 to 1943, Henie formed a business arrangement with Arthur Wirtz, who produced her touring ice shows under the name of "Hollywood Ice Revue". She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and her world titles annually until 1936. Typically, Henie films were short on plot and long on her trademark It was an ill-advised decision to set herself up in competition with Wirtz, whose shows now featured the new Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott. The early start was seen as a disadvantage, with the audience not yet whipped into a clapping frenzy and the judges known to become freer with their higher marks as the event proceeded. We had been flying for only an hour and she just slipped away.. Her husband chartered a plane to convey her from Paris to Oslo to see her doctor, but she died onboard in her sleep. In 1953, Henie formed a new partnership with Morris Chalfen to appear in his European Holiday On Ice tour, which proved to be a great success. Hans Henie died that year, at a time when his daughter's career had reached amazing heights. Her free-skating program, with its musical medley of stage songs, received a standing ovation. Her skating built on the innovative styles of Jackson Haines and Hilda Holowsky. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. "Tormented by a rival who was cold as ice." Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. At age 10 she won the Norwegian national figure-skating championship, and in 1924 she competed in the Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France. An obituary is in the New York Times (13 Oct. 1969). She died a year later at age fifty-seven. In an era before television, these films were an introduction to skating for millions of American viewers. It was an open secret that, in spite of the strict amateurism requirements of the time, Wilhelm Henie demanded "expense money" for his daughter's skating appearances. In her autobiography, Wings on My Feet, Henie explained that the primary factor facilitating her being so "lucky" in achieving her skating goals was her family's wealth. When Henie began her program, her ballet training was evident in the flourishes she made with her head and legs. Jewelry takes people's minds off your wrinkles. Sonia Henie, as controversial as she was legendary. At 14 she was the Norwegian Skating Champion. During her lifetime Sonja Henie reigned as the "queen of ice," and today she remains the most influential individual to have been part of figure skating. . An excellent book that devotes much attention to Henie in the context of the development of skating is Nigel Brown, Ice-Skating: A History (1959). Already exposed to Norway's favorite sport, skiing, Henie preferred figure skating; she loved the "whirling" sensation of ice-skating and the resulting "sense of power" over distance and gravity. Her passion for performing turned her into a huge financial and popular success among athletes. In 1936 Henie won her third and final gold medal at the fourth Winter Olympic Games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, by earning 2,971.4 points. Her husband did not trust French doctors, so he flew her unconscious body to Dr Moe in Oslo. "Henie skates with speed, grace, and eye-boggling abandon through four big numbers," he noted in Entertainment Weekly. She already had considerable experience as an exhibition skater, having been a soloist for the New York Skating Club's production Land of the Midnight Sun at Madison Square Garden in 1930. Sonja became the ice-skating world Public interest in Henie has fueled continued debate about her off-ice and off-screen behavior. Henie was portrayed in the 2018 Anne Sewitsky film Sonja The White Swan, shown at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.[26][27][28]. 12 Oct 1969 (aged 57) Oslo, Oslo kommune, Oslo fylke, Norway. Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Grounds. Dolgan, Bob. On a hilltop overlooking the Henie-Onstad Museum. Her jumps and spins seem ridiculously easy compared to the athletic feats of contemporary figure skaters. [13] Henie incorporated dance elements into her figure skating, through the placement of spins, jumps, and choreography to reflect the mood of the music she used. The year after they were married she became a U.S. citizen. She appeared in the film Thin Ice and was rated in a Motion Picture Herald poll as the eighth most popular film star of the year. (Getty Images) I saw a tweet this week from Kiira Korpi, the Finnish figure skater who won medals three times at the European Championships . Although Trudi does no skating in her screen test, she makes the grade. A little "meowing" before Ms. Henie takes the ice. The film soon grossed $2 million and made Henie a household name. O'Brien, Richard and Jack McCallum. As Sandra Stevenson recounted in The Independent, "the closeness [of the competition] infuriated Henie, who, when the result for that section was posted on a wall in the competitors' lounge, swiped the piece of paper and tore it into little pieces. Barbara Ann Scott, who became a Canadian heroine at 19 when she won figure skating gold at the 1948 Winter Olympics, succeeding Norway's Sonja Henie as the premier women's skater in a sport . [1], Henie was born in 1912 in Kristiania (now Oslo) Norway; she was the only daughter of Wilhelm Henie (18721937), a prosperous Norwegian furrier, and his wife, Selma Lochmann-Nielsen (18881961). Biography. From 1937 to 1945 she was one of the leading box-office attractions in the film industry. Encyclopedia.com. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. In the fall of 1968 Henie was diagnosed with leukemia. It was not just the sheer quantity of her titles and awards or profits from skating in revues and from motion pictures that distinguished her, but rather the unique quality of her skating, her innovative influence on the development of women's competitive skating, and her overall creative artistry and ingenuity, for which she has secured a unique niche in the history of figure skating. Jimmy Sutton (Tyrone Power), the press agent sent to Bergen to fetch her, at first treats her merely as Entry No. She also lit the entire performance with a dazzling, dimpled smile. But the minute I skate in them I become a professional, so why shouldnt I go on tour?. She married Onstad that same yearby which time her film career was largely behind herand embarked on an avocation of art collecting which resulted in one of the finest collections of paintings in Hollywood. Wikipedia gives the hard facts in these few words: "Sonja Henie (April 8, 1912 - October 12, 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. The couple moved The experience inspired her to introduce choreographic design in her free skating program, an innovation that helped her win an Olympic gold medal in 1928 at St. Moritz, Switzerland. Her illness had been a well-kept secret. Henie is credited with transforming an originally demure, predictable activity by infusing it with her feminine charms and passion for the ballet. 1968 Sonja was diagnosed with leukemia. Because Norway did not yet have indoor ice rinks, she traveled around Europe to train throughout the year and benefit from the best instructors. Her new goal was the 1927 world figure skating championship. By today's standards, Henie's routines were almost ridiculously simple, her jumps far from spectacular. The international star had managed to keep her illness a secret and was seen with her husband at an Oslo theater less than two weeks before her death. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Her talent was evident from a very early age. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/henie-sonja.