At 14 she was the Norwegian Skating Champion. Henie would make eleven films in Hollywood, with the first six being the most successful. For emphasis on Henie's film career, see entries in David Shipman, The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years (1970; rev. By this time her movie career was over. Four thoughts about Sonja Henie " I skated with Sonja, and wrote the first biography after her death. . Date of Death: October 12, 1969. Adolf Hitler greeting Sonja Henie at a rink in Munich six weeks after the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she won a third straight women's singles title. Henie has won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies' figure skater. Three times the Olympic figure-skating champion, Miss Henie won most of the major world skating titles from 1927 to 1936, when she turned professional. Entertainment Weekly (February 11, 1994): 62. Henie kept her Hollywood home in Holmby Hills and enjoyed her Grundholtet villa in Norway and apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland. Long, black skirts were the norm, being both modest and warm. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Sonja Said to have had a keen business sense, she early acquired the nickname Little Miss Moneybags for her habit of prudent investments. Olympics and came in eighth place. At home in Oslo, she trained at Frogner Stadium, where her coaches included Hjrdis Olsen and Oscar Holte. . In Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 1. Soon after winning her first world championship, Henie saw a ballet performance by Russian great Anna Pavlova. Her brother, Leif Henie, coauthored Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie (1985), in which he discussed her violent temper. Having turned professional after her Olympic triumph in 1936, Henie toured Europe and the Americas as the star of the Hollywood Ice Revue, and for a time (195152) she acted as producer of her ice shows. At the height of her fame, Henie brought as much as $2 million per year from her shows and touring activities. Omissions? 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. As Honorary Jumper", "Photo Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner EI-LNA", "Cheap flights to Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm Norwegian", "Sundance Film Review: 'Sonja: The White Swan', https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sonja_Henie&oldid=1151351901, Inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame (1982), In 1938, at age 25, she became the youngest person to be made a knight first class of. Burial. Sonja Henie, (born April 8, 1912, Kristiania , Norwaydied October 12, 1969, in an airplane en route to Oslo), Norwegian-born American world champion figure skater and Olympic gold medalist who went on to achieve success as a professional ice-skater and as a motion-picture actress. She married Niels Onstad, a Norwegian shipping magnate. The tour did not, however, result in the film contract Henie desired. In cooperation with promoter Wirtz, Henie honed her skills as a producer of ice shows as well as maintained her prowess as a skater. She later competed successfully in tennis and auto racing in the midst of her skating career. Her death in Los Angeles, California on October 12, 1969, robbed the skating world of one of its brightest stars. 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. Henie also had great spinning ability. Sonja's marriage to Winthrop ended in 1956. She remembered in the Sporting News how Henie had screamed at her after the 1933 World Championship competition, saying she was an unworthy opponent. The pictures were reported to have grossed $25-million. In an era before television, these films were an introduction to skating for millions of American viewers. [1], Henie began skating at the age of 5. 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. From the Archives: Don Ameche, Dapper Film Star, Dies at 85, From the Archives: Andy Warhol, Pioneer of 60s Pop Art, Dies, From the Archives: Jazz Great Thelonious Monk Dies, From the Archives: Armand Hammer Dies; Billionaire, Art Patron, From the Archives: Buster Crabbe, Athlete, Hero of Serials, Dies. She was the first woman figure skater to wear short skirts above the knee. After the 1936 World Figure Skating Championships, Henie gave up her amateur status and took up a career as a professional performer in acting and live shows. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. She was among 250 female stars who were nominated for "50 Greatest Screen Legend" status by the American Film Institute. The intensity of Henie's commitment to skating was further intensified after competing in the first winter Olympics, in Chamonix, France, in 1924. She finished in last place. Sonja Henie. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina, Tamara Karsavina, to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity. 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. It set the pattern for the films to follow as a light musical comedy that included songs and skating. Kestnbaum states that although toe steps are used as "occassional couterpoints to the legato flow of skating movement", she argues that Henie might have overused these steps, calling them "mincing and ineffective". 27 Apr. Within a month of her last amateur victory, Henie signed with promoter Arthur Wirtz to appear in a U.S. tour. She She was strongly denounced in the Norwegian press for this. At age seven Henie learned to skate from her elder and only brother, Leif. He named Henie as the instigator. With her sunny personality and obvious love of skating, Henie popularized the sport and served as a role model for American skating hopefuls of both sexes, including Dick Button, Tenley Albright (the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal), and Carol Heiss. 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. At the age of eighty-two, Hulten still had plenty of venom for Henie. Once Henie began serious training as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. Sports Illustrated (February 14, 1994): 18. At 14 she was the Norwegian "When Cleveland fell under Sonja's spell 64 years ago, Henie's visit enchanted the city." She was a three-time Olympic champion (1928, 1932, 1936) in women's singles, a ten-time World champion (19271936) and a six-time European champion (19311936). very wealthy family and was encouraged to play sports. [2], Kestnbaum argues that although Henie's skating was "athletic and powerful for her day",[2] she purposively added elements,such as using the toepicks of her skates to run or pose on the ice, in movements similar to the use of pointe technique in ballet, that undercut her power and athleticism. As a child, Henie enjoyed advantages that greatly contributed to her success as a skater. Henie was portrayed in the 2018 Anne Sewitsky film Sonja The White Swan, shown at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.[26][27][28]. She is said to be one of the best figure skaters in history. She announced then that she was turning professional, and toured the United States in an ice show. Two earlier marriages to Americans, Daniel Reid Topping and Winthrop Gardiner Jr., ended in divorces in 1946 and 1956. In 1936 she would turn professional and tour with her own ice show. She was signed by 20th Century-Fox and debuted in One in a Million (1936), in which she played an ice skater. It recounted that her appearance had been a front-page story in which Roelif Loveland had written "there is no simile to express adequately the grace and loveliness of this glamorous young woman." was a frequent exclaimatory utterance by Tom and Ray Magliozzi on the National Public Radio show Car Talk. Until shortly before her death, Miss Henie had remained socially active and continued to direct the activities of the $3.5 million art museum she and her husband had presented to Norway. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Topping. 3, Actors and Actresses (1986). Sonja was 57 years old at the time of death. Henie, Sonja (1912-1969) Norwegian figure skater who won three consecutive gold medals and became a movie box-office attraction surpassed in her day only by Shirley Temple and Clark Gable. This adaptation formed the basis for Henie's free-skating program at the 1928 Olympics at St. Moritz, where the blonde-haired, five-foot, two-inch Henie, at 104 pounds, presented flawless figures and a free-skating program that included a combination of double "Axel Paulsens" (as the double axel was then called) and nineteen spins, twirls, and jumps. She continued to perform Indeed, after the school figures section at the 1936 Olympic competition, Colledge and Henie were virtually neck and neck with Colledge trailing by just a few points. Ted Scott ( John Payne) is a band pianist whose publicity manager decides that, for good press, the band should adopt a foreign refugee. Born April 8, 1912, in Oslo, Norway, Henie was blessed from the beginning with every attribute a skater might need. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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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]. Encyclopedia.com. included dazzling ice-skating routines which she choreographed herself. Ice-T appeared on the music scene in 1987 with a new style: gangster rap, which offers rhymes about crimea, ice skating, gliding along an ice surface on keellike runners known as ice skates. 1974); James Robert Parish, The Fox Girls (1971); and James Vinson, ed., The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, vol. Henie-Onstad museum. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. When Geoffrey and Ken get so distracted by romance that they begin to neglect their assignments, it almost leads to disaster as the Gestapo sets out to silence Norden once and for all. Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: Sports Figures, Hamill, Dorothy [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). In 1941 Henie, who was twice married to U.S. citizens, herself became a citizen of the United States. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Updates? Moreover, Hulten believed that Henie's father influenced competition organizers by playing poker for "appearance fees" and, in one case, the agreement to place Hulten third in the 1936 Olympics. 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). At the height of the Great Depression she had become an international star with enough clout that she could announce that she planned to be in motion pictures. Could it be Ms. Hart seems a little "chilly!" Please pardon the periodic visual/audio glitches; the source. Henie became so popular with the public that police had to be called out for crowd control on her appearances in various disparate cities such as Prague and New York City. Miss Henie had been suffering from leukemia for the last nine months. at Graumann's Chinese Theatre. She broke with her manager in 1951, and began producing shows on her own, but gave them up after a block of seats at a Baltimore armory collapsed before a show in March, 1952, injuring more than 250 people. 1936 her father financed an extravagant ice show in Hollywood. Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 - 12 October 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. When the Nazis arrived to take over the house, they saw the picture and left quickly. Practicing as much as seven hours a day, she studied with teachers in Germany, England, Switzerland and Austria. A petite, glamorous woman with a taste for luxury and a shrewd business sense, she was immensely successful next with a series of her own ice revues, and prospered as a motion picture star. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sonja-Henie, Sonja Henie - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). After placing last in a field of eight, she increased her practice time to some seven hours a day. Her final two Hollywood films, released in 1945 by RKO and in 1948 by Universal, no longer enthralled postwar audiences, who preferred more sophisticated scripts. In December 1937 Henie was received into Norway's Knightly Order of St. Olaf. In 1940 Sonja married businessman Daniel From Wikipedia: Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 - 12 October 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. Henie wed American business executive Winthrop Gardiner Jr. in 1949; he divorced her in 1956 for "desertion and mental cruelty." He died of Tularmia (Rabbit . They also made her wealthy. Sonja Henie made her Olympic debut at the first Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924. Time (July 17, 1939): 51-54. Encyclopedia of World Biography. He agrees that she has no chance for the part but talks her into flying to Hollywood for the trip, with her Aunt Phoebe (Edna May Oliver). (April 27, 2023). When she returned the following year, she secured the women's national championship title and, as part of her record-making legacy, would come back the subsequent six years to retain that title. Encyclopedia.com. Public interest in Henie has fueled continued debate about her off-ice and off-screen behavior. She was 55, her. She had often performed in Germany and her popularity Her wide, dimpled smile, pixie eyes and blonde Nordic good looks made her a great favorite of audiences during the years of World War II. Encyclopedia.com. (b. Because she was still a child, she competed in a knee-length skirt, rather than the calf-length outfits the older women wore.
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