48 Fun Facts About Sonja Henie

Henie won her Olympic titles for Norway, then became a citizen of which country in 1941?

United States: she had settled in Hollywood, and when asked to help Norway's war effort she declined, saying her interests now lay in America; she gave later, but many Norwegians held the refusal against her.

Henie's ten world titles equalled the record of which Swedish champion, whose name lives on in a skating jump?

Ulrich Salchow won his ten between 1901 and 1911; Henie's came in one unbroken run from 1927, which ended only because she turned professional in 1936, still unbeaten.

Henie's father Wilhelm had been a world champion in which sport?

Cycling: Wilhelm Henie won a track world title in 1894 and also raced at the European speed skating championships, and he drove his daughter just as hard, taking her out of school as a child to skate full time.

As she turned professional in 1936, Henie said she wanted to do with skates what which star did with dancing?

Fred Astaire was the model she named to a reporter a month after her third Olympic title, and by the end of that year her first skating musical was in cinemas.

Which Russian ballerina was the young Henie's idol and the model for the dance she brought to skating?

Anna Pavlova. From the age of five Henie took ballet lessons with one of Pavlova's former teachers, and a 1928 film of her skating was titled The Pavlova of the Ice.

At the 1924 Winter Olympics, aged eleven, Henie finished in what position?

Eighth of eight, behind the Austrian winner Herma Szabo. Just three years later, aged 14, Henie beat the same Szabo to take the first of her world titles.

Why was Henie's first world title, won at home in 1927, controversial?

Three of the five judges were Norwegian, and all three placed her first while the Austrian and German judges chose Herma Szabo; the skating union then limited panels to one judge per country.

Which skater's 1988 win made her the first woman since Henie to retain the Olympic singles title?

Katarina Witt held off the American Debi Thomas in Calgary in a duel remembered as the Battle of the Carmens, because both women had chosen to skate to Bizet's opera.

Henie was born in 1912 in Kristiania, the Norwegian city known since 1925 by which name?

Oslo took back its old name in 1925, when Henie was 12 and already an Olympian; she had grown up a short walk from the Frogner rink where she learned to skate.

At which resort did Henie win her first Olympic gold in 1928?

St. Moritz was hit by a thaw that forced one speed skating race to be abandoned, and during the women's free skate red flags marked the worst patches of the outdoor ice.

Henie's second Olympic gold came in 1932 at the first Winter Games to stage figure skating indoors, in which US town?

Lake Placid's Olympic Arena put the skaters under a roof for the first time at a Winter Games; four years earlier a thaw had ruined the outdoor ice.

Henie's closest rival at the 1936 Olympics, 15-year-old Cecilia Colledge, skated for which country?

Britain. Colledge had first skated at the Olympics aged 11, and once Henie left for Hollywood the way was clear: she won the world title in London the following year.

After the 1936 Olympic school figures, what did Henie reportedly do with the results sheet?

Tore it into little pieces, by one account: she led Cecilia Colledge by only a few points, and suspicion grew when the draw then let her skate last while Colledge went second of 26.

The 1936 Winter Olympics, site of Henie's third gold, were held in which German town?

Garmisch-Partenkirchen had been two separate market towns until the Nazi authorities forced them to merge on 1 January 1935, a year before the Games.

Which relative of Henie co-wrote Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows, an unsparing 1985 biography of her?

Her brother, Leif Henie, had first taken her onto the ice and given her her earliest lessons; decades later his book with Raymond Strait catalogued her flaws, from tight-fistedness to drink.

Henie's 1941 hit Sun Valley Serenade is set at a ski resort in which US state?

Idaho. Henie plays a war refugee whom a band pianist agrees to sponsor as a publicity stunt, expecting a child; the grown woman who arrives follows the band to Sun Valley and wins him.

Henie is credited with popularising which items, now standard in women's figure skating?

White boots and the short skirt: at 14 she won her first world title in a skirt cut above the knee, which freed her legs for the jumps that long skirts had left to the men.

Which Hollywood studio chief signed Henie to a long-term film contract in 1936?

Darryl Zanuck was won over by two ice shows her father staged in Los Angeles before a crowd of film stars, and when he offered only a minor part she held out until he gave her leading roles.

What was the title of Henie's 1936 Hollywood debut film?

One in a Million cast her as an Olympic hopeful warned not to risk her amateur status, a plot filmed only months after Henie had given up her own to turn professional.

Which matinee idol was Henie's leading man in both Thin Ice and Second Fiddle?

Tyrone Power was also, friends said, the great love of her life, but in 1939, the year of their second film together, he married the French actress Annabella.

In Thin Ice (1937), Henie's skate instructor falls for a skier who is secretly what?

A prince, travelling incognito to escape his royal duties. The skiing in the film was not Henie's own: her stand-in on the slopes was Gretchen Fraser, later an Olympic ski champion.

Which Broadway star sang alongside Henie in the 1938 musical Happy Landing?

Ethel Merman plays the girlfriend a bandleader has waiting at home when his plane makes a forced landing in Norway, where a mix-up leaves Henie's village girl sure they are engaged, and she follows him across the Atlantic.

Second Fiddle (1939) parodied the search for an actress to play which famous role?

Scarlett O'Hara: Henie plays a Minnesota schoolteacher plucked from obscurity for a much-hyped film role, and the publicist who found her falls for her himself while staging her fake romance with another star.

Which bandleader's orchestra featured in Henie's 1941 hit Sun Valley Serenade?

Glenn Miller's orchestra appeared in only one other film, and its 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' from this one sold 1.2 million copies, earning what is counted as the first gold record.

Which future star sings and dances 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' with the Nicholas Brothers in Sun Valley Serenade?

Dorothy Dandridge danced the number with the Nicholas Brothers, and the following year she married one of them, Harold Nicholas.

In Everything Happens at Night (1939), Henie plays the daughter of a Nobel laureate in hiding from which secret police?

The Gestapo. Two rival reporters trace the peace campaigner to a Swiss village and both fall for his daughter, in a brooding thriller quite unlike her usual skating musicals.

What set It's a Pleasure (1945) apart from all of Henie's other Hollywood films?

It was shot in colour, in Technicolor, and it broke her mould in another way: after years of light musical comedies she played the wife of a hard-drinking hockey player in a melodrama.

Which Chicago arena owner produced Henie's touring Hollywood Ice Revue?

Arthur Wirtz saw her as the way to fill arenas across the country, his own Chicago Stadium among them, and signed her to a touring contract about a month after her last Olympic win.

The theatre where Henie co-produced ice spectaculars throughout the 1940s was part of which Manhattan landmark?

Rockefeller Center rebuilt its loss-making Center Theatre as an ice stage on the strength of Henie's success; it was demolished in 1954, the only building of the original complex to go.

Henie made her Olympic debut aged eleven at the first Winter Games, held in 1924 in which French resort?

Chamonix. Norway had not planned to send any figure skaters until her father offered to pay the whole trip himself and travel as her coach.

In 1953 Henie joined Morris Chalfen's successful European tour of which ice show?

Holiday On Ice took her across Europe and, to her dread, back to Norway, where she feared she had not been forgiven for her wartime conduct; instead all 33 shows in her home city sold out.

Which celebrated songwriter wrote the score for Henie's 1939 film Second Fiddle?

Irving Berlin's name was part of the sell, with the film sometimes billed as Irving Berlin's Second Fiddle, and one of his songs for it earned an Oscar nomination, only to lose to 'Over the Rainbow'.

Henie's autobiography, published in English in 1940, was titled what?

Wings on My Feet set out the aim behind her whole style: she wrote that she had wanted, more than anything else, to make her free skating a blend of dancing and figure skating.

After the 1936 Winter Olympics, Henie accepted Hitler's invitation to lunch at his retreat near which Bavarian town?

Berchtesgaden. Hitler gave her a signed photograph there, and it is said that when Germany occupied Norway she had it put on show in the family home, which the troops then left untouched.

Henie's first husband, Dan Topping, later became part owner and president of which baseball team?

New York Yankees. Topping bought the club with two partners in 1945, while he was still married to Henie, and in 1964 he and his remaining partner sold control to the CBS television network.

Henie's third husband, Niels Onstad, made his fortune in which business?

Shipping: Onstad had run his own tanker company since 1935. He was a friend from her childhood, and she married him in 1956, the year she gave up skating.

The art centre that Henie and Niels Onstad opened in 1968 was built around their collection of what?

Modern art: Onstad was already collecting abstract painting when they married, and together they bought Picasso, Matisse and Miró, then gave the collection and a museum to Norway.

Henie died in 1969 aged 57 of which disease, on an ambulance flight home from Paris?

Leukemia. By one friend's account her husband kept the diagnosis from her and she was told it was anaemia; she fell asleep on the flight home and did not wake.

At 25, Henie became the youngest knight first class of the Norwegian Order named after which saint?

St. Olav. The king honoured her at the height of her film fame, yet within a few years many Norwegians had turned against her for doing little to help their country during the war.

Which Disney character mimics Henie's skating in the 1939 cartoon short The Hockey Champ?

Donald Duck met a cartoon Henie later that year in The Autograph Hound, where she signs by skating her name into the ice, and the slab he carries off melts away on a desert film set.

Norwegian Air Shuttle has honoured Henie as one of its 'heroes' by painting her portrait on which part of its aircraft?

The tail fin: the airline cast itself as the upstart that took on an aviation monopoly, so it decorated its jets with 'tail fin heroes', at first Nordic figures, who had broken boundaries of their own.

'Sonja Henie's tutu!' was a favourite exclamation of the hosts of which NPR programme?

Car Talk's hosts, the brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi, shouted it so often that a 2015 'Best of' episode took the phrase as its title and set out to explain where it came from.

Sonja: The White Swan, a 2018 Norwegian biopic of Henie, was shown in 2019 at which American film festival?

Sundance. Anne Sewitsky's film, with Ine Marie Wilmann as Henie, is no tribute: Variety's review said it gives the Olympian 'three gold medals and a heart of coal'.

The 1930 World Championships, the first held outside Europe, staged the free skating Henie won in which famous arena?

Madison Square Garden hosted the free skating in February 1930, and six years later the same arena staged 'Sonja Henie Night', the show that launched her professional career in America.

What was the trade of Sonja Henie's prosperous father, Wilhelm?

Furrier: Wilhelm Henie's fur trade helped pay for the best coaches and her trips to competitions, and fur became part of her look on the ice, in costumes trimmed with ermine.

Besides skating, Henie was a nationally ranked player of which sport, sharing third place at Norway's 1929 championships?

Tennis. She joined the capital's tennis club on her sixteenth birthday, weeks after her first Olympic title, and reached the national podium the next year; she had been on skis before she ever skated.

For a planned 1970 television comeback, Henie intended to dance to the theme from which film?

Doctor Zhivago: she was rehearsing a skating routine to 'Lara's Theme' in the months before she died, and the television special, due to air in January 1970, was never made.

In 1938 Henie ranked third among Hollywood's box-office stars, behind Clark Gable and which child star?

Shirley Temple topped the exhibitors' poll that year, with Henie third only two years after her first film; by 1939 she had slipped to tenth, and she then dropped off the list.