Dorothy Hamill
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50 free Dorothy Hamill trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dorothy Hamill is one of the most recognisable figure skaters America has produced. One winter in the 1970s turned a shy teenager into a household name, and her haircut was copied in salons across the country almost overnight. People still ask whether she is related to Mark Hamill, and this quiz settles that along with the rest of her story: the childhood on the ice, the coaches and rivals, the move that carries her name, the Olympic fortnight, and the decades of touring shows, business gambles and television appearances that followed. It suits anyone who remembers watching her skate as well as newer fans of the sport. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind each fact as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Dorothy Hamill is no relation to Mark Hamill, the actor famous for playing which Star Wars hero?
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker first reached cinemas in 1977, the year after Dorothy Hamill's Olympic gold. The actor and the skater share a surname and nothing more.
Q 02In which Austrian city did Dorothy Hamill win her figure skating gold at the 1976 Winter Olympics?
Innsbruck
Innsbruck was staging its second Winter Games in 12 years, having stepped in when the original American host city pulled out.
Q 03Which haircut, created for Dorothy Hamill by stylist Yusuke Suga, became a craze after her 1976 Olympic win?
The wedge
The wedge fanned out when she spun and fell straight back into place, and salons were soon being asked for the cut by her name.
Q 04Which touring skating revue signed Dorothy Hamill after her Olympic win and was bought by her in 1993?
Ice Capades
Ice Capades signed her as its new star after the Olympics. When the company went bankrupt she bought its assets and ran it as president.
Q 05The Hamill camel, Dorothy Hamill's signature move, begins in a camel position and drops into which other element?
Sit spin
Sit spin is where the move ends. She developed it in 1969 while training under Gustave Lussi, and it became a highlight of her programs.
Q 06Dorothy Hamill's first husband, a tennis player and actor nicknamed Dino, was the son of which famous crooner?
Dean Martin
Dean Martin's son Dean Paul was married to her from 1982 to 1984. A National Guard pilot, he died when his jet crashed in 1987.
Q 07Which celebrity dance contest did Dorothy Hamill leave after only two dances in 2013 because of a back injury?
Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars paired her with Tristan MacManus in its sixteenth season, but her spine surgeon told her to stop after she strained her lower back in practice.
Q 08Who in 1992 became the first American woman since Dorothy Hamill to win the Olympic figure skating title?
Kristi Yamaguchi
Kristi Yamaguchi ended the wait in Albertville. Skaters from East Germany had taken all three women's titles in between.
Q 09The day before her Olympic free skate in Austria, Dorothy Hamill toured filming locations of which favorite musical?
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music trip was her mother's idea to take her mind off the final, but she returned to piles of telegrams from strangers and burst into tears.
Q 10Why was Dorothy Hamill seen squinting at the scoreboard after her skates at the 1976 Winter Olympics?
She skated without her glasses
She skated without her glasses or contact lenses, so she had to squint to read her marks. The squint became part of her appeal.
Q 11Dorothy Hamill grew up in Connecticut, but in which Midwestern city was the future Olympic champion born?
Chicago
Chicago was home only briefly, because her family moved east shortly after she was born.
Q 12Which Connecticut town, where Dorothy Hamill grew up, named its public skating rink after her?
Greenwich
Greenwich had so little ice time when she was a child that she trained in New York City, staying overnight with friends when she could.
Q 13Which coach, a former European champion himself, guided Dorothy Hamill to her 1976 Olympic gold?
Carlo Fassi
Carlo Fassi left for Europe with another pupil weeks before the Games, so she trained with a stand-in until the two were reunited in Germany.
Q 21Which jump, the hardest in Dorothy Hamill's programs, did coach Gustave Lussi teach her to attack without hesitating?
Double axel
Double axel takes two and a half turns in the air, and Lussi told her she would land it only by attacking it with complete confidence.
Q 22Dorothy Hamill's early coach Gustave Lussi had earlier trained which two-time Olympic men's champion?
Dick Button
Dick Button was coached by Lussi from the age of twelve, and as a producer he later made television specials starring Hamill.
Q 23In which Adirondack village did the young Dorothy Hamill train with coaches Otto Gold and Gustave Lussi?
Lake Placid
Q 14Dorothy Hamill was the first American woman to win Olympic figure skating gold since which 1968 champion?
Peggy Fleming
Peggy Fleming had trained under the same coach. Austria's Beatrix Schuba won the title at the Games in between.
Q 15Which skater, a pupil of Dorothy Hamill's coach, won the men's gold at the same 1976 Olympics?
John Curry
John Curry took the European, Olympic and world titles that year, so one coach had both singles champions at a single Games.
Q 16Dianne de Leeuw, runner-up to Dorothy Hamill at the 1976 Olympics, was born in California but skated for which country?
Netherlands
The Netherlands was her mother's country, and de Leeuw had beaten Hamill to the world title the year before.
Q 17In which West German city did Dorothy Hamill leave the ice in tears at the 1974 Worlds after the crowd booed?
Munich
Munich's crowd was booing the marks given to a West German skater, not her. She came back out and won the silver medal.
Q 18Dorothy Hamill was the last Olympic singles champion to win without which element in her programs?
A triple jump
A triple jump was something she never landed reliably, yet she won both the short and the long program in 1976.
Q 19Dorothy Hamill's 1976 Olympics moved to Austria after voters in which U.S. state refused to fund the Games?
Colorado
Colorado had won the Games for Denver, the city where she was training in the years before her gold.
Q 20Which hair-care brand made Dorothy Hamill the face of its Short & Sassy shampoo after her Olympic win?
Clairol
Clairol built the line's television and print ads around her dark, glossy bob as she glided across the ice.
Lake Placid had kept its Olympic ice open through the summer since the 1930s, when that was unusual, and it drew ambitious young skaters to train there.
Q 24A 1993 national study tied Dorothy Hamill with which Olympic gymnast as America's most popular athlete?
Mary Lou Retton
Mary Lou Retton and Hamill finished far ahead of Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and some 800 other athletes in the Associated Press study.
Q 25Dorothy Hamill sold her struggling ice show in 1995 to a company owned by which television evangelist?
Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment paid $10 million and kept her on as president, but she left after a lacklustre season.
Q 26Dorothy Hamill won a Daytime Emmy for a 1983 television ice special based on which Shakespeare play?
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet on Ice aired on CBS, and her Emmy was a performing arts award for hosting it.
Q 27Which fairy-tale heroine did Dorothy Hamill skate in the touring show she produced as owner, later broadcast on ABC?
Cinderella
Cinderella... Frozen in Time was the hit of her years as an ice-show owner, when she also scrapped the company's weigh-ins for its skaters.
Q 28Which classic ballet did Dorothy Hamill and her second husband produce as an ice show in the late 1980s?
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker on ice was produced with Kenneth Forsythe, a sports physician she married in 1987.
Q 29Which joint condition was Dorothy Hamill diagnosed with after chronic pain began to hamper her skating at 40?
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis did not end her career: the condition responded well to medication and she went back to skating professionally.
Q 30Dorothy Hamill's seasonal affective disorder is unusual because her depression tends to flare in which season?
Summer
Summer is the reverse of the usual pattern, in which low moods arrive with the short, dark days of winter.