Dorothy Hamill
Dorothy Hamill (born
July 26,
1956,
Chicago, Illinois) is an
American figure skater and 1976 Olympic champion.
Although she was born in Chicago, her family moved to
Greenwich,
Connecticut shortly after she was born, and she spent the rest of her childhood there. She had a brother and a sister.
Hamill first started ice skating when she was eight, skating in her grandparent's backyard on a pond. Her ice skates were too big, so her grandmother put stuffing in the toes to make them fit. She asked her mother if she could have lessons so she could learn to skate backwards. Her mother said yes and got her lessons.
She was
U.S. champion from 1974 through 1976. Hamill developed a new move, a
camel spin that turns into a
sit spin, which became known as the "Hamill camel." The bobbed hairstyle that she wore during her Olympic performance started a brief fad.
Hamill made her first big breakthrough at the 1974 World Championships in
Munich, Germany. She was in 3rd place after the
compulsory figures and the short program. She was set to skate after the German skater whose marks were booed mercilessly while Hamill was already on the ice. Visibly upset, she left the ice and burst into tears. After the crowd calmed down, she returned to the ice and skated a perfect and inspiring program, almost winning the gold medal, but settling for silver behind
Christine Errath of
East Germany. Hamill again won silver at the World Championships in
1975 at
Colorado Springs, Colorado behind
Dianne de Leeuw of the Netherlands but ahead of Errath. In 1976, Hamill switched boots to be able to skate the compulsory figures better (she had been wearing special boots created by
Carlo Fassi that did not seem to be helping her). At the Olympics, Hamill came in second in the figures and then easily won the short and long programs, taking the gold medal ahead of de Leeuw and Errath who came in second and third, respectively. She also won the world championships that year and then turned professional.
She was an
Ice Capades headliner from
1977-
1984; she bought the financially-strapped company in 1993 but sold it to
Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment, Inc. soon after.
A doll was made of her in 1977. She has written a book,
On and Off the Ice. She was married and divorced twice: to the late
Dean Paul Martin (1982 - 1984), and then to Kenneth Forsythe (1987 - 1995), with whom she had a daughter named Alexandra. Dorothy and her daughter now reside in suburban
Baltimore, where she still occasionally conducts figure skating classes. She was a judge on the
2006 Fox television show
Skating With Celebrities.
Amateur
* Olympic Champion (1976).
* World Champion (1976).
* Three-time United States National Champion (1974-1976).
* Invented the
Hamill camel, a camel spin followed by a sit spin.
Professional
* World Professional Champion (1983-1987).
Awards
* Inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1991).
* Inducted into the
World Figure Skating Hall of Fame (2000).
* "I wasn't particularly athletic or gifted, but I loved it. I'd be at the skating rink all day long, just skating around and around. I could be all alone and nobody could get near me and I didn't have to talk to anybody. I was in my fantasy world."
* "I worked as hard as I could. I was always the first one on the ice and the last one off."
*
Dorothy's U.S. Olympic Team bio ... with notes, quotes, photos
* Academy of Achievement Profile http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ham1pro-1
* Academy of Achievement Biography http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ham1bio-1
* Academy of Achievement Interview http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ham1int-1
* Academy of Achievement Photo Gallery http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ham1gal-1
*
ESPN Classics - Dorothy Hamill's win in Innsbruck plus trivia
*
