Figure Skater Autobiography Lit Review- Part 4
The fourth book I chose to read was A Skating Life: My Story, by Dorothy Hamill. After the inanity of the Lipinski book, anything would likely have seemed better, but I dare say Hamill’s book is actually quite good, and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit.
I should begin by saying: I have no emotional investment in Hamill’s skating career. She had won her Olympic gold before I was even born. I respect her in the same way I respect most of the other greats of the sport who were before my time: Henie, Button, Fleming, Hamill. Given this, I didn’t expect the book to be as emotional a read as it turned out to be.
This book marks a departure from the earlier books in this series in that it wasn’t written until long, long after Hamill’s amateur skating career was over. Published in 2007, Hamill was already 51 at the time it was released. Necessarily, the narrative handles a lot of family drama (and there is drama to spare!) and personal adult life issues that aren’t necessarily related to, but always seem to be shaped and framed by, Hamill’s skating career. This book is more truly a memoir than the hokey juvenile audience books I read before it. To wit: there is no useless glossary of terms, a modest picture section, and the cover of the edition I read features a winsome-looking Hamill posing casually with her busted-up skates in jeans and a hooded sweater. Although this is not specifically mentioned in the dust jacket, coauthor Deborah Amelon is a skating friend from Hamill’s childhood who skated professionally with her as an adult in the Ice Follies.
There’s a lot to handle in this book, but the most interesting parts to me were the ones that describe the sport of figure skating and how it’s changed in the US since even the mid-20th century. You know the narrative is going to have a somewhat depressed tone right from the get-go, when Hamill describes how her mother, her constant companion in her skating training, fails to show up at the ice rink in Innsbruck to see Hamill win her Olympic gold. Instead, Mrs. Hamill is back in the hotel room, and when the rest of the family bursts in, she reportedly said, “That’s nice, Dorothy.” The rest of the book explores this tension between Hamill and her mother. It’s resolved nicely by the end with an explanation of untreated family depression that makes it easier to understand, but not sympathize with, their often-rocky relationship. Understandably, Hamill’s unusual upbringing and family dynamic have shaped the rest of her life, leading to two failed marriages. The first, to Dean Paul Martin (son of entertainer Dean Martin), seems to have dissolved due to mutual immaturity and his discomfort with her role as the primary breadwinner. His death shortly thereafter in a plane crash is tragic, and heartbreaking to read about. Even more heartbreaking is Hamill’s subsequent marriage to a doctor, Ken Forsythe, a handsome but ne’er-do-well sports medicine specialist who ultimately cheated on her while she was pregnant with their daughter and used her money for his purposes. In the background of Hamill’s marital strife is her complicated relationship with her parents, whom she supported financially for a number of years after her professional skating career took off. This ended badly when she tried to cut them off and they threw a fit, not speaking to her for a year. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s read of this book by delving much more into the personal side of things, so I’ll move on to the skating stuff at this point.
Reading A Skating Life is kind of like discovering a time capsule. Hamill credits her mother, an avid equestrian and sports-loving woman in her own youth, with being so willing to help young Dorothy’s career develop. The road to Innsbruck is a long and winding one, filled with the typical financial worries, coach hopping, political tensions, and general uncertainty. It’s important to understand the context of Hamill’s Olympic victory, though. Compulsory figures were still part of the competition, and were still a large enough percentage of the scoring that it was possible for a really talented patch skater to medal against other, more talented free skaters. This is no longer the case. Scores were still hand-calculated, so after Hamill’s Olympic skate, she was whisked off to dope testing for hours and had no idea how she’d placed. Next, the Winter Olympics weren’t even popular enough that skating was televised. Wait, back up and read that again: skating wasn’t even televised live. It’s hard to imagine, right? Skating has the highest viewership of any winter Olympic sport these days. Hamill writes of this time, “There was so much excitement and activity leading up to the Olympics, but compared to the pressure on today’s athletes, it was nothing. (…) I had my picture taken for Time magazine. They told me it might be a cover story, but that if another world event were more important, it wouldn’t be. (…) Today, there is so much more media pressure on the athletes. I didn’t have that. (…) Had I known, I probably would’ve choked.” She also points out that at this time, she was already the two-time, World medalist, but there was very little press interest in her skating. (I suspect this is due in part to the unpopularity of the Winter Olympics but also in part to Hamill’s gender.)
Hamill excuses the US by writing, “It was 1976, four years prior to the U.S. hockey team’s victory that woke up our country to the huge appeal of the Winter Olympics. (…) Thus, the United States didn’t fund winter sports at all. They really didn’t recognize winter sports, although skiing did have a strong sponsorship base from private sources.” She goes on to describe, in what I find to be perhaps the most enlightening passage in the book, “Our team uniforms were horrible… ugly and impractical. (…) The Russians had luscious sable coats, and the Italians had chic white wool coats and rich leather boots. There is a custom of athletes trading their Olympic gear with other countries to obtain long-lasting mementos of their time spent with the best athletes from all over the world. But no other country would trade with us.” How is it then, in the relatively short span of exactly 30 years, that the US public was so outraged at Johnny Weir’s wearing an old Russian CCCP jacket for his warm-ups in Torino, a gift from a Russian skater friend for good luck? How quickly we forget, and how big our egos are to think only our flag is good enough for our athletes.
Another interesting passage describes the Japanese hosting a traveling skating show lead by the incomparable John Curry: “It was January 1983 and Japan still didn’t have very many ice rinks. The Japanese were clamoring to see Janet Lynn again after falling in love with her at their 1972 Olympics”. At the time, the Japanese didn’t have any clout in skating, but the public loved the sport so much that the country aimed to have internationally competitive skaters by the 1990’s. They’ve done that and better: Arakawa won Olympic gold in Torino, Takahashi bronze and Asada silver in Vancouver. Yuka Sato lives in the US and coaches Jeremy Abbott, the reigning two-time US National champion. Amazing.
Hamill’s Olympic victory was only the beginning of her skating career, though, which then wound onwards in a series of professional tours like Ice Follies, televised skating specials, and eventually, Hamill’s brief ownership of the Ice Capades with husband Forsythe. Through her personal travails, skating remains the one constant companion in her life. Unlike Janet Lynn, whose skating was a precursor to a “real” life as a mom and wife, Hamill’s remained important and vital as her employment. The memoir makes it clear that this hasn’t been without personal cost; even a star like Hamill is forced to choose between her loves. What is ultimately clear in the book is that, well, life is hard no matter who you are. Your life might be amazing and gifted in one area and be complete shit in another. What you make of that dichotomy, I suppose, defines you are as a person.
I should begin by saying: I have no emotional investment in Hamill’s skating career. She had won her Olympic gold before I was even born. I respect her in the same way I respect most of the other greats of the sport who were before my time: Henie, Button, Fleming, Hamill. Given this, I didn’t expect the book to be as emotional a read as it turned out to be.
This book marks a departure from the earlier books in this series in that it wasn’t written until long, long after Hamill’s amateur skating career was over. Published in 2007, Hamill was already 51 at the time it was released. Necessarily, the narrative handles a lot of family drama (and there is drama to spare!) and personal adult life issues that aren’t necessarily related to, but always seem to be shaped and framed by, Hamill’s skating career. This book is more truly a memoir than the hokey juvenile audience books I read before it. To wit: there is no useless glossary of terms, a modest picture section, and the cover of the edition I read features a winsome-looking Hamill posing casually with her busted-up skates in jeans and a hooded sweater. Although this is not specifically mentioned in the dust jacket, coauthor Deborah Amelon is a skating friend from Hamill’s childhood who skated professionally with her as an adult in the Ice Follies.
There’s a lot to handle in this book, but the most interesting parts to me were the ones that describe the sport of figure skating and how it’s changed in the US since even the mid-20th century. You know the narrative is going to have a somewhat depressed tone right from the get-go, when Hamill describes how her mother, her constant companion in her skating training, fails to show up at the ice rink in Innsbruck to see Hamill win her Olympic gold. Instead, Mrs. Hamill is back in the hotel room, and when the rest of the family bursts in, she reportedly said, “That’s nice, Dorothy.” The rest of the book explores this tension between Hamill and her mother. It’s resolved nicely by the end with an explanation of untreated family depression that makes it easier to understand, but not sympathize with, their often-rocky relationship. Understandably, Hamill’s unusual upbringing and family dynamic have shaped the rest of her life, leading to two failed marriages. The first, to Dean Paul Martin (son of entertainer Dean Martin), seems to have dissolved due to mutual immaturity and his discomfort with her role as the primary breadwinner. His death shortly thereafter in a plane crash is tragic, and heartbreaking to read about. Even more heartbreaking is Hamill’s subsequent marriage to a doctor, Ken Forsythe, a handsome but ne’er-do-well sports medicine specialist who ultimately cheated on her while she was pregnant with their daughter and used her money for his purposes. In the background of Hamill’s marital strife is her complicated relationship with her parents, whom she supported financially for a number of years after her professional skating career took off. This ended badly when she tried to cut them off and they threw a fit, not speaking to her for a year. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s read of this book by delving much more into the personal side of things, so I’ll move on to the skating stuff at this point.
Reading A Skating Life is kind of like discovering a time capsule. Hamill credits her mother, an avid equestrian and sports-loving woman in her own youth, with being so willing to help young Dorothy’s career develop. The road to Innsbruck is a long and winding one, filled with the typical financial worries, coach hopping, political tensions, and general uncertainty. It’s important to understand the context of Hamill’s Olympic victory, though. Compulsory figures were still part of the competition, and were still a large enough percentage of the scoring that it was possible for a really talented patch skater to medal against other, more talented free skaters. This is no longer the case. Scores were still hand-calculated, so after Hamill’s Olympic skate, she was whisked off to dope testing for hours and had no idea how she’d placed. Next, the Winter Olympics weren’t even popular enough that skating was televised. Wait, back up and read that again: skating wasn’t even televised live. It’s hard to imagine, right? Skating has the highest viewership of any winter Olympic sport these days. Hamill writes of this time, “There was so much excitement and activity leading up to the Olympics, but compared to the pressure on today’s athletes, it was nothing. (…) I had my picture taken for Time magazine. They told me it might be a cover story, but that if another world event were more important, it wouldn’t be. (…) Today, there is so much more media pressure on the athletes. I didn’t have that. (…) Had I known, I probably would’ve choked.” She also points out that at this time, she was already the two-time, World medalist, but there was very little press interest in her skating. (I suspect this is due in part to the unpopularity of the Winter Olympics but also in part to Hamill’s gender.)
Hamill excuses the US by writing, “It was 1976, four years prior to the U.S. hockey team’s victory that woke up our country to the huge appeal of the Winter Olympics. (…) Thus, the United States didn’t fund winter sports at all. They really didn’t recognize winter sports, although skiing did have a strong sponsorship base from private sources.” She goes on to describe, in what I find to be perhaps the most enlightening passage in the book, “Our team uniforms were horrible… ugly and impractical. (…) The Russians had luscious sable coats, and the Italians had chic white wool coats and rich leather boots. There is a custom of athletes trading their Olympic gear with other countries to obtain long-lasting mementos of their time spent with the best athletes from all over the world. But no other country would trade with us.” How is it then, in the relatively short span of exactly 30 years, that the US public was so outraged at Johnny Weir’s wearing an old Russian CCCP jacket for his warm-ups in Torino, a gift from a Russian skater friend for good luck? How quickly we forget, and how big our egos are to think only our flag is good enough for our athletes.
Another interesting passage describes the Japanese hosting a traveling skating show lead by the incomparable John Curry: “It was January 1983 and Japan still didn’t have very many ice rinks. The Japanese were clamoring to see Janet Lynn again after falling in love with her at their 1972 Olympics”. At the time, the Japanese didn’t have any clout in skating, but the public loved the sport so much that the country aimed to have internationally competitive skaters by the 1990’s. They’ve done that and better: Arakawa won Olympic gold in Torino, Takahashi bronze and Asada silver in Vancouver. Yuka Sato lives in the US and coaches Jeremy Abbott, the reigning two-time US National champion. Amazing.
Hamill’s Olympic victory was only the beginning of her skating career, though, which then wound onwards in a series of professional tours like Ice Follies, televised skating specials, and eventually, Hamill’s brief ownership of the Ice Capades with husband Forsythe. Through her personal travails, skating remains the one constant companion in her life. Unlike Janet Lynn, whose skating was a precursor to a “real” life as a mom and wife, Hamill’s remained important and vital as her employment. The memoir makes it clear that this hasn’t been without personal cost; even a star like Hamill is forced to choose between her loves. What is ultimately clear in the book is that, well, life is hard no matter who you are. Your life might be amazing and gifted in one area and be complete shit in another. What you make of that dichotomy, I suppose, defines you are as a person.