The Ice King

Afternoon Of A Fawn by Claude Debussy

The life of a competitive figure skater is like a monk.

When there's ice, you go and you skate on it,

11 o'clock at night, 12 o'clock at night, one o'clock at night.

There is no opportunity for friends and family.

If you fall, nobody's going to pick you up.

It's only you.

You live, breathe, and die alone.

Our castaway this week is the best

skater in the world, and his name is John Curry.

I wanted to be a dancer.

I was allowed to ice skate.

Because it was a sport, they thought it was OK.

John was the first one to really merge this deep expressiveness

of dance

with the athletic virtuosity of skating.

in a different way.

He was breaking ground as an artist

and as a star athlete.

He said, "Whatever greatness you think I have,

"there are demons of equal value that are inside of my soul."

POLICE SIRENS, HORN BEEPS

Summer 1971, John appears on our doorstep.

All he had were his skates and his talent.

He needed a place to stay, rent-free,

and my mother often opened our house to skaters.

He was very shy at first.

It took him a long time to open up.

All of a sudden, he just started to click with all of us.

And most importantly, he clicked with my mother.

I think the really amazing thing is that he shared with my mother that

he wanted to not just be a competitive skater

and go for the Olympics,

but that he had a vision beyond that,

which was to create a theatre of skating and a dance company.

She believed in him in a way that no-one else did at that time.

Dear Nancy. It seems more like five weeks than five days

since I left you in the enchanted city.

My heart aches for New York.

In a strange way, I feel that England has betrayed me.

I can't quite explain it,

but as time goes by, perhaps I'll find the words.

They were like kindred artistic souls.

As soon as the competitive season was over, back to New York

he would come, to kind of recharge and refuel.

I really think that he felt in our home

a calm that he had not experienced growing up at all.

CLASSICAL HARP

Well, I was first drawn to dancing and acting,

and I asked if I could go to ballet classes.

I remember being taken into the sitting room and my mother saying,

"Can I take John to ballet lessons?"

And my father getting quite cross and saying,

"No, absolutely could not."

And that was the end of that. And it was never brought up again.

Richard Button of Philadelphia, who is North American and...

When I saw ice skating on the television a little later,

I asked if I could go skating and I was told "yes."

Because ice skating is protected by the umbrella of sport.

..1947 World Championships and will represent us when the Olympic

contestants gather from all parts of the world.

I remember very clearly the very first time

I put a pair of skates on.

I had a teacher that held my hand.

I said, "Oh, no, you don't need to hold my hand. I can do this."

And I just skated off.

From then on, we used to take him twice a week, or I had,

just as a hobby.

He was very interested and always wanted to skate

a bit more than anybody else.

Just as a seven-year-old, I started to think of skating

as being a dancing on the ice. I didn't think of it as anything else.

One Christmas time, I was given £5 to buy something for myself

by my father. And I went and bought...

Don't ask me why I chose them,

maybe it had to do with the covers of the records,

but I chose Scheherazade,

The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake, none of which I'd ever heard before.

I was very, very pleased and excited by what I'd bought.

And I went to my father and showed him what I'd bought,

and he was very disappointed. And he said, "Oh, dear.

"I thought you might buy something you'd keep."

I think John had a very difficult childhood because of his father.

And skating became the escape.

I was always pretty private as a child.

And the ice only made that easier for me, in a way.

It was my world where I could go and be free and alone.

To me, the music said exactly what it wanted me to do.

When I stopped looking like a little boy

and started to look like a young man,

then suddenly all the things that I had done up until then,

absolutely with everyone's blessing,

I was told I should stop doing.

I was told I shouldn't use my arms, I shouldn't do spirals,

I shouldn't try and make everything look so effortless and graceful.

I was actually told not to be so graceful.

And I couldn't understand why.

And it was because they couldn't accept it from a young man,

which they could from a child.

Men who choose to love other men are treated not only

with intolerance and contempt, but prosecuted and jailed.

It's estimated that one man in 20 is a homosexual.

For many of us, this is revolting, men dancing with men.

Homosexuals in this country today break the law.

I can't imagine what John must have felt to have realised that you're

different and that difference is something that is looked down upon

with shame and loathing.

There may be some in this auditorium.

There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future.

There may be some girls that will turn lesbian.

But it's serious. Don't kid yourselves about it.

So if any one of you have let yourself become involved

with another boy, you better stop quick,

because one out of three of you will turn queer.

The rest of your life will be a living hell.

I saw him in Prague.

I must have been about 16, 17.

And John was maybe a year younger.

I just saw him on the ice and I thought it was so natural,

and so wonderful.

Beautiful arms, a great back, and the head up.

It was just perfect.

It was just so different to anyone else.

Two more minutes of this five-minute programme left...

I just went up to him and asked him,

would he think that it's possible

that I come and train at the same rink

as he is in England?

And then he said, "Yeah."

I could come for a summer vacation.

I've asked John if I could live maybe with him.

Mrs Curry said yes.

I never knew that he was gay then.

That came later on when he lived in London.

Youth, the swinging youth,

who have given staid and sober old London its recent swinging metaphor.

Out of the blue he said, "Oh, I fancy you."

I thought, "What does that mean?"

I soon found out.

I just hugged him and kissed him and that was when it started.

Yeah, I started to become in love with him.

John came home, put on music.

He danced and he choreographed in the living room.

I think he was also deeply in love.

Switzerland and London wasn't next door to one another.

We wrote to one another.

It was almost the daily thing to do.

Dear Heinz.

I guess it will be Saturday or maybe Friday when you receive this letter.

I always feel very lonely on Friday nights.

In the week, there is skating and work, but the weekend,

I have time to think.

Thinking is the worst thing a person can do...!

I just want to hold you and feel your arms around me,

just to feel you love me.

I think he was very often depressed.

Very often.

I got a job in a supermarket.

I was always absolutely stony broke.

I used to really worry most of the time about money

rather than worrying about skating. It was very hard.

I trained at Richmond ice rink, which is a good ice rink,

but is open to the public.

And there's just no way you can train

in a public session with 300 or 400 people.

Everything was unpleasant, you know?

It just wasn't nice at all and I really got quite turned off to it.

Dear Heinz.

I'm sorry about my shaky writing,

but I worked so hard this morning and I haven't stopped shaking yet.

I did figures from 6:15am to 7:45am, more figures 8:20am to 9:10am.

Then I free skating from 9:15am to 12:30pm.

I wanted to ask you if I could borrow some money.

I have very little left and I think Mr Gerschwiler

may stop teaching me until I repay him.

I've had the most frightening dreams again.

I dream my father comes into the bedroom and wakes me up -

and then I do wake up, I think, and I see him still there,

but I think I'm still asleep and that I only dream I wake up.

I just know that his father was dead. He died somehow.

He didn't want to talk about it.

He just said he died in not very nice circumstances.

And that was the end of it.

His father's death had a big impact on him,

even though the thought that it was a suicide

was something that he had a very difficult time accepting.

There was a relief in a way that might horrify some people,

but he was totally relieved.

CHA-CHA MUSIC PLAYS

We went out together sometimes in London.

Then he met other guys also.

Dear Heinz.

I don't know quite how to start, so...

My last letter came to you from London -

I'd been wandering about all day.

I went into the Colville and that is where I met Gilles.

I didn't think I'd get entangled because he's so good-looking.

I thought he must be able to have any boy he wanted.

But it hasn't worked out like that.

I'm living with him at weekends, and in August I'm moving in completely.