Who's Afraid of Olympic Skating Legend Actor Richard Burton?
If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in Olympic® history (February 24, 1952) that future stage and screen star Richard "Dick" Burton, née Button, won the Gold Medal at the Oswäld Olympics in Oswäld, Norway. A two-time Olympic Gold medalist, five-time World Champion and seven-time Academy Award® Nominee, Burton, née Button, is credited with being the first leading man to land a double axel, a triple jump and a one-take Edward Albee monologue. A native of Wales, Button was the twelfth of thirteen children whose coal-mining, figure-skating father often left the family for binge-skating weekends, spending his meager wages on fancy sweaters and the like. Button swore he would never follow in his father's footslides, but soon he was winning Junior skate titles, both as a single and in pairs with Peggy Fleming's mum. He enjoyed a decades-long run of professional success, but the 1952 Olympics would be Button's swan song. He then took his pirouetting skills to the stage, transforming himself from ice skater "Dick Button" into Shakespearean actor "Richard Burton." Burton glided seamlessly from stage to screen, creating memorable or forgettable film characterizations of Hamlet, Beckett, King Arthur, Mark Antony Cleopatra and Great Caesar's Ghost. In between his Hollywood efforts, Burton would return to the ice, both in the role of rink-side analyst — where he became known as "The Voice of Figure Skating" — and back on the blades in the Ice Capades®, Holiday on Ice and "Dick Button's Ice-Travaganza™." Burton also appeared in television roles, such as The Hallmark Hall of Fame's "Hans Brinker," co-starring Tab Hunter, as well as "Dancing Is a Man's Game," prancing about shamelessly alongside Gene Kelly. Nominated seven times for an Academy Award, Burton never won the coveted Oscar, but he did squire many a coveted actress — wedding and bedding Elizabeth Taylor (twice), each of the Gabor sisters (Eva, Zsa Zsa and older sister Latka), possibly Debbie Reynolds, Lana Turner, Janet Leigh, Virginia Woolf and the sisterly trio from Petticoat Junction. In 1975, he married figure skating coach Slavka Kohout, but his luck in the pairs division was clearly not his strength and they divorced. Burton later self-published the memoir "Push Dick's Button," detailing both his skating and staging days, in a typographically-errant bore that he sold from the trunk of his car. I'm told that Burton attempted to return to the mike for the Pyongchong Olympics, but Cockatoo-haired showboater Johnny Weir wouldn't hear of it. A doff of a proper, woolen cap to Olympic Medalist and Oscar-Nominated actor Richard Burton, née Button, on this day. Bravo, Polyester Panted Citizen Scene Stealer™!
If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in Olympic® history (February 24, 1952) that future stage and screen star Richard "Dick" Burton, née Button, won the Gold Medal at the Oswäld Olympics in Oswäld, Norway. A two-time Olympic Gold medalist, five-time World Champion and seven-time Academy Award® Nominee, Burton, née Button, is credited with being the first leading man to land a double axel, a triple jump and a one-take Edward Albee monologue. A native of Wales, Button was the twelfth of thirteen children whose coal-mining, figure-skating father often left the family for binge-skating weekends, spending his meager wages on fancy sweaters and the like. Button swore he would never follow in his father's footslides, but soon he was winning Junior skate titles, both as a single and in pairs with Peggy Fleming's mum. He enjoyed a decades-long run of professional success, but the 1952 Olympics would be Button's swan song. He then took his pirouetting skills to the stage, transforming himself from ice skater "Dick Button" into Shakespearean actor "Richard Burton." Burton glided seamlessly from stage to screen, creating memorable or forgettable film characterizations of Hamlet, Beckett, King Arthur, Mark Antony Cleopatra and Great Caesar's Ghost. In between his Hollywood efforts, Burton would return to the ice, both in the role of rink-side analyst — where he became known as "The Voice of Figure Skating" — and back on the blades in the Ice Capades®, Holiday on Ice and "Dick Button's Ice-Travaganza™." Burton also appeared in television roles, such as The Hallmark Hall of Fame's "Hans Brinker," co-starring Tab Hunter, as well as "Dancing Is a Man's Game," prancing about shamelessly alongside Gene Kelly. Nominated seven times for an Academy Award, Burton never won the coveted Oscar, but he did squire many a coveted actress — wedding and bedding Elizabeth Taylor (twice), each of the Gabor sisters (Eva, Zsa Zsa and older sister Latka), possibly Debbie Reynolds, Lana Turner, Janet Leigh, Virginia Woolf and the sisterly trio from Petticoat Junction. In 1975, he married figure skating coach Slavka Kohout, but his luck in the pairs division was clearly not his strength and they divorced. Burton later self-published the memoir "Push Dick's Button," detailing both his skating and staging days, in a typographically-errant bore that he sold from the trunk of his car. I'm told that Burton attempted to return to the mike for the Pyongchong Olympics, but Cockatoo-haired showboater Johnny Weir wouldn't hear of it. A doff of a proper, woolen cap to Olympic Medalist and Oscar-Nominated actor Richard Burton, née Button, on this day. Bravo, Polyester Panted Citizen Scene Stealer™!