Читать книгу Frozen in Time - Nikki Nichols - Страница 8

Laurence Owen bounded through the hallways of the Broadmoor Ice Palace sporting a luminous grin as she shook the fresh coating of snow off her boots. Mother and sister in tow, she walked with a self-possession beyond her years. Her long-legged stride suggested a genuine confidence hard to find in girls of sixteen. Her mere presence brought pause to the host of rabidly busy people working to ready the venue for the 1961 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships.

They must have wondered in amazement, “What is she so happy about? Isn’t she nervous?” Though only sixteen years old, Laurence seemed to absorb her surroundings with a sort of nostalgia about the history she was poised to make. She knew, too, that this was not simply a competition—but a coronation. In a country with only the fictional monarchies of beauty pageants and movie stars, in America there were, too, the “ice queens.” They had all the qualities befitting true royalty. With their sparkling, brilliantly colorful costumes, they looked as regal and lovely as any fairy tale queen. They were graceful and strong under pressure, in a world where their every move was scrutinized. And their lives were as dramatic and heartbreaking as the lives of true royals. In 1961, the title of ice queen was vacant, and dozens of eager ice princesses readied themselves to leap, spin, and dance to obtain it.

While other competitors, keenly aware of the life-altering importance involved in such an event, paced the arena’s halls in a perpetual state of panic and worry, Laurence, readily flashing her wide, joyous smile, was the picture of serenity. As she bounded along the hallways of the arena, her dark-brown hair cropped close to her face, she radiated an internal contentment. She was poised, sure, smiling, and relaxed. The bounce in her step didn’t suggest arrogance, yet it appeared that she knew what others would soon find out. This was her year. She was going to make her peers at the Skating Club of Boston proud. She smiled as if she had already won, though the biggest test was still days away.

Competitors, rink employees, journalists, judges, officials, and parents overwrought with nerves crowded the halls, creating warmth in the usually cold ice rink, which had just been remodeled for the event. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air.

Some of the skaters prepared for their practice, the first opportunity to see if nerves remained under control, or if pre-competition jitters had transformed otherwise good legs into something with the consistency of Jell-O. While others walked the hallways or sat in the seats of the mostly empty arena, those getting ready to glide onto the ice stretched their legs, bending their knees, touching their toes, each seemingly oblivious of everyone around them. In the intimidating atmosphere competitors donned their most serious and focused facial expressions. They did not have time to socialize with each other on the ice, for every minute of practice was needed for the business of winning a championship.

Each practice session clicked by faster than most of the sweater-clad competitors would have liked. The superstitious types often felt that a poor practice signaled a good competition to come. The more relaxed skaters felt that at this point it would be hard to improve upon what had already been toiled over hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.

As the growling Zamboni emerged through the wide swinging doors, most of the young men and women hurriedly tried to throw one more jump into the practice, believing that just one more time would help the moves snap into place—that one more successfully executed double loop or flying camel would spark the confidence they needed.

Some of the skaters left the ice grudgingly. Others were ready for a cold drink and a comfortable chair, but coaches, many of whom doubled as coach and parent, urged their prodigies to keep going even in the face of fatigue. As one practice session ended, the Colorado College hockey team, bright and blazing in their white, black, and gold uniforms, thundered onto the ice, nearly knocking several skaters off their blades and into a battered heap. Disaster was averted, but this interruption meant additional work would have to wait.

The usual gathering of newspaper reporters mingled with the competitors, coaches, and parents as well as with a new group of participants at the event—production and camera crews from CBS. For the first time in the history of the sport, the United States Figure Skating Championships would be shown on television. In living rooms across America, hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of viewers would take a front-row seat to watch every spin, landing, and fall. The event would be broadcast a few weeks later.

CBS television had aired the 1960 Winter Olympic Games from Squaw Valley, California, a year earlier to rave reviews. The most celebrated moment in those games occurred when a group of American college boys defeated the heavily favored hockey team from communist Russia. For those who lived through it, this team showed just as much grit as the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team that beat the Soviets in the Lake Placid Winter Games semifinal. Though the U.S. hockey program had won the two previous Olympic silver medals, in the 1960 Games, these scrappy American amateurs were considered overwhelming underdogs to the Soviets, Czechs, and Canadians. Just as in 1980, the U.S. faced the Soviets in the semifinals. The U.S. beat them, the first time the Americans had ever beaten the Soviets in hockey. They went on to beat the Czechs for the gold. In the height of the simmering Cold War, these victories ignited a fire of enthusiasm in America.

Figure skating, in addition to hockey, captured many eyes and hearts in the 1960 Olympics. Carol Heiss, the movie-star-pretty American figure skater, took to the ice with a fierce athleticism, landing a double Axel and forever securing her legacy as a brilliant champion. She had already won a silver medal at the 1956 Olympic Games, and now Heiss had won the gold medal to complete her stellar collection. Newspapers of the day labeled her “Cinderella of the blades.” Her triumph was part of only thirteen hours of Olympic competition shown on television—a stark contrast to today’s wall-to-wall network and cable coverage.

Following the ratings success of the Winter Games, the television network decided to broadcast portions of the 1960 Summer Olympics. The Rome Games produced some of the most enduring champions in their respective fields—Wilma Rudolph in track and field, and the indomitable Cassius Clay in boxing.

Carol Heiss, Cassius Clay, Wilma Rudolph, and the USA hockey team created a spark that leapt right through television sets to captivate viewers. Suddenly, these athletes were the toast of America, even if tense race relations tempered this new social status for some of the black athletes. Television executives longed to capitalize on this new fascination with sport and its beautiful, fiery players. Their athletic gifts and human imperfections fascinated equally, and all facets of both the sport and the athlete seemed to make for dramatic television viewing.

The presence of television cameras at the Broadmoor Ice Palace added a new sizzle of excitement for the skaters, who must have sensed, at some level, that their sport, like many others, was entering a new phase of visibility. Television, as they knew, was influencing all areas of modern life. In the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy famously wore makeup during the first-ever televised debate between presidential candidates. Richard Nixon did not powder his face, and Americans ended up choosing Kennedy as their president. No one can say with certainty that Kennedy won the election because of the new medium, but Kennedy himself credited TV with making a definite difference in the election returns. He said, “We wouldn’t have had a prayer without that gadget.” And so Camelot began.

FCC Chairman Newton Minnow did not share the new president’s enthusiasm for the new medium, referring to it in a famous 1961 speech as “a vast wasteland.” Regardless, in 1961, ninety percent of Americans owned television sets, and millions of sets of eyes were about to be treated to the first broadcast of a U.S. National Skating Championship.

CBS devoted Sunday afternoons to the new sports craze, in a show fittingly titled CBS Sports Spectacular. The anthology-style show began just thirteen weeks after the 1960 Summer Olympics and featured everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. The vast array of sports seen on this Sunday afternoon broadcast ranged from skating, to fishing, to drag racing, to one episode featuring a man who strapped dynamite to his chest, then blew himself up. (Thankfully, the man survived the stunt.)

Thanks to CBS Sports Spectacular, skaters were about to have access to far larger audiences and far greater fame than ever before. In the past, the top skaters were well known within a small community of serious fans and perhaps at least familiar to a wider audience of people who followed sports. Now the best performers, for the first time ever, would be household names throughout the country. The awareness of this new level of visibility and renown no doubt may have made some skaters more nervous than usual, while for others the event would have seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime.

Whatever you called it—“The U.S. Championships,” or just plain “Nationals” as many skaters did—this event was by far the most important to date on the 1961 competition calendar, cameras or not. The competition wasn’t just about winning medals or trophies, either. Winning a gold, silver, or bronze medal in the ladies, men, pairs, or dance events meant a stronger chance of actually being seen in the televised portion of the championships. With only one hour to cover the four major disciplines, the broadcast editors could only concern themselves with the standout performances. Most important of all, however, was the opportunity a top-three finish presented. Finishing on the podium earned each of the victors a spot on the team that would represent the United States at two important competitions: the North American Figure Skating Championships and the World Figure Skating Championships.

The North American Championships no longer exist today, replaced by the more frequent “Grand Prix” events, but in 1961 the “North Americans” were considered a vital precursor to the World Championships. The North Americans that year would be held in Philadelphia. The team then would head for the World Figure Skating Championships to be held in Prague, Czechoslovakia. A trip behind the forbidding Iron Curtain would put the skaters in a very select group at a time when such travel was much more difficult and more expensive than it is today. Inclusion in that group, as every skater knew while warming up on that day in Colorado Springs, required earning a medal at the Nationals, where their years of training and sacrifice would come down to just a few minutes on the ice.

The pressure of making history rested on the shoulders of the vibrant Laurence Owen, eager to live up to the championship expectations written about so frequently in the press and born of her membership in an elite skating family, a family that had been dubbed the “first family of skating” by newspaper reporters who covered her parents and grandparents in their respective heydays. Her grandmother, a well-known skater in her prime, once told reporters that “skating was obviously in our blood.” Laurence also inherited the skating gene from her father, Guy Owen, who had been a Canadian men’s junior champion and North American champion in an event called “fours,” which featured four skaters performing tricks in tandem—somewhat of a miniature precursor to what we now call “synchronized skating.”

Laurence, like her sister, Maribel Jr., who went by “Mara,” was actually a fourth-generation skater on her mother’s side of the family. Her great grandfather, Sumner Willard Vinson, was considered one of the foremost experts in figure skating in the areas of Roxbury and Dorchester, Massachusetts. He put his son, Thomas Vinson, on skates at age four. As a young man, he had a fateful meeting with a spunky young society belle and Radcliffe graduate, Gertrude Cliff. Boston newspaper writer Sally Ellis wrote about their first encounter on a skating pond.

“One day, with two eligible bachelors in hot pursuit, [Gertrude] merrily zoomed by a young man who was earnestly practicing such bygone intricacies as ‘The Maltese Cross,’ ‘Balls of Twine,’ and ‘Picket Fences.’ ‘Such foolishness,’ muttered the young, impatient toast of Boston society.”

A few months later, Thomas was teaching Gertrude how to perform those very maneuvers. The two married and had one child, Maribel, who spent many a day of her youth at the Cambridge Skating Club. Maribel told reporters that the rink felt more like home than the family’s Winchester estate.

“For all that mother wears her hair like a Gibson Girl, she’s got pretty good ideas and she’s pretty liberal. Never tied down by convention. I didn’t go to school until I was nine years old, and I don’t think I missed a thing. Mother taught me for an hour a day and the rest of the time I was out in the fresh air and sunshine or at the Cambridge rink skating.”

Laurence, “Big Maribel,” and “Little Maribel” Owen together.

The time at the rink paid off. Maribel won nine U.S. National Championships in the ladies event, six championships in the pairs event (along with three silver medal finishes), and had also won a silver medal in ice dance. She appeared in the Olympics three times and claimed a medal in one of those appearances, yet her legacy was unfulfilled, having never won the elusive gold medal. Like her mother, Maribel was invited to perform for the British king and queen.

The Vinson family undoubtedly played a leading role in the Boston skating scene’s storied history and the sport’s association with wealth and privilege. Because skating drew most of its participants from the wealthier classes, the sport also meshed well with the Harvard community. Olympic gold medalists Dick Button and Tenley Albright, for example, were among the top U.S. skaters who earned Harvard degrees. In 2004, the Harvard Varsity Club’s John Powers wrote about this bond: “Rosy-cheeked Brahmins already had been doing figure eights for years on outdoor ice at the Cambridge Skating Club on Mount Auburn Street and The Country Club in Brookline. In a day when Harvard and Boston society were conjoined, it was inevitable that figure skating would wear a crimson muffler.”

With such an impressive family skating tradition, it is no surprise that reporters said the Vinson family was to skating what the Barrymores were to acting. These lofty labels and expectations, though immense, did not appear in any way to weigh Laurence down as she prepared for her first real shot to win a national title. She was a girl who marched to her own rhythm. While always polite and mature in her manner of speech, she exuded an individualism and fierce independence that she, no doubt, inherited from her larger-than-life mother. Those qualities were manifest even in her appearance. She wore pants over her long legs much more often than the skirts favored by most girls of her time, and she kept her dark brown hair in a short, boyish pixie cut, a style that seemed designed especially for her high cheekbones. Her eyes seemed to disappear into small slits when she flashed her large, toothy smile, called a “laughing smile” by photographers who had the pleasure to catch her in action. She looked exotic without being flashy and was wholesome and approachable. She spoke through her nose just a bit, like a lot of teenagers still discovering their voices, and she communicated her thoughts and feelings best with either a blank piece of paper or a vacant sheet of ice. Like her mother, she was half writer, half skater, and she’d often change her mind about which she liked better.

Even though the Olympic gold medal had eluded her, Maribel was viewed with the kind of reverence reserved for athletes with a legendary resume. As she led her daughters around the Broadmoor Ice Palace, whispers of fascination echoed through the corridors. “There she is!” “Laurence looks just like her mother!”

Maribel, known as “Big Maribel,” on the skating scene, was a galvanizing figure. She was charming, intelligent, animated, and always willing to share her opinion. Former student Ron Ludington said those who were close to her cherished her as a beloved mother figure, but that others had trouble warming to her.

“She ran the show, and she was considered out of line. She wasn’t supposed to behave that way. Others would say she behaved like a man.”

Ludington added, “She opened a lot of doors. She took charge, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.”

Ben Wright, skating historian and a mainstay of the Figure Skating Club of Boston, agrees that Maribel had an outspoken side. “She did not waste words.”

Maribel was known as a hard-driving coach. She ran her house with a military sense of order that would drive the toughest army general to exhaustion. She was Auntie Mame and the Unsinkable Molly Brown wrapped up into one combustible soul. Laurence wrote about the family dynamic for a school project.

It was during my first stay in the East that two major forces entered my life: my grandmother and figure skating. ‘Grammy’ took an immediate liking to me. Apparently, at our first acquaintance, I gave her an approving glance and instantly fell asleep in her arms. Also, whereas five-year-old Maribel was full of irritating questions, I was blessedly still. At any rate, I have always been her little ‘lovey,’ a position which has often made life difficult for both Mara and me.

Grammy has always picked up after me, done my mending and washing, taken on responsibilities such as feeding the animals, and has been my general factotum. Although I never asked for such help, I soon began to expect it as a matter of course, and consequently grew rather slipshod. This infuriated my mother who wanted me to be neat, organized, and on time …. all the things I wasn’t. It has taken years to even partly fulfill her hopes, and I am still struggling to subdue the monster known as disorganization. In recent years, though, Grammy has done less for me, a good thing, as it compels me to be neater.

Another one of Grammy’s foibles was indulging all my likes and dislikes of food. By so doing, she brought out my stubborn streak. At the age of five or six, I developed a passionate hatred for eggs (they were slimy). Mother was determined that I would eat them, like it or not. I was just as determined that I wouldn’t eat them, and certainly never like them. May I add that she won this battle, but not without much defensive action on my part. I can often remember sitting at the breakfast table for one to two hours, a cold egg before me, mother behind me with an equally cold glint of determination in her eye. Once in desperation, I slid my fried egg under the rug. All was well until the maid found it three days later. Then I tried throwing them out the window until our Japanese gardener reported a strange new crop. I ate two eggs a day for the week following that escapade. Ugh!

Maribel was known as a woman who never minced words, even when it meant burning important bridges. She lived for the advancement of skating on all levels—but lived mostly for her daughters, for whom she worked tirelessly and whom she loved with her entire being. She wanted them to be successful—and in recognizing their tremendous talents, she sometimes could push both daughters to the brink. Laurence, effervescent and always happy on the outside, faced daunting pressure to fill her mother’s legendary shoes.

Ron Ludington remembers Laurence as a tremendously friendly girl who had no trouble meeting new people.

“Laurence was outgoing and liked to talk to people, but she was a strong-willed person. Maribel and Laurence fought fiercely at times.”

Laurence admitted in a high school essay that she had trouble controlling her temper.

During the last several years, I have had one main ambition: to stop losing my temper. No one would guess this ambition because I keep right on losing it. When I resolve to remain calm at times I am in an objective mood, and am able to detach myself from my surroundings. Then, when I am actually involved in the daily routine of life, I lose this objective view, grow irritated, and lose my temper at the slightest provocation.

Laurence’s smile always masked any hardship or self doubts, but the outwardly serene family home hid from the world the emotional tempests that exploded within. Outspokenness seemed to be in the Vinson Owen bloodline, Laurence conceded.

Certainly I have a difficult background to overcome. My grandfather was inclined to use language that would do justice to a salty old New England sea captain, while my mother informs me that she started to swear at the tender age of fourteen. Everyone in the family is very outspoken, I being no exception to the rule! Although this tendency definitely hinders me from maintaining an even temper, I am not sorry that it is a characteristic of mine. The one personality trait I despise above all others is hypocrisy. I believe that one should take a definite stand towards a situation or person either pro or con and then remain loyal to that stand. Often this belief has led me into trouble. Once, after violently criticizing a certain shoe polish, I was told that the father of the girl with whom I was talking had invented it. I think that I have learned it is best to say nothing … in certain situations at least. The odds are against me, but “You’ve got to have heart.” I’ll get that temper under control yet!

Despite the occasional mother-daughter tempests, Laurence and her mother were extremely close—and both found their greatest happiness on the ice.

Maribel, Jr., known as Mara to family and friends, was the calm voice of the house. She, too, was a champion, but she was growing wary of the sport. Mara had achieved success in the national pairs ranks beginning in 1956, when she won a bronze medal, but it was only when she teamed with debonair partner Dudley Richards that the delicate and wispy brunette showed her greatest potential. Together, they had won two bronze medals at Nationals, along with a silver medal in 1960. They had placed as high as sixth at the World Championships.

Mara’s skating, however, had most certainly taken a backseat to her little sister’s dramatic rise through the ranks. After all, only the singles skater could reach that mythic status of ice queen. Only the singles skater seemed to harness the public’s imagination and adoration. Mara never fully developed as a singles skater, struggling to land all the perilous, high-impact jumps required of an ice queen. Her destiny was to become a pairs skater—one whose victories would be shared by a partner, and eclipsed by a more gifted younger sibling. The great love shared between these two sisters belied the great pain and disappointment Mara often felt while seeing the younger excel beyond her own capabilities. Chuck Foster, Mara’s former pairs partner and a former president of the United States Figure Skating Association, said, “She often found herself outside of the publicity circle. It could be tough on her sometimes.” Mara had one wonderful comfort, though. As her pairs partnership with Dudley matured, they became inseparable off the ice, too. It appeared Mara and Dudley were showing the preliminary sparks of a beautiful relationship in the making.

Mara, though shy and soft-spoken, still could raise her voice at times, showing the famous Owen family moxie when a particular passion arose in her. In fact, Mara made a very large impact on American skating that most skaters don’t know about today. Up until 1959, World and Olympic teams were chosen based on the performance of the previous year. The U.S. National Champion-ships were not held until after the World Championships, which many skaters of the day felt was tantamount to having the semifinals after the finals.

Mara disagreed with this policy. She felt it only made sense to hold Nationals, then allow the new champions to be presented on the world stage. This would also ensure that skaters in the best physical shape would represent the U.S. at Worlds. At the 1958 meeting of the U.S. Skating Governing Council in Boston, Mara spoke to the delegates and urged them to vote in favor of a new schedule that would put Nationals before Worlds. Remarkably, the council agreed with the fifteen-year-old. This decision gave a much-needed boost of confidence for a teenager who was at times so unsure of herself.

Chuck Foster marveled at her work at the Governing Council.

“Here’s a kid getting up in front of the Governing Council, who single-handedly got the association to change the rules. It shows how a young person could sway people to change the system.”

The Owen family was full of trailblazers, and in 1961, they were prepared to set a new standard in becoming the “first family” of American figure skating. If Mara and Laurence could win in their events, it would mark the first time a parent and child had won the same title in the history of the sport.

Mara and Dudley were the clear front-runners for the gold medal. As she walked around the Ice Palace, Mara seemed calm and relaxed. In fact, their pairs event generated little buzz at all compared to the ladies singles competition. When she walked the Broadmoor’s hallways with her sister, it was Laurence who drew the looks and the whispers of recognition. Laurence’s victory at the 1961 Nationals, however, was not assured by any stretch of the imagination. Her closest rival had just as many reasons to believe this was her year, too.