Everything about John Curry totally explained
John Curry (born 9 September 1949, died 15 April 1994) was a
British figure skater. He was the 1976
Olympic and
World Champion. He was famous for combining
ballet and
modern dance influences into his skating.
Biography
Curry was born on
9 September 1949 in
Birmingham,
England. He was educated at
Solihull School, an
Independent School in the
West Midlands. As a child, Curry wanted to become a
dancer, but his father disapproved of dance as an activity for boys, so instead at the age of 7 he began to take figure skating lessons. For the first several years, Curry's involvement with skating was rather casual. Curry's father died when he was 16; he then moved to London to study with
Arnold Gerschwiler, who coached him to his first British title in 1971. In 1972, Curry found an American sponsor who enabled him to study in the
United States with
Gus Lussi and
Carlo Fassi. Fassi coached him to
European, World, and Olympic titles in 1976.
Curry was the flag bearer at the
1976 Winter Olympics for Great Britain. He also was
voted
BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1976.
As an amateur competitor, Curry was noted for his ballet-like posture and extension, and his superb body control. Along with Canadian skater
Toller Cranston, Curry was responsible for bringing the artistic and presentation aspects of men's figure skating to a new level. At the peak of his competitive career, Curry was also accomplished both at
compulsory figures and the athletic (
jumping) aspects of free skating. Curry's skating was unusual in that his jumps were performed counter-clockwise but most of his spins (except flying spins) were performed clockwise.
Following the 1976 World Championships, Curry turned professional and founded a touring skating company along the same lines as a traditional dance company. Besides choreographing routines for the company himself, Curry commissioned works from such noted dance choreographers as
Peter Martins and
Twyla Tharp. Curry was reportedly a difficult person to get along with, and a dispute with the business managers of his company forced it to suspend operations in the mid-1980s. After that, Curry performed only rarely in public.
Prior to the 1976 World Championships, Curry was outed as
gay by a German tabloid newspaper,
Bild-Zeitung. It caused a brief scandal in Europe at the time, but Curry's sexual orientation was generally ignored by the press and public for many years afterwards.
Curry's
Broadway theatre credits include
Icedancing (1978) as a performer and director and the 1980 revival of
Brigadoon as an actor.
In 1987 Curry was diagnosed with
HIV, and in 1991 with
AIDS. Prior to his death, he spoke openly to the press about both his disease and his sexual orientation. He spent the last years of his life with his mother. He died of an AIDS-related heart attack on
15 April 1994 in
Binton; he was 44 years old. A recent biography of actor
Alan Bates claimed that Curry and Bates had a two-year affair, and that Curry died in Bates' arms.
Competitive highlights
Further Information
Get more info on 'John Curry'.
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