First watched : February 1976
There's only one reason I recall this and that's the guy above , John Curry, who won the gold medal for Great Britain ( though he was largely trained in the U.S. ) in the Men's Figure Skating event at Innsbruck . Skating was a consolation prize for Curry after his parents refused to countenance his ambition to become a dancer but at Innsbruck he combined the two, blurring the lines between art and sport in a way that took the world by storm. European and World titles quickly followed.
Before the latter event a German tabloid outed him as a homosexual but generally the British media kept a discreet silence over the matter. There was a kerfuffle at a sportsman's dinner later that year when one of the other guests, ventriloquist Roger de Courcey made a joke which described Curry as a fairy. Curry was not amused.
Curry turned professional in 1977 and set up his own ice dance company which put on some big shows. He also dabbled in acting. He was a fairly prickly individual and in the mid-eighties the company's operations were brought to a halt when he fell out with his business managers. In 1987 he was diagnosed with HIV and dropped out of the public eye. A 2007 biography of actor Alan Bates alleged that the two men were having an affair at the time of Curry's death in 1994.
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