This long overdue profile on John Curry the gay Olympic and World Champion who single-handedly changed the sport of ice skating into an extraordinary art form, celebrates the man but also shows how racked he always was with both doubts and depressions through his entire life.
Born in 1949 into a conservative middle-class family in one of the least inspiring parts of middle Britain, as a child John was forbidden for taking the ballet classes he desperately wanted. However his stern father acquiesced when later he asked to do ice skating as that was considered a sport and was acceptable as a manly pursuit.
Curry always strived to be the best in his class and as a youth won countless awards for both his very unique style and the talented he developed, but which everyone considered unacceptable when he was an adult. Determined to succeed, he decided the only way to achieve what he wanted to do was to win an Olympic medal and that would not only make people sit up and take notice of him, but allow him to refine his craft and art as he personally wanted.
In the 1960;s and 1970;s figure skating was still dominated by the Eastern Bloc countries who also made up the majority of competition judges who favoured the tradition of technique over style. But in 1976 one of them broke ranks and voted for Curry giving him the Olympic Gold for his spectacular performance that combined ballet and modern dance,
Competing also provided him with steady flow of relationships and sexual partners and with a German newspaper catching him off-guard and outing him as gay. Even though he was now a national champion the British tabloid press printed nasty stories about him and taunted him for his sexuality.
Curry did achieve his ambition of forming his own Ice Dance Company which performed in a specially converted West Ed Theater in London and which he subsequently took on Tour. They received critical acclaim and always played before such rapturous audiences which enabled him to perform at such august venues as the Royal Albert Hall in London and at the Met in New York.
From all the archival interviews comes the opinion held by most that Curry was a tortured genius. Pushing the dancing on the ice to a level no-one had ever imagined came at a price as he was extremely hard on the Company and on himself too, especially when he was in between boyfriends. His insistence on perfection came at a high price and he eventually lost his own personal wealth by running such a large Company that never really had any chance of breaking even financially.
However asides from his extraordinary talent what comes across in James Erskine’s compelling documentary, is the treasure trove of letters that Curry wrote to his close friends throughout his life. Read by Freddie Fox they show the compassion and the refreshing honesty as he confessed that all he wanted was happiness. Both for himself and others. The letters show this wonderful really humane side of Curry the man as opposed to the famous athlete and artist, and that give such a authenticity to what is essentially a very affectionate profile.
John Curry died of AIDS in 1994 aged just 45 years old. His legacy as this exceptionally talented ice skating dancer will never be forgotten, but it also good to remember him as a young gay man who in his short life strove for such joy and happiness. We hope that he got enough of that too.
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Labels: 2019, biography, documentary, John Curry
