Skating club SC of New York Retired 1960 | Name Carol Heiss Role Film actress | |
 | ||
Born January 20, 1940 (age 84) ( 1940-01-20 ) Movies Snow White and the Three Stooges, Olympic Figure Skating: Greatest Performances in History: Vol. 2 Similar People Tenley Albright, Edson Stroll, Sjoukje Dijkstra, Ingrid Wendl, Barbara Roles | ||
1960 winter olympics figure skating carol heiss and david jenkins lp
Carol Elizabeth Heiss Jenkins (born January 20, 1940) is a retired American figure skater and actress. She is the 1960 Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, 1956 Olympic silver medalist and five-time World Champion (1956–1960). Heiss is a member of the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Contents
- 1960 winter olympics figure skating carol heiss and david jenkins lp
- Carol heiss 1960 us nationals lp filmed by howard craker
- Biography
- Filmography
- References
Carol heiss 1960 us nationals lp filmed by howard craker
Biography
Heiss grew up in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens, New York, where she started skating at the age of 6. She was coached by Pierre Brunet. Heiss first came to national prominence in 1951, when she was U.S. Novice Ladies' Champion at age 11. She won the U.S. Junior Ladies title in 1952, and then moved up to the senior level in 1953. From 1953 to 1956, she finished second to Tenley Albright at the national championships.
Heiss's 1956 performance qualified her for the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. She won the silver medal, while Albright took the gold. However, at the following World Figure Skating Championships at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany, Heiss defeated Albright for the title; it was the first of her five consecutive world titles. During her run of world titles, she also attended New York University, graduating after the 1960 Winter Olympics.
After the 1956 Winter Olympics, Heiss had offers to turn professional and skate in ice shows. But her mother, Marie Heiss, was quite ill with cancer at the time, and before her death in October 1956, she asked Carol to stay an amateur to win a gold medal for her. Between 1957 and 1960, Carol Heiss dominated women's figure skating like nobody since Sonja Henie. She was the World and U.S. Champion each year, and at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, Heiss captured the gold medal, being ranked first by all nine judges. She also took the Olympic Oath as representative of the organizing country to open the 1960 games. By winning the 1960 World Championships held after the Olympics, Heiss became one of three women to have won five consecutive World Championships. She retired thereafter.
Following her retirement from figure skating in 1960, Heiss played the female lead in the 1961 film Snow White and the Three Stooges. In 1961 she also married Hayes Alan Jenkins, who had won the 1956 Winter Olympic gold medal in figure skating. In the late 1970s, Heiss began coaching several skaters in Lakewood, Ohio. Some of her students are Timothy Goebel, Tonia Kwiatkowski and Miki Ando.
Heiss was known as a very athletic skater for her time. In 1953, she became the first female skater to land a double axel jump. Another one of her trademarks was doing a series of alternating clockwise and counterclockwise single axels. Heiss normally rotated her jumps clockwise and spins counterclockwise; it is much more common for skaters to do both in the same direction (usually counterclockwise).
Carol Heiss's younger sister and brother, Nancy Heiss and Bruce Heiss, were also elite figure skating competitors. During the 1950s, the three skating Heiss siblings were featured in publications such as Life magazine.