User reviews

Before Torvill and Dean there was John Curry. In 1976, he won the European, World and Olympic gold medals as well as being voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In so doing, he transformed his sport by seeking to more deeply interpret the music used in his programmes and utilise balletic techniques in his performances, both of which were in contrast to the established methodology of clinical, technical precision. But even as he triumphed in Innsbruck at the Winter Olympics, Curry broke cover and in a newspaper interview, admitted to his homosexually. He next gave up being an amateur, going on the professional circuit, where he could collaborate with the best choreographers and employ the cream of the available skating talent to realise his dream of raising ice-skating to the level of ballet and yet achieve commercial success at the same time. It's probably fair to say that while he certainly achieved the former, as contemporary reviews make clear, the financial strain of maintaining a core group of skaters and musicians meant that his ambitious productions weren't profitable, despite sell-out shows at the New York Met and the Royal Albert Hall.

A picture is painted here of a lonely, restless man, unable it seems to find lasting love in any personal relationship. Drawn to New York it seems as much for its openly gay scene as well as being a cultural hub, it was his misfortune to contract AIDS as the epidemic took hold there and he returned to England to die in his mother's care, aged only 44, penniless and alone.

He was clearly a turbulent individual, obsessed with perfectionism in his chosen profession but incapable of committing and settling down with one partner in his personal life. There is a fair bit of pretentious twaddle spoken here about his lofty artistic aims and how he lived out his inner turmoil when performing on the ice. In interviews, he comes across as shy but brittle.

There's no question however that he took professional ice-skating to a different level and I would imagine that even as he drew towards his own end, as we see in the photographs of his emaciated state taken just before his too-early death, he hopefully took some kind of comfort from his achievements both as an amateur and professional skater.

It seems that Curry was too much of a non-conformist to adapt to his celebrity and become the money-spinning national treasures that his successors Robin Cousins and Torvill and Dean did. I guess it's often the way of trailblazers that they suffer the slings and arrows so that their followers can pass through in relative ease.

While I was surprised not to see contributions from Cousins, Torvill and Dean, even if only to acknowledge their own debt to Curry, this documentary brought to life an undeservedly forgotten figure who deserves this belated, sympathetic but honest recognition of not only the achievements in his professional life but also the travails of his difficult personal life.

Everything that was about how John changed the sport of figure skating, that made it a pleasure to watch, was said in this video; I therefore have no need to say my pennyworth. There has never been, and will not ever be, such a artistically gifted skater such as John (Curry). I remember watching a skating competition as a youngster and I thought it was utterly lifeless and boring. Years later I watched him on TV and was astounded at his ballet like performance; I was a fan evermore after that evening. When his competition days ended so did the artistry of men's figure skating (Robin Cousins was old school technical style and nowhere near as gifted as John was). Even Torvill and Dean, though pleasant to watch, did not have the gently strong balletic movement on the ice. Neither has anyone else since!

John Curry was to ice figure skating what Bruce Lee was to Martial Art and, neither will ever be surpassed! It wasn't what these two men did but rather how they did it and therefore they can never be equaled.

A very touching (but also very sad) documentary and I hope he found his peace in the oneness of the afterlife.

John Curry, transformed the world of ice skating. Cultural differences not unlike today, but more welcomed, or at least legal than the turmoil times of the late 70's thru the mid 80's.( A president who was a bigot then as well as now.) A lifetime documentary of a boy who was denied by a to stern father who denied his son ballet lessons, yet accepted the "sport" of skating on the ice. A world where John Curry used his natural born talent to break all barriers of a corrupt sport, ice skating to become an Olympic world champion, only to try & be outed by a talentless media, sound familiar? Despite these obstacles, Philanthropists recognized truly groundbreaking talent was set on a course, where John would transform that sport into new, wondrous, expressive ballet & dance moves which were stagnantly absent before.from Great Britian's top venue to the US ' Metroplitan, and beyond, Curry's catapulted our culture into the future. But for every shine of brilliance in him, there were demons.Demons of trying to find love in his orientation during a time when no one knew, and political correctedness prevented finding a cure into the world of AIDS. Being on top of a sport is a lonely place, John curry's world full explains his dispostion, and at the same time, displays for all time the importance his his work of transforming the world of ice skating for future generations with a dignified empathy of this special and unique gay man

I was only 6 years old when John Curry won Gold so I didn't remember him that well but am so glad I saw this. It's a shame he's never mentioned at skating competitions (including the Olympics) because every figure skater from 1976 - present owes a debt to him for revolutionizing the sport.