Early life Henie was born on 8 April 1912 in Kristiania (now
Oslo), Norway; she was the only daughter of
Wilhelm Henie (1872–1937), a prosperous Norwegian
furrier, and his wife, Selma Lochmann-Nielsen (1888–1961). In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henie's parents had inherited wealth. Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time
World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. Henie initially showed talent at
skiing, then followed her older brother, Leif, to take up
figure skating. As a girl Henie also was a nationally ranked
tennis player, and a skilled
swimmer and
equestrian. Once Henie began serious training as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina,
Tamara Karsavina, to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity.
Competitive career during the medals ceremony at the 1936 Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Henie placed eighth in a field of eight at the
1924 Winter Olympics, at the age of eleven. Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen. The results of 1927 World Championships, where Henie won in 3–2 decision (or 7 vs. 8 ordinal points) over the defending Olympic and World Champion
Herma Szabo of
Austria, was "controversial", During her competitive career, Henie traveled widely and worked with a variety of foreign coaches. At home in Oslo, she trained at
Frogner Stadium, where her coaches included Hjørdis Olsen and Oscar Holte. During the latter part of her competitive career she was coached primarily by the American Howard Nicholson in
London. In addition to traveling to train and compete, she was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. Henie became so popular with the public that police had to be called out for crowd control on her appearances in various disparate cities such as
Prague and
New York City. It was an open secret that, in spite of the strict
amateurism requirements of the time, Wilhelm Henie demanded "expense money" for his daughter's skating appearances. Both of Henie's parents had given up their own pursuits in Norway—leaving Leif to run the fur business—in order to accompany Sonja on her travels and act as her managers.
Professional and film career on 17 July 1939 After the 1936
World Figure Skating Championships, Henie gave up her amateur status and took up a career as a professional performer in acting and live shows. In 1936, following a successful ice show in
Los Angeles orchestrated by her father to launch her film career, Hollywood studio chief
Darryl Zanuck signed her to a long-term contract at
Twentieth Century Fox, which made her one of the highest-paid actresses of the time. After the success of her first film,
One in a Million (1936), Henie's position was assured and she became increasingly demanding in her business dealings with Zanuck. Henie also insisted on having total control of the skating numbers in her films such as
Second Fiddle (1939). Henie tried to break the musical comedy mould with the anti-Nazi film
Everything Happens at Night (1939) and ''
It's a Pleasure (1945), a skating variation of the often-told A Star Is Born'' tale about alcoholic-star-in-decline-helps-newcomer-up. It was her only film shot in
Technicolor, but it was not as huge at the box office as her other films and also proved her limitations as a dramatic actress in her only dramatic film. When Zanuck realized this, he cast her in more musical comedies;
Sun Valley Serenade (1941) with
Glenn Miller,
John Payne,
The Nicholas Brothers, and hit songs such as "
In the Mood", "
Chattanooga Choo Choo", "
It Happened in Sun Valley", and "
I Know Why (And So Do You)"; followed by
Iceland (1942) with
Jack Oakie, Payne, and the hit song "
There Will Never Be Another You"; and finally
Wintertime (1943) with
Cesar Romero,
Carole Landis,
Cornel Wilde, and Oakie. Sonja had by now developed a comedy flair and these films were all among the top box-office hits for
20th Century-Fox the respective years. Adjusted for 2017 dollars, eight Henie movies crossed the $100 million domestic gross mark.
Happy Landing (1938) was her biggest box office hit. In her film
Everything Happens at Night (1939),
Ray Milland and
Robert Cummings star as rival reporters hot on the trail of Hugo Norden (Maurice Moscovich). Norden, a Nobel Prize winner, was supposedly murdered by the Gestapo, but is rumoured to be in hiding and writing anonymous dispatches advocating world peace. When Geoffrey and Ken track Norden to a small village in the Swiss Alps, they soon find themselves competing over the affections of beautiful Louise (Henie), who has a deeper connection to the missing Nobel laureate than the reporters realize. When Geoffrey and Ken get so distracted by romance that they begin to neglect their assignments, it almost leads to disaster as the Gestapo sets out to silence Norden once and for all. Released on 22 December 1939, it was banned in Nazi Germany. In addition to her film career at Fox from 1936 to 1943, Henie formed a business arrangement with
Arthur Wirtz, who produced her touring ice shows under the name of "Hollywood Ice Revue". Wirtz also acted as Henie's financial advisor. At the time, figure skating and ice shows were not yet an established form of entertainment in the United States. Henie's popularity as a film actress attracted many new fans and instituted skating shows as a popular new entertainment. Throughout the 1940s, Henie and Wirtz produced lavish musical ice skating extravaganzas at
Rockefeller Center's
Center Theatre attracting millions of ticket buyers. Henie broke off her arrangement with Wirtz in 1950 and for the next three seasons produced her own tours under the name "Sonja Henie Ice Revue". It was an ill-advised decision to set herself up in competition with Wirtz, whose shows now featured the new Olympic champion
Barbara Ann Scott. Since Wirtz controlled the best arenas and dates, Henie was left playing smaller venues and markets already saturated by other touring ice shows such as
Ice Capades. The collapse of a section of bleachers during a show in
Baltimore, Maryland, in 1952 compounded the tour's legal and financial woes. In 1953, Henie formed a new partnership with
Morris Chalfen to appear in his European
Holiday On Ice tour, which proved to be a great success. She produced her own show at New York's
Roxy Theatre in January 1956. However, a subsequent South American tour in 1956 was a disaster. Henie was drinking heavily at that time and could no longer keep up with the demands of touring, and this marked her retirement from skating. She did try to make a film series at her own expense; a series that would serve as a travelogue to several cities. Paris and London were mentioned, but only
Hello London (1958) was made with her own backing, co-starring
Michael Wilding and special guest star
Stanley Holloway. While her ice show numbers were still worth watching, the film received few distributors and poor reviews, ending her film career. Her autobiography
Mitt livs eventyr was published in 1938. An English translation,
Wings on My Feet, was released in 1940 and republished in a revised edition in 1954. At the time of her death, the 57-year-old Henie was planning a comeback for a television special that would have aired in January 1970. She was to have danced to "
Lara's Theme" from
Doctor Zhivago.
As international celebrity Henie's connections with
Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking
Nazi officials made her the subject of controversy before, during, and after
World War II. During her amateur skating career, she performed often in
Germany and was a favorite of German audiences and of Hitler personally. As a wealthy celebrity, she moved in the same social circles as royalty and heads of state and made Hitler's acquaintance as a matter of course. Through the years, her shows and later art exhibitions drew the attention of such people as
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon and
Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and she met with them. During the shooting of
Second Fiddle (1939), she greeted the then Crown-Prince couple of Norway
Olav and
Märtha during their US tour. Controversy appeared first when Henie greeted Hitler with a
Nazi salute at the 1936 Winter Olympics in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen and after the Games she accepted an invitation to lunch with Hitler at his resort home in
Berchtesgaden in far southeastern
Bavaria, where Hitler presented Henie with an autographed photo with a lengthy inscription. She was strongly denounced in the Norwegian press for this. In her revised 1954 biography, she states that no Norwegian judge was in the panel for the 1936 Olympics—as she was entitled to as a Norwegian. She therefore made the best of it and won her third Olympic medal. When she—as a gold medal winner—passed Hitler's tribune with silver medalist
Cecilia Colledge and bronze medalist
Vivi-Anne Hultén, neither she nor the others honored Hitler with the Nazi salute. The
1936 European Figure Skating Championships also took place in Berlin and neither Henie, Colledge, nor
Megan Taylor paid obeisance to Hitler.
Influence Henie is credited with being the first figure skater to use dance
choreography, to adopt the short skirt in figure skating, and to wear white boots, which deemphasized the heaviness of skates and produced a lighter and longer appearance of the skater's legs that was "a focal point for judges' and spectators' gaze". When white boots quickly became standard for female skaters, Henie began wearing beige boots because she wanted to remain unique. Figure skating writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum credits Henie with transforming figure skating into what she calls "a spectacle of the skater's body" and for "shifting [the sport's] meanings firmly in the direction of femininity". Also according to Kestnbaum, "Henie's largest contribution to public images of skating" and
Niels Onstad (1956–1969), a Norwegian shipping magnate and art patron. After her retirement in 1956, Henie and Onstad settled in Oslo and accumulated a large collection of modern art that formed the basis for the Henie Onstad Art Centre at
Høvikodden in
Bærum near
Oslo. She studied in
Oslo together with
Martin Stixrud and
Erna Andersen who was her competitor and skate club member. Henie was diagnosed with
chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the mid-1960s. She died of the disease at age 57 in 1969 in an
ambulance plane flight from
Paris to
Oslo. She is buried with Onstad in Oslo on the hilltop overlooking the Henie Onstad Art Centre. ==Results==