Not only was she accused of hiding in America, but rumours began to circulate about her alleged sympathies with Nazi Germany. Writing about the 1943 film Wintertime for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther described Henie’s recent acting gigs as suffering from an “almost insufferable monotony of pattern and style.” Henie had been a hero in her native Norway, but was now coming under heavy criticism at home. Soon, however, Henie’s career was in decline. Where the camera is somewhat timid in One in a Million, here the cinematography is at once intimate and expansive. With choreography by Hermes Pan, best known for his work with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in films like Top Hat, Swing Time and Shall We Dance, the skaters move across the screen with grace and sophistication. In a faux-outdoor rink, director H Bruce Humberstone and cinematographer Edward Cronjager decided to cover the surface in black ink to reflects the skater’s movements like an onyx mirror. The best of these films is Sun Valley Serenade from 1941, a somewhat convoluted story set at the Sun Valley Lodge which boasts some of the most stunning musical sequences ever committed to film. She went on to make a string of successful films, enabling her to stay in America and avoid the encroaching war in Europe. To this day, Henie remains the most successful female athlete ever to cross over to the silver screen. Long before the era of easily accessible sports broadcasting, it allowed the American public to witness a world-class skater performing at the peak of her powers. One in a Million is a slight but charming film that showcases Heni’s natural charisma. Gossip columnists were swooning over Henie even before seeing the film, describing her as “a Degas ballerina on skates.” Not unlike Hitler, who admired Henie for upholding an Aryan ideal, they gushed about “her natural blondness and dimples and dazzling Norwegian smile.” She became Hollywood’s first (and only) skating superstar. He brings her to America to perform at Madison Square Gardens in front of a sell-out crowd, mirroring her real-life discovery a couple of years earlier. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.Back in Hollywood, Henie was preparing for her debut performance in One in a Million, a vaguely autobiographical ice skating musical about a theatre manager (Adolph Menjou) who discovers Henie competing at the St Moritz Olympics in Switzerland (where she claimed her second gold medal). He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications.
(is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). And don’t miss my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from etc etc etc To learn more about the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
SONJA HENIE ONE IN A MILLION YOU TUBE MOVIE
Adolphe Menjou plays a movie mogul desperate to find a “natural” actress, which of course turns out to be Henie.Īlong the way we meet several nuts also trying to make it at the studio: the Ritz Brothers and Borah Minnevich and his Harmonica Rascals, with great old-time characters like Julius Tannen and Ned Sparks also in the cast, not to mention Don Ameche. I watched her first picture One in a Million (1936) several times when I was researching No Applause, because it co-stars several vaudevillians who get to do their turns over the course of this unusual movie. (although there were others who attempted to follow her lead, with less success) Today is the birthday of Sonja Henie (1912-1969), who for ten years enjoyed an unlikely second career for a world champion ice skater - movie star.