John Robert Carrell
January 25, 1947-September 20, 1989
Photo courtesy Jim Carrell
John Carrell got his start in figure skating at the Seattle Skating Club. After placing third in the Silver Dance event at the 1962 Northwest Pacific Championships with Allana Mittun, he formed a partnership with Lorna Dyer, the bronze medallist at that year's U.S. Championships. Lorna and John won five medals at the U.S. Championships - one of them gold - and the 1965 and 1967 North American titles. They represented America at the World Championships five times, winning two bronze medals and a silver. Though they were sponsored by the Broadmoor Skating Club throughout their career, Lorna and John did much of their training in Canada with World Champion Jean Westwood. John studied political science at the University Of Washington and dabbled in coaching before reinventing himself as a ballet dancer, under the stage name John Aubrey. He danced with a ballet troupe in New York before joining the National Ballet Of Canada, where he performed for seven years. He passed away on September 20, 1989 at the age of forty-two.
Lorna Dyer and John Carrell
Lorna Dyer's remembrances of John and attitudes towards gay skaters in the sixties: "John was a funny, wonderful guy. He kept me laughing constantly. He used to sit down on is skates and raise his hands as 'claws' and sneak up behind me and scare me or when 'lurking' (which was a phenomenon in the sixties) he would hide behind a wall or post and lean his hands and head around and wait for me to see him. Just a dislocated head and hands... People were in the closet in those days. You know skating - maybe a third of men might be gay. It was never an issue with me. I kind of knew but we never talked about it. It was just very quiet in those days. Everybody knew but nobody cared. He was just John. He was like a brother and I loved him very much."
*Source for inclusion: "Skating's Spectre", Michael Clarkson, The Calgary Herald, December 13, 1992
