John Anthony Curry
September 9, 1949-April 15, 1994
Born in Birmingham, England, John Curry started skating at the age of seven. He was a five-time British Champion and the 1976 Olympic Gold Medallist, European and World Champion. As a professional, he mesmerized audiences with his unique and otherworldly style in performances on stage, ice and television. John's contributions to the art of skating were ahead of their time. His performances set a gold standard of excellence that will never be duplicated. He passed away on March 15, 1994 at the age of forty-four.
Photo courtesy "MacLean's" magazine
Lorna Brown's remembrances of John: "John and I would talk about our dream of having an ice ballet company when we were very young. We were both winning competitions together but then I turned pro and John went out to the USA and eventually won Europeans, Olympics and Worlds on the trot and that enabled him to do what he really wanted to do and that was to dance on the ice in theatres and do things his way: the way he always dreamed of from being a child. He was hugely inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky as I was with Isadora Duncan. He was a perfectionist and was very dedicated in everything he did for his work. he shows were incredible. We had people like Diana Ross, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova attending... all of these amazing people were in the audiences and they were amazed that John was bringing ballets to the ice. We used to laugh a lot. We would sit on the bed and I would sing 'Life' by Shirley Bassey to him. We would go into the park pretending we were Romeo and Juliet. We were going to do Midsummer Night's Dream someday and he wanted me to play Puck on the ice. We were like brother and sister: very close... There are many stories but really he was also very loving and deeply involved with the work we were doing and tried to live out his dreams as much as possible in reality until the dreaded end to his life began."
*Source for inclusion: UK AIDS Memorial Quilt
