Born August 2, 1922 in Santa, Monica, California, Gloria Louise Nordskog was the youngest of Arne and Daisy Nordskog's five children. Born and raised in Iowa, where he met his wife, Arne Nordskog was a successful concert tenor and politician of Norwegian descent who co-founded the Hollywood Bowl and established one of the first opera companies in Los Angeles. Around the same time as his daughter's birth, his short lived Nordskog Records company produced the only recordings of Canadian vaudeville singer Eva Tanguay. Little did he know at the time that his infant daughter would grow up to become perhaps the most famous roller skater of all time.
Young Gloria got her start as a dancer, performing professionally in Vaudeville style shows in nightclubs at the tender age of nine and using the money towards ballet classes. As a teenager, she attended Miss Long's Professional School. Having received her first pair of ice skates at the age of four, she took a break from her studies and headed to the Polar Palace and took the ice to do her best impression of Sonja Henie.
Travelling throughout North America and even to Cuba with mother Daisy in tow, Gloria was hailed by reporters as "Sonja Henie on rollers". Her style was heavy on showmanship. In the "Fabulous Ice Age" documentary, Gloria recalled, "The first time I met [Sonja] she came and watched me. In her next movie, I saw some of my arm movements. But that's okay... I copied her. I didn't know anything about skating until I saw her. So that was fine... I was flattered."
Gloria was by all accounts an incredibly hard worker, and despite numerous tumbles and mishaps, American audiences embraced her glamorous style. Tour life wasn't without its tribulations though. At one show in Duluth, Minnesota, her roller skates were stolen. When she arrived in the next city, the police were called and a car was dispatched to the nearest sports outfitter to fetch her a new pair. Dennis Holman, writing for "The Newcastle Sun" on July 22, 1954, claimed, "The car, escorted by motor cyclists, and with sirens screaming, rushed a new pair to Gloria with five minutes to spare." After that, she carried two extra pairs of roller skates with her to every show. At another show, a stuffed lamb mounted on skates used as a prop in one of her numbers was stolen and placed among a flock of real sheep. Neither Gloria nor the police called in to look for Gloria's Little Lamb were amused.
Gloria suitably impressed film scouts at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1943 and was, along with her "Skating Vanities" cast, brought in to roller skate in the 1944 Twentieth Century-Fox film "Pin Up Girl" which starred her old friend Betty Grable. Her appearance in publicity materials surrounding the film earned her a following with U.S. soldiers.
Gloria ultimately made her big figure skating debut alongside Daphne Walker at Wembley's Empire Pool in Arnold's production of "Sleeping Beauty". The show, which was in direct competition with Claude Langdon's "Jack And The Beanstalk On Ice" at Empress Hall starring none other than Belita, was a success. The two years, she appeared in "Chu Chin Chow On Ice" and "Ice Circus Of 1952" at Wembley. She said, "I have skated on rollers so much for so long at a time that I find when I go ice skating that it sharpens me up, is just enough different to keep my wits about me, and because I do not feel quite as much at home, the 'existence' of hands, arm movements and free-leg position becomes more conscious and I become less careless."
On January 7, 1955 at the age of thirty, Gloria married her twenty-seven year old roller skating partner Edwin Delbridge at a Presbyterian chapel in Los Angeles and returned to "Skating Vanities" as a special guest, performing in South America in what would be her final tour. By the early sixties, she'd hung up her skates permanently. She later remarried and had two hip replacements and surgery on her toe, but according to her Washington Post obituary, "She continued to dance socially and wear high heels."
Gloria passed away at the age of eighty-seven on December 30, 2010 in Mission Vieho, California. Although best remembered today - and rightfully so - for her accolades on rollers, her brave transition to the ice is an often overlooked footnote from skating history that is absolutely worthy of recognition.
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