His story had begun just a handful of miles away, in an affluent suburb of Birmingham.Īlthough John Curry was fond of insisting that he was ‘a working-class boy from an ordinary home,’ the truth was somewhat different. Why was this troubled genius unable to find lasting love or financial stability? And how did he come to spend his final years as a virtual recluse at his mother’s home in a village near Coventry? Now, 20 years after his untimely death in 1994, those who knew John Curry best have helped reveal for the first time, through interviews and private letters, what happened to this most intriguing of stars after his sporting triumphs. When he died at the age of just 44, he had never owned a property, nor even a car, and left just £6,000 in his will. An intensely private and complex man, he never sought a celebrity lifestyle or the material trappings of fame. Yet the man who gave such pleasure to millions worldwide has in the years that followed his triumph been largely - and perhaps cruelly - forgotten by the British public who had once so adored him. He was mesmerising.Īn innovator and hugely creative talent, Curry had changed ice skating from a marginal sport to something sensual and deeply moving. Impossibly handsome, he appeared to those who watched him to combine athleticism and art, masculinity and beauty.
That phenomenon was an athlete named John Curry who had already secured the European title and would that night add Olympic gold to his tally. The whole country was in thrall to a dazzling new talent who had burst upon the scene and turned the sport entirely on its head. It didn’t matter that most of them knew nothing about it. On a cold winter’s evening in February 1976, 20 million Britons turned on their TVs to watch the Winter Olympics ice skating. A new biography reveals John Curry's bullying father and wicked taunts about his sexuality scarred him
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