Sonia Henie, as controversial as she was legendary

Adolf Hitler greeting Sonja Henie at a rink in Munich six weeks after the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she won a third straight women's singles title.  (Getty Images)

I saw a tweet this week from Kiira Korpi, the Finnish figure skater who won medals three times at the European Championships, that referred to the last day of filming skating scenes for a Sonja Henie movie.  You can't find much information online about such a movie, but it is a biopic with the working title, "Queen of Ice."

That suggests it is drawing from a biography, "Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows, the Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie."  The book, written by a Hollywood screenwriter and Henie's estranged brother, paints a very unflattering portrait of the greatest figure skater in history, seen by many as a Nazi collaborator or sympathizer, criticized by Norwegians for her high life, little esteemed in her own country for the rest of her days.

When I went to Norway in 1993 to do reporting for a profile on Henie that appeared in a Sports Illustrated Olympic advertising supplement before the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games, I asked Jan Staubo, then his country's International Olympic Committee member, to assess the way Norwegians viewed Henie today.  Staubo, who had been a pilot and German prisoner during World War II, politely but firmly declined to talk about Henie.

My story explored all the dimensions of Henie, and I was fascinated by all of them.  The only copies of it I have are in PDF form, so I have posted them that way.  And I'm looking forward to the movie.

(Another way to view is to click this link, which allows a download.)