ON ICE – I

Another Olympics. Another scandal. Some of the usual suspects…Russia/young figure skater.

This one had the best excuse I have heard in a long time, ‘I took my grandpa’s medicine by mistake’. But even with the tears and excuse, she finished fourth.

No skating scandal in the 1968 Winter Games though when Peggy Fleming won the only Gold Medal for the US, just gasps of awes. And those awes, some of them mine, were heard again every time she took to the ice in the Ice Follies.

Here is a reblog from the past.

This started out to be another KGB story; but then as I got writing I realized that large Ice Show revues are a thing of the past… just like vaudeville. So as I began to give a brief backstory to the intended story, KGB AND THE ZAMBONI, then I decided to delay it and write a longer version of ice shows as I remember them and as I worked them.

Back in the day when ice shows were full blown revues, ala Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, only on ice, and not today’s costumed skaters presenting a cut-down Disney movie, there were three major ice shows touring the country. Big shows. Big sets. Large casts that included solo stars, chorus lines, comedy sketches. And they used a large number of local stagehands. Spectaculars!

The original was Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies. It was launched by the two Shipstad brothers, Eddie and Roy, and Oscar Johnson. The three friends grew up in St. Paul, MN and were regular ‘Shop Pond ice rats’. The Shop Pond was behind the Great Northern railroad shop where the neighborhood kids had adopted as a rink for hockey and figure skating. It was on this pond that the Shipstad brothers and Oscar Johnson worked out routines and entertained audiences who were standing in the cold at the edge of the pond, and it was here that a new kind of entertainment was created. The world of lavish ice skating productions.

The three friends started the company in 1936. They were featured in the Joan Crawford movies, THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939, starring Joan Crawford and Jimmy Steward, hoping to compete with the Swedish ice skater Sonja Henie’s popular movies. It flopped and didn’t put a dent in Henie’s popularity, but it put Ice Follies on the map. Sonja Henie eventually worked with the two major ice shows that followed the Follies; but she never worked for Shipstads and Johnson, because they had their own stars.

Over the years they presented many stars of the ice, for instance the comedic skating duo from Switzerland, Frick and Frack. Prior to bring in this act, Eddie Shipstad and Oscar Johnson were the comic skaters, with their skid row routine. They were good but Frick and Frack were great.

Vastly popular, their stage names were adopted into the English language as a term for two closely identified people. Some of their routines are seldom performed because they are just too hard to do.

When Frack retired, Frick continued as a ‘solo’, using various young skaters as second bananas, who were never given a name as part of the act. One reason being the young skaters changed quite often. Some quit the act after just few performances. Frick was not an easy person to work with. He was very good but not as good as he thought he was. He was popular on the ice but not backstage. He was not friendly to his fellow skaters or the stagehands.

Roy Shipstad was a talented figure skater. He skated under the name Mr. Debonair. Recognizing that his age and front office work would force him to discontinue his Mr. Debonair routine, he scouted for someone to eventually take over the role. He found a youngster who was so good they didn’t wait for him to replace Roy Shipstad. They gave him a spot in the show under the name Young Mr. Debonair. He became a fan favorite from the start.

Young Mr. Debonair, Richard Dwyer, grew up in the show. Starting out as a preteen he continued skating well into adulthood. He went to high school in every city they stopped that had a Christian Brothers school. A few weeks here. A few weeks there. Had assignments to do from school to school. Got his high school degree working and touring.

Like Roy Shipstad, Richard was the epitome of a gentleman, before and after he dropped the ‘Young’ from his introduction, skating a classic form, dressed in a tux with a flower in his button hole. He always skated with six beautiful women in flowing gowns and gave out roses to women in the audience. And off the ice he was also a gentleman. A favorite of any one who worked with him, including the local stagehands like me.

Then there was a second generation Shipstad, Jill. Daughter of Roy, her routines were athletic and used some humor. Skating to music with a jazz beat, she seemed to be jitterbugging rather than the traditional graceful gliding.

One of Eddie’s son, Bob Shipstad worked in the front office and helped develop routines for the skaters. For one season the show presented Sesame Street costume skaters. When the Follies went full time Disney, Bob worked several years helping Vince Egan develop Sesame Street Live, (no ice skating), into the block-buster it is today.

Another star developed by the Follies was Karen Kresge. That gal was quite an athletic skater. And her routine was sexy with a capital S. Every male in the audience, that might have been nodding off, woke up when she was burning up the ice. In later years she, like many of the ice skating stars, worked for Holiday On Ice and also did choreography for both skaters and dancers. She worked with Woodstock Productions, a Charles Schultz company, for over 30 years. She was a great favorite of Snoopy, Schultz’s famous creation.

Charles Schultz grew up only a few miles from the Shop Pond albeit several years after the Shipstads and Johnson were on the Pond ice. Like many kids in that neighborhood Schultz loved ice skating all his life. In his later years he owned an ice rink in California and has an ice rink named for him in St. Paul.

(A little aside. Although Shipstads, Johnson, and Schultz grew up in St. Paul they had problems with their hometown. Feeling they were slighted at their start, the Ice Follies refused to perform in St. Paul. All their Twin City performances were in Minneapolis and its suburbs. Schultz had his first strip ‘Lil’ Folks run the St. Paul Dispatch and then in 1950 the paper dropped him. A few years later they begged to have him back, but he vowed never to allow his strip, now re-titled as Peanuts, run in the St. Paul paper and it never has.)

And my all time favorite figure skater is Peggy Fleming, Gold Medal winner in the Olympics. Three times World Champion. Went on to be one of the biggest stars of Ice Follies. And like Richard Dwyer, one of the nicest people to work with.

Such a sweetheart! I made certain I had the same task each time the show was in town. After she finished her routine I would hold a flashlight so she could ‘walk’ up the rubber mats on the ramp to her dressing room. She asked me my name the first time I helped her, and she always remembered it over the years, and thanked me by name each time up the ramp. And always with her warm smile.

She changed her act each season but the one I remember the most her all blue routine. The ice bathed in blue light. Peggy wearing a blue gown. The eight follow- spots spread around the arena capturing her every movement, every facial expression, in their soft pale blue lights.

And, even though the show trouped an orchestra, she skated this routine to a specially made tape of Frank Sinatra singing, IF YOU GO AWAY. Slow, sad, graceful skating as the lyrics lamented the thought of ‘you’ going away. Fast, gleeful skating as the lyrics changed to ‘but if you stay’. Back to the sadness of ‘if you go away, as you know you must.’ And ending in a slow face to black with the words, ’please don’t go away.’ Frank Sinatra singing a great song and Peggy Fleming skating in a blue world! The poetry of a real ice show.

Peggy married her high school sweetheart and they have two sons, and three grandchildren. She overcame breast cancer and is a spokesperson for early detection of the disease.

She keeps her hand in ice skating as a TV commentator.

Beloved by millions, her biggest outspoken fan was Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog. Charles Schultz devoted many a panel on Snoopy’s love for Peggy.

The Follies went downhill in a hurry as a lavish ice revue when the Felds, father and son, bought it. The father, Irving, was a show business promoter specializing in rock concerts . He brought his son Kenneth into the business and the two became big time promoters, with their flagship show, Ringling Brother Circus. In 1979 they bought Ice Follies and in 1981 they worked out a deal with Disney and Ice Follies was no more. The only big ice show now is the Disney costumed show centering around a Disney movie.

The Felds were not innovators but grew rich from the hard work and genius of others. The name Feld is not popular the show business community. The skaters of the Follies complained that the Felds were trying to make their show a circus on ice. They took acts like trained dogs and traditional clowns from the circus and introduced them into the ice show as additional acts that worked on rubber mats. They also introduced common circus practices such as low pay and disregard for their workers and performers. They helped grease the skids toward the extinction of the big ice reviews.

(In 1984 the Follies were doing their yearly stint in the Twin Cities. We had just finished up the between-acts preset and as we walked up the ramp we heard a lot of clapping and gleeful shouting in the dressing rooms hall. I asked a skater if what the clapping was about. ‘Somebody win the lottery?’ He said that the stage manager had just announced over the horn that Irving Feld, (the father), had just died. Ooh, applauding this. Cold, cold!)

I don’t know about the popularity of the Ice Follies around the country prior to the plug being pulled, but I do know they were selling out in the Twin Cities. I often thought that the show changed to Disney On Ice was because the big-name skaters did not want to work for the Feld Organization. It was much easier to control youngsters wearing Disney costumes, who are thrilled just to be in show business, then skaters who upheld the tradition started by the Shipstads and Johnson way back on a little ice pond behind the railroad garage in St. Paul.

After the Ice Follies began, two other organizations put large scale ice shows on the road. Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice. In On Ice Part 2, I will write about them.

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MEN OF THE USS WARD

A Reblog to remember December 7th, 1941

Even the open sea had adopted the Sunday morning calm of the towns that outlined the clover-leaf shaped harbor. The glow from the lights of Saturday night had dimmed several hours before. Now the only lights were those needed by the people who were going to church and those who were working the Sunday shifts.

On board the USS Ward an easiness had replaced the uncertainty of the night, the first night of the Ward’s task, patrolling the mouth of the harbor…the first night under the new captain..the first night the young crew felt they were part of the actual Navy.

When he felt comfortable with how it went that day, Lt. William Outerbridge had decided it was time for him to go to bed. He was tired. The hectic last couple of days had had drained him. Arriving on board of the Ward on the 5^th, taking command, and setting out to sea duty on the 6^th.

Outerbridge had his first command of a ship…albeit it he only had been in the Navy a scant fourteen years. He went to bed that first night, content and confident that he was capable of his new appointment. His ship handled well in this it’s first day of patrol duty…albeit it was old. His crew proved they were competent and more than willing…albeit, they were young in both years and experience.

The destroyer USS Ward had been built in just 17 days in the early days of WWI. She saw action in both the Pacific and Atlantic. At the end of the war, she was put in dry-dock until she was recommissioned and refurbished in January of 41, and then sent to the Pacific to be commanded by Outerbridge and crewed by the 47^th Division of the Naval Reserve, called to active duty in January of 41.

Almost all of the crew were from St. Paul, Minnesota, the home of the 47^th Reserves. St. Paul, an unlikely home for a naval reserve is the furthest city from any ocean in the U.S.. The men’s training had been mostly in the classroom, a little on the Mississippi River, and two weeks each summer on the Great Lakes. It wasn’t until they were activated that they experienced the taste of salt water.

They were raw and eager to learn. They were also young. Children of the Depression. Aged and steeled in the hollow life of the economic catastrophe. Russell Reetz, for instance, 24, tried to find decent work while in high school and after graduation; but each job he managed to find, crumbled shortly after. Some like Richard Thill were still in high school when they were activated.

They joined the reserves because it gave them a little money and a social club. A short meeting once a week followed by a few beers and penny-ante poker. Even the yearly two- week summer camp was an enjoyable respite from their daily lives. As the world war grew and the drums calling for the U.S. entry grew louder the reservists took their training with a much more serious attitude; but still the thought of protecting the Great Lakes seemed a better option than being sent overseas. Hence the call-up and the realization they were in the Navy proper, woke them out of their dream of easy sailing.

Still in all, it was a regular paycheck and a huge break from the breadlines of the Depression. Their life so far had been one of hard times and served them well in their new lives. They attacked the work with the zeal of one unwrapping a much wanted present. Having a job makes a person walk tall.

Sunday morning- 12/7/1941: At 0342 A.M. the USS Condor, in the open sea outside Pearl, experienced a wake that was deemed by the ship’s deck officer to be caused by a small periscope, possibly that of a mini-sub that Japan was known to use. The Ward, which was the closest to the harbor mouth, was notified.

Lt. Outerbridge called General Quarters and pinging began hoping to find the sub, but to no avail.

At 0458 A.M. the harbor’s torpedo safety net was opened to allow a number of small ships entrance, among them the SS Antares, which was towing a target into port. At 0630 at PBY plane spotted the submarine following the Antares and notified the Ward.

At 0635 AM., a lookout on the Ward spotted the periscope. Lt. Outerbridge, covered in a kimono robe, gave orders to attack. Since the vessel had not requested entrance to the harbor, Outerbridge’s order was justified by International Law. When the Ward got within range, the ship’s #1gun fired a shot…the First Shot of the USA in WWII. It missed high.

At once the men on #3 gun fired a second shot, lower and aft of the periscope. There was an eruption of water, black smoke, and the periscope laid over as it sank into the depths.

Outerbridge ordered the Ward to go to the spot and four depth charges were dropped to make certain.

Not only had these citizen sailors fired the First Shot, they also scored the First Victory in the War

These acts of war was radioed at once to both the Naval HQ of Pearl, under the command of Admiral Husband Kimmel, and the Military HQ of Pearl, under the command of Lt. General Walter Scott.

SNAFU! Busy lines, missed connections, the ongoing ‘feud’ between Kimmel and Scott, and the fact Kimmel wanted better confirmation such an incident did occur, all combined to nothing being done until it was too late.

At 0755 A.M., an hour and twenty minutes after the Ward entered the US into WWII, Kimmel’s confirmation was answered in spades. The gates of Hell opened in the form of 383 Japanese bombers and fighters in two waves of destruction.

Kimmel had believed that such an attack would be on Wake Island not Pearl and had taken no extra precautions to protect Pearl. The stubbornness of General Short in demanding that all the ships in the harbor be packed together in one section, made it much easier to attack them.

Within two hours, 18 ships were sunk or damaged…2402 US sailors, soldiers, and marines were killed…another 1247 hospitalized. As well as a large number of civilians killled or wounded.

The Day that Lives in Infamy. The next day the U.S. made it’s long awaited entrance into WWII a formality.

Three days after the attack, U.S. ships were allowed to enter the harbor. The Ward was the first…the first to see the carnage, the horror, experience the smell of death. And it all stuck with the men of the Ward for the rest of their lives.

Lt. Outerbridge was presented with the Navy Cross for his actions taken prior to and during the attack. The men of the Ward were given a pat on the back for their actions. While they were given credit for firing the First Shot, there was a reluctance from the War Department Brass to accept the ‘story’ they sunk the Japanese min-sub. After all these men were young reservists who ‘probably had a vivid and wishful imagination… something to tell the girls back home’.

Ten days after the attack, both Admiral Kimmel and General Short were relieved of command, demoted, and fast-tracked on their way out altogether. Both barely avoiding court martial.

The Ward was re-outfitted into a ‘fast’ destroyer with better armament and sent for duty in the Pacific where it engaged in fighting and transporting. In mid 1943 the men of the Ward were replaced as was Lt. Outerbridge. Most of the civilian sailors were sent states side to a much safer way of life. Outerbridge was assigned to a desk in D.C. until he was given command of the destroyer O’Brien just prior to D-Day. His first assignment, station the ship off the coast of Normandy and shell the German defenses. His next, do the same at Cherbourgh.

From ETO,the O’Brien was sent to the Pacific. Both the O’Brien and the Ward were engaged in the battle of Leyte Gulf. December 7, 1944, exactly 3 years to the day of the Ward’s great achievement at Pearl Harbor, she came under attack by Japanese kamikazes. One struck the Ward mid-ship. The ‘new’ men of the Ward abandoned ship and were all picked up by Outerbridge’s O’Brien.

After rescuing the crew of the Ward, Outerbridge was ordered to open fire on the Ward and sink her. In 1957 William Outerbridge retired as a much decorated Rear Admiral. In 2017, the remains of the Ward were found.

(A Little Aside)…In January of 43, while given shore leave from the Ward, Russell Reetz stood in my grandfolks’ living room and married my Aunt Loretta. I was a shy five year old who was fascinated by this tall stranger dressed in a navy outfit. Little did I realize at the time just how good of friends we would become.

Those civilian sailors, those men of the Ward, were discharged in the fall of 1945. All with a chest full of medals. For the most part they went home to St. Paul where they took advantage of the GI Bill, got training for good jobs, got GI loans for houses, and settled into everyday postwar living. One thing though held them together, the USS Ward on 12/7/41. They formed a brotherhood and called it the First Shot Naval Vets.

Damn if their feat of sinking that submarine was not officially recognized, they knew the truth and told the story to whoever wanted to hear it, schools, organizations, the media. In 1958, the group managed to get the #1 gun from the Ward and have it set on the State Capitol Grounds as a monument to commemorate the reservists from St. Paul firing the First Shot in WWII.

In 2000 a feeble attempt to find the mini-sub was undertaken for a National Geographic documentary emceed by Tom Brokaw. My uncle, Russell Reetz and Will Lehner, a shipmate on the Ward, were included in the search, along with Japanese veterans of the min-sub’s mother-ship. During the search Russ was heard loud and clear shouting that they were looking in the wrong location. They were a good 5 miles off. Nobody listened and the search was finally called off.

Uncle Russ figured they had no intention of actually finding the sub seeing as how the two Japanese vets would be greatly embarrassed.

In 2002, a probe by the University of Hawaii proved without a doubt the Ward had indeed sunk that min-sub as they said. They found the sub and there with the hole in it’s side just as the men of the Ward said, in the location where the men wanted the search to occur. It took 61 years but the men of the Ward got the credit they deserved.

Russell Reetz had his daughter, Cindy, write a letter to the admiral that was vocally opposed to the thought that a shell from the Ward could have penetrated the sub enough to sink it. The admiral sent back a letter with a left-handed apology, stating he was glad to see ‘miracles can happen’.

Uncle Russ died in November of 2004. He contracted pneumonia while sitting in the light rain in Washington D.C. at the dedication of the WWII Monument. He is buried along with a number of his fellow Ward shipmates in Fort Snelling Veterans’ Cemetery.

With the death a few months ago of Dick Thill, the baby of the group, all those civilian sailors, those young reservists, these Men of the USS Ward have left us…having earned a special place in our history.

We thank them and salute them, on this anniversary of Pearl Harbor… along with all the men of Pearl Harbor Attack, and the entire “Greatest Generation’.

AND THAT IS A WRAP FOR TODAY

STAY SAFE

ON ICE – I

This started out to be another KGB story; but then as I got writing I realized that large

Ice Show revues are a thing of the past… just like vaudeville. So as I began to give a brief backstory to the intended story, KGB AND THE ZAMBONI, then I decided to delay it and write a longer version of ice shows as I remember them and as I worked them.

Back in the day when ice shows were full blown revues, ala Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, only on ice, and not today’s costumed skaters presenting a cut-down Disney movie, there were three major ice shows touring the country. Big shows. Big sets. Large casts that included solo stars, chorus lines, comedy sketches. And they used a large number of local stagehands. Spectaculars!

The original was Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies. It was launched by the two Shipstad brothers, Eddie and Roy, and Oscar Johnson. The three friends grew up in St. Paul, MN and were regular ‘Shop Pond ice rats’. The Shop Pond was behind the Great Northern railroad shop where the neighborhood kids had adopted as a rink for hockey and figure skating. It was on this pond that the Shipstad brothers and Oscar Johnson worked out routines and entertained audiences who were standing in the cold at the edge of the pond, and it was here that a new kind of entertainment was created. The world of lavish ice skating productions.

The three friends started the company in 1936. They were featured in the Joan Crawford movies, THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939, starring Joan Crawford and Jimmy Steward, hoping to compete with the Swedish ice skater Sonja Henie’s popular movies. It flopped and didn’t put a dent in Henie’s popularity, but it put Ice Follies on the map. Sonja Henie eventually worked with the two major ice shows that followed the Follies; but she never worked for Shipstads and Johnson, because they had their own stars.

Over the years they presented many stars of the ice, for instance the comedic skating duo from Switzerland, Frick and Frack. Prior to bring in this act, Eddie Shipstad and Oscar Johnson were the comic skaters, with their skid row routine. They were good but Frick and Frack were great.

Vastly popular, their stage names were adopted into the English language as a term for two closely identified people. Some of their routines are seldom performed because they are just too hard to do.

When Frack retired, Frick continued as a ‘solo’, using various young skaters as second bananas, who were never given a name as part of the act. One reason being the young skaters changed quite often. Some quit the act after just few performances. Frick was not an easy person to work with. He was very good but not as good as he thought he was. He was popular on the ice but not backstage. He was not friendly to his fellow skaters or the stagehands.

Roy Shipstad was a talented figure skater. He skated under the name Mr. Debonair. Recognizing that his age and front office work would force him to discontinue his Mr. Debonair routine, he scouted for someone to eventually take over the role. He found a youngster who was so good they didn’t wait for him to replace Roy Shipstad. They gave him a spot in the show under the name Young Mr. Debonair. He became a fan favorite from the start.

Young Mr. Debonair, Richard Dwyer, grew up in the show. Starting out as a preteen he continued skating well into adulthood. He went to high school in every city they stopped that had a Christian Brothers school. A few weeks here. A few weeks there. Had assignments to do from school to schoo. Got his high school degree working and touring.

Like Roy Shipstad, Richard was the epitome of a gentleman, before and after he dropped the ‘Young’ from his introduction, skating a classic form, dressed in a tux with a flower in his button hole. He always skated with six beautiful women in flowing gowns and gave out roses to women in the audience. And off the ice he was also a gentleman. A favorite of any one who worked with him, including the local stagehands like me.

Then there was a second generation Shipstad, Jill. Daughter of Roy, her routines were athletic and used some humor. Skating to music with a jazz beat, she seemed to be jitterbugging rather than the traditional graceful gliding.

One of Eddie’s son, Bob Shipstad worked in the front office and helped develop routines for the skaters. For one season the show presented Sesame Street costume skaters. When the Follies went full time Disney, Bob worked several years helping Vince Egan develop Sesame Street Live, (no ice skating), into the block-buster it is today.

Another star developed by the Follies was Karen Kresge. That gal was quite an athletic skater. And her routine was sexy with a capital S. Every male in the audience, that might have been nodding off, woke up when she was burning up the ice. In later years she, like many of the ice skating stars, worked for Holiday On Ice and also did choreography for both skaters and dancers. She worked with Woodstock Productions, a Charles Schultz company, for over 30 years. She was a great favorite of Snoopy, Schultz’s famous creation.

Charles Schultz grew up only a few miles from the Shop Pond albeit several years after the Shipstads and Johnson were on the Pond ice. Like many kids in that neighborhood Schultz loved ice skating all his life. In his later years he owned an ice rink in California and has an ice rink named for him in St. Paul.

(A little aside. Although Shipstads, Johnson, and Schultz grew up in St. Paul they had problems with their hometown. Feeling they were slighted at their start, the Ice Follies refused to perform in St. Paul. All their Twin City performances were in Minneapolis and its suburbs. Schultz had his first strip ‘Lil’ Folks run the St. Paul Dispatch and then in 1950 the paper dropped him. A few years later they begged to have him back, but he vowed never to allow his strip, now re-titled as Peanuts, run in the St. Paul paper and it never has.)

And my all time favorite figure skater is Peggy Fleming, Gold Medal winner in the Olympics. Three times World Champion. Went on to be one of the biggest stars of Ice Follies. And like Richard Dwyer, one of the nicest people to work with.

Such a sweetheart! I made certain I had the same task each time the show was in town. After she finished her routine I would hold a flashlight so she could ‘walk’ up the rubber mats on the ramp to her dressing room. She asked me my name the first time I helped her, and she always remembered it over the years, and thanked me by name each time up the ramp. And always with her warm smile.

She changed her act each season but the one I remember the most her all blue routine. The ice bathed in blue light. Peggy wearing a blue gown. The eight follow- spots spread around the arena capturing her every movement, every facial expression, in their soft pale blue lights.

And, even though the show trouped an orchestra, she skated to a specially made tape of Frank Sinatra singing, IF YOU GO AWAY. Slow, sad, graceful skating as the lyrics lamented the thought of ‘you’ going away. Fast, gleeful skating as the lyrics changed to ‘but if you stay’. Back to the sadness of ‘if you go away, as you know you must.’ And ending in a slow face to black with the words,’please don’t go away.’ Frank Sinatra singing a great song and Peggy Fleming skating in a blue world! The poetry of an ice show.

Peggy married her high school sweetheart and they have two sons, and three grandchildren. She overcame breast cancer and is a spokesperson for early detection of the disease.

She keeps her hand in ice skating as a TV commentator.

Beloved by millions, her biggest outspoken fan was Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog. Charles Schultz devoted many a panel on Snoopy’s love for Peggy.

The Follies went downhill in a hurry as a lavish ice revue when the Felds, father and son, bought it. The father, Irving, was a show business promoter specializing in rock concerts . He brought his son Kenneth into the business and the two became big time promoters, with their flagship show, Ringling Brother Circus. In 1979 they bought Ice Follies and in 1981 they worked out a deal with Disney and Ice Follies was no more. The only big ice show now is the Disney costumed show centering around a Disney movie.

The Felds were not innovators but grew rich from the hard work and genius of others. The name Feld is not popular the show business community. The skaters of the Follies complained that the Felds were trying to make their show a circus on ice. They took acts like trained dogs and traditional clowns from the circus and introduced them into the ice show as additional acts that worked on rubber mats. They also introduced common circus practices such as low pay and disregard for their workers and performers.They helped grease the skids toward the extinction of the big ice reviews.

(In 1984 the Follies were doing their yearly stint in the Twin Cities. We had just finished up the between-acts preset and as we walked up the ramp we heard a lot of clapping and gleeful shouting in the dressing rooms hall. I asked a skater if what the clapping was about. ‘Somebody win the lottery?’ He said that the stage manager had just announced over the horn that Irving Feld, (the father), had just died. Ooh, applauding this. Cold, cold!)

I don’t know about the popularity of the Ice Follies around the country prior to the plug being pulled, but I do know they were selling out in the Twin Cities. I often thought that the show changed to Disney On Ice was because the big-name skaters did not want to work for the Feld Organization. It was much easier to control youngsters wearing Disney costumes, who are thrilled just to be in show business, then skaters who upheld the tradition started by the Shipstads and Johnson way back on a little ice pond behind the railroad garage in St. Paul.

After the Ice Follies began, two other organizations put large scale ice shows on the road. Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice. In On Ice Part 2, I will write about them.