Toller Cranston's Birthday Today!

[Ladskater]

Toller Cranston's birthday is today. He was born April 20th, 1949. Another gifted (and controversial) skater who changed men's skating and brought figure skating to another level. I loved watching Toller skate. He did the best Russian Split jump I have ever seen.

This is from a Brian Orser special:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vea3ne0UN0&feature=fvst

lovely!

This is one of his early SP programs from 1975 at a Skate Canada competition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen

Toller looked like a male ballet dancer when he skated. He brought a flair to everything he did and made foot work look like an art. My favorite Toller exhibition skate is "Too Beautiful To Last" - I did not see it here. Simply an amazing skater.

[Olympia]

I agree about Toller. He was a wonderful artistic presence but didn't neglect technical precision either. His weakness seems to have been school figures. The year he and John Curry competed in the Olympics was the first time I watched the Olympics, and they were each magnificent in a different way. I always think of them as Apollo (Curry) and Dionysus (Cranston). He was a wonderful Tybalt in the Romeo and Juliet (to Prokofiev's music) done on TV in I think the eighties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=032DwlgcNHo

Happy birthday, Toller! The year 1949 was a great one for skaters: Toller, John Curry, and Irina Rodnina were all born that year.

[brightphoton]

Didn't this guy have some sort of collaboration with the London Symphony to play the old figure skating warhouse songs? What happened to that? Or was it someone else ...?

[dorispulaski]

I thought it was with one of the symphony orchestras in Canada?

In any case, I loved Toller's skating.

He also put one some amazing shows as a professtional, "The Ice Show" for one and "Strawberry Ice" for another.

I particularly liked the "Dreamweaver" special he did for Canadian TV.

[Olympia]

Toller was one of the first in an extraordinary run of Canadian male skaters. (I guess Donald Jackson should be called the first.) What's wonderful about this illustrious dynasty of Canadian guys is that no two are alike in style and approach. Toller, Orser, Kurt, Elvis, Jeff Buttle, Sandhu, and now Chan. What a wonderfully diverse array of world-class (and just plain classy) competitors.

Add to that the fact that Toller, along with John Curry, was one of the fathers of modern men's skating, which blends power with artistry and is able to convey both musical interpretation and emotional communication. He and Curry used very different approaches (Curry's was based more on classical ballet) to craft a style that is at once masculine and musical.

[Vicky458]

Love Toller! Happy Birthday

[merrywidow]

Back in the day, it was all Curry & Cranston for me. It was because of them that I bought my first video recorder. Happy Birthday, Toller!

[WeakAnkles]

If Patrick Chan is looking to improve artistically, I think it would be worth his while to see if he could persuade Toller Cranston to give him some master classes (if not a more full-time position as coach). The man is a genius.

[dorispulaski]

AFAIR, Toller didn't want to put with the testing & requirements to qualify as a coach in Canada, so he doesn't coach any more.