Information required on Dorothy Goos Holiday on Ice skater | Golden Skate

Information required on Dorothy Goos Holiday on Ice skater

RSE

Spectator
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
In the late fifties, when I was a little boy, I saw an ice extravaganza in Port Elizabeth (now the Nelson Mandela Metropole) in South Africa, and was enchanted by its star. The name of the show was (I think) Holiday on Ice, and the American skater, Dorothy Goose. I remember being devastated when she subsequently died in an aeroplane crash. Circumstances have conspired to bring her to mind recently, but when I Google, her name doesn't come up. Does anybody have information about her? Or possibly pictures? I should very much like to revisit this childhood experience.
 

dorispulaski

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabena_Flight_548
The most likely plane crash for a U.S. skater to die in would be the catastrophic 1961 flight that wiped out the US team and their coaches and families.
I can't find a name that looks like Dorothy Goose on the list.

Are you sure it wasn't the gas leak explosion at Holiday on Ice that killed Dorothy Goose, and not an air crash?

Holiday On Ice has often used less famous skaters. Wikipedia has a list of the shows HOI did. If you can identify the general theme of the show, you could then look for a program from the show, which would surely have a picture of her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_on_ice
 
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RSE

Spectator
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabena_Flight_548
The most likely plane crash for a U.S. skater to die in would be the catastrophic 1961 flight that wiped out the US team and their coaches and families.
I can't find a name that looks like Dorothy Goose on the list.

Are you sure it wasn't the gas leak explosion at Holiday on Ice that killed Dorothy Goose, and not an air crash?

Holiday On Ice has often used less famous skaters. Wikipedia has a list of the shows HOI did. If you can identify the general theme of the show, you could then look for a program from the show, which would surely have a picture of her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_on_ice

Many thanks for your response. I was a boy of four or five at the time, and don't have very much memory to go on, beyond the fact that there was a sequence in which skaters wore panniered skirts and pompadours in pastel shades of green, pink and blue, which outraged my infantine sense of propriety (I think even blue rinses were a rarity then, or certainly didn't figure much in my world!). I do, however, remember Dorothy Goose as a figure of brilliance and enchantment. She definitely died in a plane crash, because I recall seeing the headline in the local newspaper.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
This thread makes me realize how many skaters that we no longer think about played a part in attracting fans to skating. It's worth remembering that it's not just the big stars who are ambassadors of the sport.
 

BlackPack

Medalist
Joined
Mar 20, 2013
This is very Proustian. Nothing brings more joy than to revisit an old, pleasurable memory.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
I googled and got "Dorothy goos" married to Murray Galbraith. Stars of holiday on ice.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Thanks, gmyers. :)

Here is a brief history of Holiday on Ice. Dorothy Goos is mentioned. (I see that Tom Collins, who later produced Champions on Ice, was in the cast along with Goos.)

http://www.icestagearchive.com/holidayonice.html

Here she is with Elvis Presley, backstage at a Holidays on Ice show.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/146578162845397837/

For $9.95 you can buy a program of the 1958 show, starring Dorothy Goos and others.

http://www.icesk8.com/collect/progrm01.htm

Here is a newspaper article which mentions the show in South Africa in 1957.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...HpOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DAEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7400,2602246
 

BlackPack

Medalist
Joined
Mar 20, 2013
Thanks, gmyers. :)

Here is a brief history of Holiday on Ice. Dorothy Goos is mentioned. (I see that Tom Collins, who later produced Champions on Ice, was in the cast along with Goos.)

http://www.icestagearchive.com/holidayonice.html

Here she is with Elvis Presley, backstage at a Holidays on Ice show.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/146578162845397837/

For $9.95 you can buy a program of the 1958 show, starring Dorothy Goos and others.

http://www.icesk8.com/collect/progrm01.htm

Here is a newspaper article which mentions the show in South Africa in 1957.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...HpOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DAEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7400,2602246

Wow Mathman... can you help me find the things that have eluded me too? :eek:
 

BlackPack

Medalist
Joined
Mar 20, 2013
I hope RSE is a happy man! There are still things (not skating-related) from my childhood that I'm searching. To be able to find pleasant things from the past is sweet.
 

RSE

Spectator
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
I hope RSE is a happy man! There are still things (not skating-related) from my childhood that I'm searching. To be able to find pleasant things from the past is sweet.

My heartfelt thanks for all of these generous and informative responses. Clearly I need to hone my Googling skills, though I would have expected the site to overlook my misspelling and offer helpful approximations instead. I'm glad, at any rate, to have had my errant E corrected, since it invested poor Dorothy Goos with a damaging air of silliness--Dotty Goose! Goos looks like Dutch surname to me (perhaps she had ancestors that stretched back to New Amsterdam), and Goossen (presumably the plural) is a common Afrikaans surname in South Africa. I'm not sure what 'goos' means, The Afrikaans for goose is 'gans', pronounced with a velar trill for the R and a vowl that rhymes with 'once'.

When I saw Holiday on Ice in 1957, it was mounted at a beachfront tennis stadium, and we saw the show under the stars (I had had my bath and was clad in my dressing gown, feeling somewhat self-conscious, and also, since we were right alongside the rink, a little chilly!). Looking back on the event a few weeks ago, I wondered how on earth they prevented the ice from melting in the blazing South African sun, but I see that the show had encountered even more trying conditions in South America.

I was very taken with the photo of DG and Elvis Presley, which projected a wholesome, pleasant personality. Some of this was masked by the glittery, fairy aura that, in my five-year-old consciousness, seemed to emanate from her on the ice. She remained my idol until I saw Margot Fonteyn in a film of Swan Lake, Act II, The Firebird and Ondine at the age of nine, at which point, with all the fickleness of youth, I transferred my devotion.

Thank you SO much to everybody once again.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Google is our friend. :laugh: A little snooping on the name Goos, the original meaning does indeed seem to be "a keeper of geese." Goosen or Goosens means "son of Goos." Goos is still a first name for boys in the Netherlands. The word comes from Old English gos (goose), related linguistically to Germanic gans. :)
 

RSE

Spectator
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
Google is our friend. :laugh: A little snooping on the name Goos, the original meaning does indeed seem to be "a keeper of geese." Goosen or Goosens means "son of Goos." Goos is still a first name for boys in the Netherlands. The word comes from Old English gos (goose), related linguistically to Germanic gans. :)

Many thanks, Mathman. Far from being my friend, Google seems to adopt a stance of armed neutrality toward me. I frequently draw blanks there where most of my friends return from their sallies with whole cornucopias of information in hand. I am interested to see that Goosen means son of a goose, (goos se seun) and isn't the Germanic plural I thought it was. The fact that the surname of the Australian composer/conductor Eugene Goossens came in a plural form should have alerted me to this.
 

skatedreamer

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Many thanks, Mathman. Far from being my friend, Google seems to adopt a stance of armed neutrality toward me. I frequently draw blanks there where most of my friends return from their sallies with whole cornucopias of information in hand. I am interested to see that Goosen means son of a goose, (goos se seun) and isn't the Germanic plural I thought it was. The fact that the surname of the Australian composer/conductor Eugene Goossens came in a plural form should have alerted me to this.


I also consider Google a friend, albeit a fickle one. A search for "dorothy goos skater" turned up another link to this item from a Wilmington, Delaware newspaper about a competition where Dorothy Goos won the ladies' title in the Eastern States Figure Skating Championships in the early 1940s.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...9ImAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qQIGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4365,6007078

Another link revealed that she won the US senior pairs title in 1943 with Edward LeMaire, who died in the tragic 1961 crash referenced upthread.

Now for the fickle part. The same search also gives links to many pictures of Dorothy Goos, including the one w/ Elvis. The "images" link also kindly offered to take me to "dorothy good skater" as opposed to "dorothy goos skater." I'm a gullible & curious sort, so I took the bait. And what should pop up but a raft of photos of Dorothy Hamill?

Thanks, Google. Dorothy Hamill was/is indeed a good skater. :biggrin:

More to the point, thanks to RSE for prompting a search into skating history!
 
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RSE

Spectator
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
I also consider Google a friend, albeit a fickle one. A search for "dorothy goos skater" turned up another link to this item from a Wilmington, Delaware newspaper about a competition where Dorothy Goos won the ladies' title in the Eastern States Figure Skating Championships in the early 1940s.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...9ImAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qQIGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4365,6007078

Another link revealed that she won the US senior pairs title in 1943 with Edward LeMaire, who died in the tragic 1961 crash referenced upthread.

Now for the fickle part. The same search also gives links to many pictures of Dorothy Goos, including the one w/ Elvis. The "images" link also kindly offered to take me to "dorothy good skater" as opposed to "dorothy goos skater." I'm a gullible & curious sort, so I took the bait. And what should pop up but a raft of photos of Dorothy Hamill?

Thanks, Google. Dorothy Hamill was/is indeed a good skater. :biggrin:

More to the point, thanks to RSE for prompting a search into skating history!

Thanks for the additional link, Skatedreamer. I have so far found out nothing further about DG’s death. Was it indeed caused by the 1961 crash that Doris Pulaski referred to in her opening response? Perhaps she was listed among the casualties as Mrs Murray Galbraith. And did her husband perish too? I have Googled for him, but come up with very little. The Historical Dictionary of Figure Skating (James Hines) mentions him en passant in an entry about his more celebrated brother, Sheldon. If both parents died, then Murray junior would probably have been brought up by the German grandparents Goos, who emigrated to New York State in 1922.
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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Thanks for the additional link, Skatedreamer. I have so far found out nothing further about DG’s death. Was it indeed caused by the 1961 crash that Doris Pulaski referred to in her opening response? Perhaps she was listed among the casualties as Mrs Murray Galbraith. And did her husband perish too? I have Googled for him, but come up with very little. The Historical Dictionary of Figure Skating (James Hines) mentions him en passant in an entry about his more celebrated brother, Sheldon. If both parents died, then Murray junior would probably have been brought up by the German grandparents Goos, who emigrated to New York State in 1922.

My pleasure, RSE! As far as I can tell, Dorothy Goos didn't die in the plane crash; that was one of the things I looked for yesterday. Unfortunately, further research will have to wait as it's time for me to rush off to work.

Full disclosure: looking at my post again, the dates of Goos' skating titles in relation to Edward LeMaire and the crash seem off -- 1961 & 1943 are too far apart, which makes me think I may have mis-read or mis-remembered.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
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avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
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Article re Dorothy Goos as Holiday on Ice skater/homemaker, including a photo:
"Skater undaunted by 28 kitchens - cuts culinary capers with ease"
Miami Daily News, Mar 10, 1950
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...zIuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HNcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5777,5483526

She is in the Skating Club of New York's database. Type "Goos" into the filter box to see a list of her medals from nationals and sectionals (senior/junior/novice + pairs/ladies).
Pairs photo of Dorothy Goos and Edward LeMaire:
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
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Jul 26, 2003
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Apparently her husband was.her "dancing" partner in 1950!

And she did not skating until she was 12-at least that's when she received her skates for Christmas!
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
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Since she & her husband appear to have been U.S. residents, perhaps death dates for both of them could be found on ancestry.com? Does anyone here have a subscription?
 
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