Peter Burrows | Golden Skate

Peter Burrows

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I don't know where to put this, so I decided to start in the Cafe, away from the main skating section.

I read on another site and have confirmed it that longtime American coach Peter Burrows passed away last week. He was in his seventies. He leaves behind a widow, his second wife Katherine Healy, whom many skate fans know as an unusual skater with ballet training (and a career as a ballerina). She posted on her Facebook page about Burrows' passing.

Burrows coached many elite skaters, including Dorothy Hamill, Elaine Zayak,and Jason Dunjen and his various pairs partners (including I believe Yuka Sato when she skated pro with Dunjen as a pair, but I can't confirm that).

Katherine Healy was a good deal younger than Burrows (he had lost his first wife to an illness), and they seem to have had a fruitful partnership both on and off the ice. On the other skating site and on her Facebook page, she has expressed gratitude to those who have sent condolences.

As a longtime fan of many of Burrows' students and also of Healy, I felt it was important to post this information.

Mods, please move or delete this post if I've put it in the wrong place or if I shouldn't have posted it. I did verify, so I think it counts as factual. There is an obituary in Newsday, a New York area paper.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
I am sorry to hear this. Healy was the subject of a child's book (about being a young skater) and was a well known ballerina. In recent years, I think she has been involved with Ice Theater of New York?
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I am sorry to hear this. Healy was the subject of a child's book (about being a young skater) and was a well known ballerina. In recent years, I think she has been involved with Ice Theater of New York?

Yes, the Jill Krementz book A Very Young Figure Skater, which is where I first encountered Healy. In those days, Krementz did a series of "A Very Young..." photoessays, including A Very Young Dancer, with another girl who was preparing to dance Clara in Nutcracker. (For Healy, who did the same thing, that was a "subplot" in her book.) there was also one about a circus flier and one about a competitive rider. I had them all but eventually gave them away--but I would never get rid of the skating one. A cute sidenote: One of Healy's little skating companions photographed in the book was Kyoko Ina, even younger at the time.

She ended up dancing for I think a ballet company in Vienna. Then when she was about thirty, she returned to the U.S., resumed skating, and somewhere in there married Burrows. I loved her approach to skating, using more dance moves than jumps. And how she pointed her toes in her skating boots!

I know that Burrows coached in the New York-New Jersey area, and I read today that his career lasted almost until the end of his life. A good life well-lived, but I'm sure Mrs. Burrows would have given a lot for a few more years with him.
 

BlackPack

Medalist
Joined
Mar 20, 2013
I think this is qualifiable for the main boards. It is figure skating news. Healy was divine. RIP Peter.
 
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