Katherine Healy (placeholder)

Katherine Healy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katherine Healy (born January 26, 1969, in New York City) is an American professional figure skater and former actor and ballerina.

Healy never competed in figure skating at an elite level. Instead, she turned professional at a very young age. In 1975, at the age of 6, she appeared in the televised SuperSkates exhibition at Madison Square Garden. A few years later, she was the subject of the book A Very Young Skater, published in 1979. She was a protegee of John Curry and skated professionally with his company, as well as in a number of Dick Button’s made-for-television professional competitions in the early 1980s.

At the same time, Healy was also a serious ballet student. She trained at the school of the New York City Ballet and performed the character of Marie/Clara in their production of The Nutcracker in 1978 and 1979.

In 1982, Healy had a major role in the film Six Weeks, with Mary Tyler Moore and Dudley Moore, portraying a young ballet dancer with terminal leukemia. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for this role in the category “Best New Star—Actress”.

Shortly afterwards, Healy began to focus more exclusively on ballet. After having won the silver medal in the junior division at the 1982 USA International Ballet Competition, the following year she won the same event in Varna, Bulgaria, becoming the youngest ever to be awarded the gold medal. In 1984, at the age of 15, she joined the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet) as a principal dancer, and performed with that company for two seasons.

After returning to the United states in 1986, she graduated from Princeton University in 1990 with a degree in Art History. During her time at Princeton, she again worked with John Curry and made various skating appearances.

She then worked as a principal ballerina with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Homesick and unhappy with her situation in Vienna, she retired from ballet in early 1997 and returned to the United States, where she picked up her skating career once again.

In addition to her work with Curry, Healy was coached as a skater by Glyn Watts and Richard Callaghan, and passed the United States Figure Skating Association’s gold-level ice dancing test.

She is married to figure skating coach Peter Burrows and currently works as a skating coach and choreographer in Monsey, New York. She has also continued to be a regular performer and choreographer for the Ice Theatre of New York, and has also appeared in shows such as An Evening with Champions.