Current Exhibitions / Traveling Exhibitions

title
  Back to list of portraits
  Back to American Women introduction
dorothy hamillEnlarge Dorothy Hamill (born 1956) From the moment she received her first ice skates at age eight, Dorothy Hamill wanted to spend as much time as possible on the ice. Within a few years, she was ready for figure skating competition, and at twelve, she claimed the national women's novice championship. Over the next eight years, she went on to win three national figure skating titles, a gold medal in the 1976 winter Olympics, and a world championship. After one of her title-winning performances, one commentator noted that compared to "her assurance and speed" all her competitors seemed to "have skated in slow motion."

This photograph appeared on the cover of Time during the 1976 winter Olympics. Hamill had not yet competed, but with her "incandescent smile and a skating style as fluid as a Chopin prelude," the magazine claimed that, win or lose, she was a sure bet to "light up the Olympics."




John Zimmerman (born 1929)
Color photograph, 1976
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine
© John Zimmerman

Next