Sonja Henie was the most famous ice skating movie star, but England had Belita Jepson-Turner. The skating prodigy billed only by her first name, like Henie, started her athletic career as a pre-teen Olympian whose skating was augmented by classical ballet training - but she and Henie had very different screen personas: Henie was pert and cute, but Belita was a cool thoroughbred beauty. But all the good looks in the world can't match the marketing powerhouse of a big studio's blessing, and so Henie (bankrolled by Fox into A-list pictures like One in A Million (1936)) trounced Belita's B-movie pedigree in the public imagination. In this, a thinly contrived plot about an ice revue with financial problems serves to create excuses for "Belita, Star of the Ice" to perform as herself. After her retirement, Belita would later disavow her time in the rink, declaring "I hated the ice. I hated the cold, the smell, everything about it," but none of that loathing shows in her powerful, balletic grace on screen.

By Violet LeVoit