Button, Dick

▪ American figure skater

byname of  Richard Totten Button 

born July 18, 1929, Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.

      figure skater (figure skating) who dominated American and international amateur competition in the late 1940s and early 1950s until he became a professional in 1952. He was the only man to win top honours in the Olympic, World, European, North American, and U.S. national competitions, and in 1948 he held all those titles simultaneously.

      At age 16 Button became the youngest holder of the U.S. men's figure-skating championship, which he won seven consecutive years (1946–52), tying a record established by Roger Turner (1928–34). In addition, he captured the North American title in 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1951 and the European championship in 1948, the last year in which American skaters were permitted to compete. Button won the world championship five consecutive years (1948–52). He also won gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland (1948), and Oslo, Norway (1952).

      Button added new jumps and spins to the figure-skating repertoire. He introduced a variation on the camel spin, a flying camel, at the 1947 World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the first to complete a double axel, at the 1951 World Championships in Milan, Italy. He added to his status as a jump king when he became the first person to land a triple loop, at the 1952 Olympics.

      Button was a student at Harvard University during much of his amateur skating career. In 1952, after he turned professional, he entered Harvard Law School. He skated professionally with the Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice. He started his own production company in 1959 and produced many sports programs for television. Starting in the early 1960s, he became the voice of figure skating in the United States as a commentator for many national and international televised skating events.

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