The Stage

Gloria Nord

Published Tuesday 26 January 2010 at 12:50 by Don Stacey

Gloria Nord was a leading lady of the ice show world in Britain during the fifties, famous for her roles in Tom Arnold ice spectaculars and ice pantomimes.

She was originally a roller-skating performer in the forties, when America boasted several touring roller revues. She was featured in the Skating Vanities show of the impresario Harold Steinman, who became famous for developing the Dancing Waters feature which became a worldwide success.

With Skating Vanities, Nord appeared in London four times, at Wembley’s Empire Pool and at Haringey Arena. Skating Vanities was eventually taken over by the American showman Morris Chalfen, who took it off the boards and on to ice arenas to become the internationally renowned touring success Holiday on Ice.

While in America in her earlier days, Nord taught Cary Grant to skate for a film and had a featured cameo ice skating role in the Betty Grable film, Pin Up Girl. A very attractive platinum blonde himself, Nord also became a favourite pin-up of American GIs during the war.

Her greatest success in Britain came when Sir Arthur Elvin, managing director of the Empire Pool at Wembley, brought her to the ice show audiences, along with the great impresario Tom Arnold who, together with his producer Gerald Palmer, featured her in a number of the big Wembley ice spectaculars.

She was featured star of the Chu Chin Cow on Ice presentation at the Empire Pool in 1952, in Humpty Dumpty on Ice (1953/4), in the ice adaptation of Ivor Novello’s musical The Dancing Years in 1954 and as the appealing Cinderella of Cinderella on Ice in the winter of 1956/7.

She reprised the Cinderella role at the Sports Stadium, Brighton for Arnold in the winter of 1957/8, also appearing for Arnold there in two popular ice circuses staged in the summers of 1952 and 1958, which had her starring alongside many of the world’s best circus talents.

Nord retired from the ice show world after the Brighton season in 1958, returning to her native America. She died on December 30, aged 87