Gloria Nord, 87; skating star of 1940s and 1950s

Gloria Nord, 87, a roller- and ice-skating star adored by millions in the 1940s and 1950s for her balletic finesse and theatrical flamboyance, died Dec. 30 at a hospital in Mission Viejo, Calif. She suffered a series ailments in recent months, but her family declined to provide a cause of death.

Ms. Nord was known as the "Sonja Henie of roller skates" after the Olympic champion who starred in lavish musical ice-skating productions. She attracted sellout audiences across the country as the leading lady in "Skating Vanities," a roller-extravaganza that opened in 1942. The show, which featured a cast of 100 waltzing, conga-dancing skaters in glitzy costumes of ostrich plumes and sequins, played to more than 1 million people during its first two tours.

That success helped propel Ms. Nord -- "a 19-year-old blonde of smiles and bounce," according to The Washington Post -- onto magazine covers and into the movies, where she appeared on skates in the 1944 Betty Grable movie "Pin Up Girl."

With her looks and dazzle, Ms. Nord won a loyal fan base among U.S. servicemen, and many requested her photograph or her hand in marriage. She received 12 diamond rings from near-strangers, she told a reporter, and accepted none of them.

In the 1950s, Ms. Nord traded wheels for blades to perform in ice-skating productions at London's Wembley Arena, where she gained an enthusiastic following. In 1953, she was asked to give a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II -- making her the first skater to achieve that distinction, said Roy Blakey, who runs an archive of theatrical ice-skating memorabilia.

"Here was Gloria, who was known mostly for her sex appeal and glamour, getting this big honor," Blakey said. "It really ruffled the feathers of a lot of English skaters who had won medals in their sports."

Gloria Nordskog was born Aug. 2, 1922, in Santa Monica, Calif., and she was a natural redhead. "It's a bottle job," she said of her famous platinum locks.

Ms. Nord grew up in Hollywood "with a golden spoon in my mouth," she later said. Her father, music industry entrepreneur Andrae Nordskog, helped bring the first concerts to the Hollywood Bowl.

She said she dreamed of a career in dance or Broadway musical theater. Her career took a different turn when the publisher of Skating Review magazine spotted her twirling on a pair of homemade roller skates at the Hollywood Rollerbowl.

The publisher cast her in a traveling roller-dance exhibition, and on a trip to Chicago in 1938, she caught the eye of Minneapolis boxing promoter Harold Steinman. Hoping to replicate the success of Henie's ice-skating productions, Steinman chose Ms. Nord as his star on wheels. "Skating Vanities" was born.

The production traveled to large arenas, such as Madison Square Garden in New York and Chicago Stadium, and eventually to Europe. As her roller-star rose, Ms. Nord expanded her repertoire to include ice-skating. In London, she performed through the 1950s in holiday performances such as "Cinderella on Ice" and "Humpty Dumpty on Ice."

After a brief tour in Australia, Ms. Nord moved to California, and she gave her last performances in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. She retired to Mission Viejo, where she continued to dance socially and wear high heels, despite two hip replacements.

Ms. Nord had no children, and no immediate family members survive. Two marriages -- one to her "Skating Vanities" partner and the other to an Australian acrobat -- ended in divorce.

At the peak of her fame, Ms. Nord insured her legs and ankles for $20,000, a precaution against the many hazards of her trade.

On tour in California, an errant spangle caught her skate as she landed from a high split jump and sent her sliding across the floor on her stomach. In Chicago, she fell hard on her hip after striking a fallen bobby pin. She fell often enough on ice, one report said, that stagehands took bets on the number of times she would lose her footing.

"I had a marvelous life," she told the Orange County Register in 1993, "but I could hardly walk after skating a show."