NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - Figure skating legend Richard Totten (Dick) Button, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion, died on Thursday, Jan. 30 at his North Salem home. He was 95.
According to media reports, his family confirmed his death but did not provide a cause.
Button had been in declining health in recent years.
He is survived by his two children, Edward and Emily, from his marriage to the late former figure skater and coach Slavka Kohout, and by his longtime partner, Dennis Grimaldi.
Born in Englewood, N.J., Button was credited with being the first skater to successfully land the double Axel jump in competition and well as the first triple jump -- a triple loop -- of any kind.
Lauded for his athleticism on the ice, he also introduced a variation on the flying camel spin, which became known as the “Button Camel.”
Hooked on skating at age 6 after being taken out for a spin on a frozen pond by his two brothers, he began professional training at 12.
In 1948 in St. Mortiz, at the tender age of 18, he became the first American man to take home gold in figure skating singles. Four years later, Button did it again, in Oslo, by landing the first consecutive double axel and triple jump in Olympic history.
(He also won five consecutive gold medals from the World Championships and became the only American to win a European championship.)
In 1949, Button won the James E. Sullivan Award, which is given to the best amateur athlete in the United States. He was the first figure skater to receive it.
Button studied law at Harvard. During college vacations he performed in traveling ice shows such as the Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice. He graduated in 1956.
He also co-produced “Dick Button’s Ice-Travaganza” for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
And that’s not all, Button founded a production company in 1959 that created made-for-television sports events. He even acted, appearing in such films as “The Bad News Bears go to Japan,” and on TV shows such as “Mr. Broadway.”
Called an innovator on the ice and a teacher off it, Button was the voice of the sport for more than 50 years.
He started on that path in 1960, as an analyst for the Winter Olympics on CBS. Two years later, he signed on with ABC Sports. In 1981, Button won an Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality.
According to Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, he created a “open and honest space in figure-skating broadcasting where no topic or moment was off-limits.”
As a founding member of the Garden Conservancy Open Days Program, Button had graciously hosted hordes of nature-loving visitors at Ice Pond Farm, his Eden-like home on June Road.
He collected furniture, paintings, and ice-skating art and artifacts.
In 2015, he stepped up to provide a home to D.I.G. (Dealing in Good), a nonprofit organic farm that educates volunteers, youth groups, corporations, special needs organizations, and the community at large about regenerative agriculture and what it takes to grow healthy food.
While giving a tour to a lohud.com reporter in 2014, he pointed out a valley with a pond that sometimes got black ice on it in the wintertime.
“And if you know what black ice is, you know how glorious it is to skate on it,” Button told him.
Another featured of his elaborate garden were two stone planters in female form with flowing live greenery as hair.
“One of them is Peggy, my Peggy, and the other is whatever great lady ice skater happens to be coming by,” he said, smiling.
(Peggy Fleming is an Olympic gold medalist in figure skating who later became Button’s ABC co-commentator.)
Fleming had been quoted as saying that Button was a close friend and someone who had an encyclopedic knowledge of his sport and no fear of saying exactly what he thought.
Even the flowering vines echoed his love of skating. Pointing to one gorgeous specimen, he told lohud.com that the flattened line of one reminded him of a “lay-back spin,” something that he admitted he could never do.
The other highlight was water feature with low circular plantings, somewhat resembling the Olympics logo, that Button called a “tribute to figure skating … but there ain’t any figures in it.”
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