Product Description

Toller Cranston is: six-time Canadian figure-skating champion, celebrity, costume designer, artist extraordinaire, broadcaster, choreographer of skating routines, raconteur, bon vivant, coach, world traveller, art collector, legend, and enigma. In 1976 he won Olympic bronze (so why did it feel like defeat?). This book tells the story of his life after those fateful games at Innsbruck.

The rise and fall of Toller’s first professional ice show is described in soul-searing detail. His subsequent triumphant tour of Europe as the Skater of the Century is recounted, in contrast, with wicked humour. There are vignettes here of his encounters with the rich and famous from Leonard Bernstein to Pierre Cardin and of his life among Europe’s aristocrats and bohemians. Toller has experienced the high life and the low. He has stayed in the most luxurious hotels, held court in palatial houses, sought seclusion in beautiful estates. But the hard times have taken their toll.

In the early 1990s a combination of circumstances, including a disastrous professional association with out-of-control American skater Christopher Bowman and a lawsuit that dragged on for years (ending in complete victory for Toller), led to a personal crisis from which recovery came slowly. But even in the blackest hours, Toller’s humour and creative powers never deserted him.

This generously illustrated book is an extraordinary self-portrait written by a uniquely gifted individual. Toller’s wit, insight, and delicious way with words will entertain and astound readers whether they are skating fans or not.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1349207 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-19
• Released on: 1998-09-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Review
?An edgy, humorous look into the self-absorbed world of figure skating.?
?Edmonton Sun

?Insightful, blunt and often refreshing, and just as often overstated.?This dishy, who-was-there-and-what-he-wore memoir does, in fact, reveal much about the man behind the dramas.?
?Edmonton Journal

?A chatty, gossipy, hilarious, insightful, silly and sobering autobiography.?
?Globe and Mail

?Bold, brazen and totally unabashed.?
?London Free Press -- Review

Review
“An edgy, humorous look into the self-absorbed world of figure skating.”
–Edmonton Sun

“Insightful, blunt and often refreshing, and just as often overstated.…This dishy, who-was-there-and-what-he-wore memoir does, in fact, reveal much about the man behind the dramas.”
–Edmonton Journal

“A chatty, gossipy, hilarious, insightful, silly and sobering autobiography.”
–Globe and Mail

“Bold, brazen and totally unabashed.”
–London Free Press

From the Inside Flap
Toller Cranston is: six-time Canadian figure-skating champion, celebrity, costume designer, artist extraordinaire, broadcaster, choreographer of skating routines, raconteur, bon vivant, coach, world traveller, art collector, legend, and enigma. In 1976 he won Olympic bronze (so why did it feel like defeat?). This book tells the story of his life after those fateful games at Innsbruck.

The rise and fall of Toller's first professional ice show is described in soul-searing detail. His subsequent triumphant tour of Europe as the Skater of the Century is recounted, in contrast, with wicked humour. There are vignettes here of his encounters with the rich and famous from Leonard Bernstein to Pierre Cardin and of his life among Europe's aristocrats and bohemians. Toller has experienced the high life and the low. He has stayed in the most luxurious hotels, held court in palatial houses, sought seclusion in beautiful estates. But the hard times have taken their toll.

In the early 1990s a combination of circumstances, including a disastrous professional association with out-of-control American skater Christopher Bowman and a lawsuit that dragged on for years (ending in complete victory for Toller), led to a personal crisis from which recovery came slowly. But even in the blackest hours, Toller's humour and creative powers never deserted him.

This generously illustrated book is an extraordinary self-portrait written by a uniquely gifted individual. Toller's wit, insight, and delicious way with words will entertain and astound readers whether they are skating fans or not.

Customer Reviews

Zero Tolarence; and, not all remembered correctly.
I skated with Toller, as a principal, at Radio City Music Hall in the production of ICE, in New York City. I must admit that this book is extremely entertaining!! A must read for figure skaters and fans. But I was there! And though Toller said there was no closing night party, there was. Toller and I were there along with Peggy Flemming, Robin Cousins, and the rest of the cast. Plus, its producer: Bob Shipstad and choreographer: Sara Kawahara and pair skater, soon to become one of skatings most innovative producers and choreographers, Sandra Bezic.
But anything Toller writes is his interpretation, which is slightly different to what actually happened. Still, take it with a grain of salt -- and enjoy. I think Toller is one of the greatest skaters -- of any era. And perhaps the most esoteric skater of all time. I'll buy anything he writes and enjoy (if not agree)every word. His books are hilarious and witty.

Endless egotistical conceit overshadows this biography
Remove Toller's sophomoric elements and the book would only have a small fraction of pages remaining. It has some of what happens behind the competitive and touring scenes. Still, though, the incessant self-touting never ceases to become bothersome. We're of the understanding that Toller claims to be a native Canadian. Read this and he comes across more as the worst brazen, and self-centered American. Really, those that enforce totalitarian indoctrination must have him as a poster child.

a strange book about a completely self-absorbed man
This book is not badly written, it flows along and produces a vivid picture of some of his experiences on tour in Berlin, Paris, Bejiing, Haiti, and Sao Paulo. When he wants to be, Mr. Cranston is a good storyteller.

Unfortunately, Mr. Cranston has chosen to run a thread through out the book that is not unlike a therapy session describing his torment. He tells of his liaisons with elderly ladies, his connection with Christopher Bowman, his drug problem, his plan to commit suicide if he lost his lawsuit and the romoteness that existed between he and his family. Oh, yes, and all the outfits he wore skating and night clubbing.

The problem is that this book doesn't work as a psychological self study. These situations don't necessarily need a resolution, because life is not like that, but there should have been some attempt to understand just why his life has run this course.

The end result is a book with nice flashes of insight on skating and the world in general, completely overshadowed by the meandering of a man alternately proud of his accomplishments and tormeted by something, we just never find out what.