Oldest member of Ice Capades to celebrate show’s anniversary

Associated Press

EUCLID

The oldest living member of the Ice Capades will be traveling from northern Ohio to Las Vegas to celebrate the show’s 75th anniversary.

Betty Barnes, of Lake County in northeast Ohio, is headed to the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino later this month to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee for the Ice Capades anniversary, The (Willoughby) News-Herald reported.

The 94-year-old Euclid native was a part of the ice skating show— that eventually went out of business in the mid-1990s —from 1942 to 1953 and traveled across the country. After she left the company she settled in Timberlake Village and taught young ice skaters at an arena in Euclid for 20 years.

Barnes even traveled to England with the Ice Capades. The show focused on ice skating, but also occasionally featured comedians, acrobats and jugglers.

Olympic gold-medalists Dorothy Hamill and Scott Hamilton once were members of the cast.

Barnes remembered practicing for a military-themed musical number when a real Marine sergeant was brought in to help with the performance.

The sergeant demanded perfection and sat in the front row for their performance.

“Every girl that saw him said he was crying,” Barnes said. “It was funny because he was so tough in the practice.”

Her son, Edwin Loeb, said that about 600 people who worked on the show in different capacities are set to attend the reunion.

The Willoughby resident said he knows of two other people in their 90s who will be there, but that his mother is the oldest.

“The Ice Capades was a big and glamorous thing back then,” Loeb said. “They’re going to be the belles of the ball.”

Barnes says the celebration will be like a family reunion, as her children and grandchildren will also be meeting up in Las Vegas.