Eva Pawlik

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Eva Pawlik figure skating
Eva Pawlik
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday October 4, 1927
place of birth Vienna, Austria
date of death 31st July 1983 (age 55)
Place of death Vienna, Austria
Career
discipline Single run
society Vienna Ice Skating Association
Wiener EG
Medal table
Olympic medals 0 × gold 1 × silver 0 × bronze
World Cup medals 0 × gold 1 × silver 0 × bronze
EM medals 1 × gold 1 × silver 0 × bronze
Olympic rings winter Olympics
silver St. Moritz 1948 Ladies
ISU World figure skating championships
silver Davos 1948 Ladies
ISU European figure skating championships
silver Prague 1948 Ladies
gold Milan 1949 Ladies
 

Eva Pawlik-Seeliger (born October 4, 1927 in Vienna ; † July 31, 1983 there ) was an Austrian figure skater and film actress . She was European champion and Olympic runner-up, long-time top star of the Wiener Eisrevue and the first female figure skater in the world to become a TV sports commentator (on ORF ).

Childhood and youth

Before the Second World War, Eva Pawlik was considered a “child prodigy” on the ice when, at the age of only four, she was already doing quick pirouettes and easily standing the easy Axel . Her show number “The fairy tale of the steadfast tin soldier” was legendary together with the Viennese world champion Felix Kaspar , with whom she caused an international sensation. In 1937, nine-year-old Eva Pawlik shot the short film "Sunny Youth" in Arosa , in which not only her artistic talent, but also her acting talents were clearly expressed.

In pair skating , Eva Pawlik - together with her future husband Rudi Seeliger - won a number of youth and junior championship titles (always ahead of the later world champions Kékesy / Király from Hungary) and the Austrian championship title in 1942 (more precisely: Ostmarktitel, since Austria after joining the German Reich did not exist and the geographical "area of ​​Austria" was then called "Ostmark"), until the war tore the two apart. Rudi Seeliger had to enter and was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front, from which he was only supposed to return in December 1949. Eva Pawlik was only able to continue training as a single runner.

European and World Championships, Olympic Games 1948

At the first decisive international championships after the Second World War ( European championships in 1947 and World championships in 1947 ), Austrians were refused entry, and so the competition was already ahead of the game in 1948, when Austria was re-admitted to the International Skating Union . Nevertheless, Eva Pawlik managed to become the best European straight away at the European Championships in 1948 . However, the title went to the Canadian Barbara Ann Scott . The fact that a non-European woman could become European champion remained unique in the history of sports. In 1948 Pawlik achieved two more second places: silver at the Olympic Games in St. Moritz and at the World Championships in Davos . Eva Pawlik's coaches included Gustav Hügel , the world champion of 1897, 1899 and 1900, Angela Hanka , the World Cup runner-up in 1914, Rudolf Kutzer and Edi Scholdan , in whose Broadmoor Ice Revue (Colorado Springs) she was the big star in the summer of 1948 .

European and World Championships 1949

In 1949 Pawlik won the long overdue European Championship in Milan despite an acute appendicitis. Its rightful title at the World Cup in 1949 took her a very mysterious incident, which adheres to this day the suspicion of sabotage: Break the Eisschuhs shortly before the free skate, so Pawlik had to give up and the Czech Alena Vrzáňová , at the European Championships in both the obligation as also in the freestyle clearly behind the Viennese, could become world champion.

Film and ice revue

As early as 1948, Eva Pawlik had been offered the opportunity to shoot a Hollywood film with Gene Kelly , who wanted to combine his dancing skills on an ice-skating podium with her skating. Billy Wilder was to direct and later Oscar winner Helen Rose designed the costumes. However, Pawlik declined to receive her amateur status for 1949. When she became a professional in the summer of 1949, she decided to pursue a career with the Wiener Eisrevue . Here, too, she was interested in the film: “ Spring on the Ice ” (1950) was the title of the full-length film in which Pawlik, directed by Georg Jacoby in the female lead as partner of Hans Holt, was also able to assert himself as an actress. The list of actors reads like a “who's who” of the film and theater celebrities of the time: Erich Auer , Hertha Mayen , Harry Fuß , Oskar Sima , Heinz Conrads and Ernst Waldbrunn . The music came from Nico Dostal and Hanns Elin (pseudonym of the twelve-tone player Hanns Jelinek ). The waltz king Robert Stolz dedicated his first ice operetta to Eva Pawlik ("Die Ewige Eva", 1952).

At the Wiener Eisrevue, which tours all over Europe (6-week guest performances in Berlin, Antwerp, Moscow and Leningrad, among others), Eva Pawlik became the most celebrated and most experienced show runner in Europe since the three-time Olympic champion Sonja Henie from Norway. That was the verdict of Morris Chalfen, the boss of the rival company " Holiday on Ice ". The American figure skating journalist Kelli Lawrence writes: "If ever the scepter was handed over from one authoritative Ice Queen of Europe to another, it was Henie and Pawlik." Pawlik proved her versatility not only in that she was the ensemble's only “ice bomb” with a doctorate (German studies); She gained international attention above all because she pulled out all the stops of a show professional not only as a single but also as a pair runner - together with her husband Rudi Seeliger (married in February 1957). The elegance of her arm movements in the Viennese waltz was her trademark, the slingshot figures in which Rudi Seeliger grabbed his wife by one foot and whirled it in a circle through the air so that Eva's head barely missed the impact on the ice at one point, the acrobatic sensation. Pawlik and Seeliger switched to the German Scala ice revue in 1955 and returned to the Viennese ice revue in 1958.

In the film Traumrevue (1959) with Susi Nicoletti and Waltraut Haas , Pawlik was reinstated as an actress. On the one hand she ran on the ice - according to her role in the framework story - as the great (fictional) ice revue star Ilona Karoly, on the other hand she was the double on the ice for Waltraut Haas.

First TV sports commentator in the world

At the beginning of the 1960s, Eva Pawlik hung up her ice skates, became a mother and began another career: as the first figure skater and the first woman in the world to become a TV sports commentator. From 1963 to 1972 Pawlik commented - at that time often at prime time with extremely high ratings - for the ORF all European and world championships as well as all Olympic competitions in figure skating - "similar to the work of Dick Button , who at this point in his career did the same for the United States made ". In the “Red-White-Red Sports Archive” the long-time head of the “Presse” sports department, Josef Metzger, praised Eva Pawlik's comment as “factual, full of knowledge, thorough and yet again so popular that the general public understood it. Also in her second ice career, in which she left the trail of others, such as Ingrid Wendl , she was top. It was good form to hear the pawlik. Your word counted, your comment had weight. "

Scientific work

In her dissertation (doctorate in philosophy at the University of Vienna in 1954) Eva Pawlik dealt scientifically with the poetry of Stephan Milow (pseudonym of Stephan von Millenkovich ). From 1973 to 1981 she taught German and English at a modern-language grammar school.

death

Eva Pawlik died on July 31, 1983 after a serious illness, a few months after her husband Rudi Seeliger.

Results

Competition / year 1942 1946 1947 1948 1949
winter Olympics 2.
World championships 2. Z
European championships 2. 1.
Austrian championships 1.* 1. 1. 1. 1.

Z = withdrawn (due to breakage of the ice skate heel when entering the freestyle)
* 1942 in pair skating with Rudi Seeliger ("Ostmark" championships instead of Austrian championships)

Filmography

Further information

In 2008 the exhibition “Die Wiener Eisrevue. Once Austria's ambassador - today a legend ”. From October 2014 to January 2015 an exhibition about the Wiener Eisrevue took place in the Wiener Stadthalle ("Traumfabrik auf dem Eis"), in which films by Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger were shown on the ice. An accompanying book of the same name was published.

literature

Books (selection)

  • Eva Pawlik, autobiographical contribution In: Ernst Koref among others: When I was 19. Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-224-10415-5 .
  • Roman Seeliger: The Wiener Eisrevue. A dream faded away. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7004-0680-0 .
  • Roman Seeliger: The Wiener Eisrevue. Once Austria's ambassador - today a legend. Published by: Bezirksmuseum Meidling, Vienna 2008.
  • Ingrid Wendl: Ice cream with style. Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-7141-7105-3 .
  • Ingrid Wendl: My big bow. Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99465-5 .
  • Isabella Lechner: Viennese women who read are dangerous. Chapter "Eva Pawlik". Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-938045-72-5 .

Scientific work

  • Isabella Lechner, Die Wiener Eisrevue. Diploma thesis University of Vienna, 2008

Newspaper articles (selection)

  • Figure skating "Favored to win, Eva Pawlik was forced to withdraw" . In: Life Magazine, March 14, 1949.
  • Ice Queen conquers the world . In: Vienna weekly edition. January 29, 1953.
  • Pair skating Olympic champion Ernst Baier: Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger are currently the best couple in the entire ice show business. There is no trick. Both of them can do it. In: Lübecker Nachrichten. July 20, 1956.
  • "Berliner Luft" and Wiener Eisrevue. In: The press. December 16, 1958.
  • The review of the great ice skaters - Dr. Eva Pawlik: still the best runner in the Viennese ice revue today. In: The day. (Berlin), November 10, 1959.
  • Eva Pawlik solo runner again . In: Neues Österreich, August 10, 1960
  • Degree No Barrier - Lady Doctor Skates To Fame - Dr. Eva Pawlik. In: New York World Telegram. October 11, 1960.
  • In the mirror of the day (portrait Eva Pawlik). In: Der Tagesspiegel ´. July 25, 1961 (Berlin).
  • They tell you who wins. We introduce TV and radio announcers for the Olympics - the only woman among twelve men: Eva Pawlik, European champion and ice revue star. In: Das Kleine Blatt. January 1964.
  • Special applause for Eva Pawlik. In: Kronenzeitung. 5th February 1971.
  • Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger (detailed article by Susan D. Russel about the life stories and careers of Pawlik and Seeliger). In: International Figure Skating Magazine. USA January / February 2009.
  • The Wiener Eisrevue and its biggest star Eva Pawlik (article by Manuela Buyny) In: Pirouette (international magazine for ice sports and roller sports) July / August 2013 issue.

Web links

Commons : Eva Pawlik  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://diestandard.at/1234261216166/Portraet-Eiskalt-an-die-Spitze
  2. ^ Rudolf Ulrich, Austrian in Hollywood. Extended edition 2004. Page 605. ISBN 3-901932-29-1
    Kelli Lawrence, Skating On Air. 2011. Pages 22f. ISBN 978-0-7864-4608-7
  3. ↑ http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2015/07/trials-and-tribulations-storied-lives.html
  4. ↑ http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2015/07/eva-and-rudi-revisted-bonus-material.html
  5. ^ Susan Russell, Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger: Triumph and True Love. In: International Figure Skating Magazine, February 2009, pages 20-23.
  6. ↑ Kelli Lawrence, Skating on Air. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London 2011, page 23: "If ever a torch was passed from one influential European ice queen to another, it happened with Henie and Pawlik."
  7. ↑ Bernhard Hachleitner / Isabella Lechner (ed.): Traumfabrik on ice. From Wiener Eisrevue to Holiday on Ice . Subchapter Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger. The dream couple of the Wiener Eisrevue (pages 148 ff). Metroverlag 2014, ISBN 978-3-99300-194-0
  8. ↑ pirouette (international magazine for ice sports and roller sports) July / August 2007 issue, memories of Eva Pawlik. Pages 37–38
    Eissport-Magazin No. 7/2007, Eva Pawlik, one of the most outstanding figure skaters in the world, would be 80 on October 4th. Pages 26 to 29.
  9. ↑ The first figure skater in the world to become a TV commentator was the American Dick Button. A short time later, ORF won Eva Pawlik as the first woman in the world to take on this role for Austria. See The Red-White-Red Sports Archive; Eva Pawlik Fanpage www.evapawlik.at, Das Kleine Blatt "They tell you who wins" - We introduce the TV speakers (for the 1964 Winter Olympics)
  10. ^ Kelli Lawrence, Skating on Air. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London 2011, 23
  11. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6715982/
  12. ↑ https://www.evapawlik.at
  13. ↑ http://www.hachleitner.at/node/33
personal data
SURNAME Pawlik, Eva
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian figure skater and film actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1983
Place of death Vienna