Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Revue, her fourth annual touring ice carnival last week left Manhattan and set out on the road again. Containing no such lustrous ballets as It Happens on Ice (produced by Henie and still in Manhattan), no such galaxy of specialists as the touring Ice Follies of 1941, it depends heavily on Henie herself. Henie still is unmatched as a blonde, chubby-cheeked pocket-edition text on figure skating, with a dainty, smiling, little-girl appeal.
Ice-Capades of 1941. Last week in Washington, D. C., President Roosevelt's iceman opened the biggest ice rink in the East (225 by 90 feet) with another touring frostbite fiesta called Ice-Capades of 1941. A super iceman is robust, pink-cheeked, Dutch-born Migiel John Uline, 63. At 18 he ran his own ice route in Cleveland. A decade ago he settled in Washington where delivery often consisted of the dumping of cakes on the sidewalk and no crushed or cubed ice was sold.
Iceman Uline guaranteed weight and measure, cut his cakes with a machine that left extra ice to allow for meltage. He developed a cubing machine now sold around the world. Today he sells four sizes of ice cubes — rice, chestnut, nut, egg. For 45¢ he gives 20-minute delivery of 100 cubes plus a cocktail recipe. His record order was for a 1936 jamboree of 3,000 delegates to the Third World Power Conference in the rotunda of Washington's Union Station, where Iceman Uline deposited 25 tons of ice cubes.
Iceman Uline's Washington Arena was bigger news than his first show. The show's biggest hit was Red McCarthy who, wearing a skin-tight silver suit, streaked around the rink in a red spotlight. On opening night featured Belita Turner, appearing as a harem dancer, fell flat on her stomach.
Reason: Iceman Uline's Arena had been rushed to completion and its ice, though spacious, was soft.