Sport: Sonja

On the streets of her native Oslo, Sonja Henie causes almost as much of a stir as King Haakon. In the U. S., where she has been developed into a Hollywood cinemactress in the two years since she abdicated her amateur standing as figure-skating champion of the world, Sonja Henie’s popularity is fast becoming comparable to that of Mary Pickford when she was America’s Sweetheart.

When, last week, Madison Square Garden announced that Skater Henie in person would appear in Manhattan this month in a skating spectacle called The Holly-wood Ice Revue, her admirers stampeded the Garden box office, took away $10.000 worth of tickets during the first day of the advance sale. Remembering well that Cinemactress Henie, had recently sustained a slight concussion when she toppled onto her head during the filming of Happy Landing, Garden officials promptly cabled Lloyd’s of London to ask for a $250,000 accident-insurance policy. Of the long procession of sport figures—from Dempsey to Vast, the wonder horse—who had preceded 24-year-old Sonja in Madison Square Garden’s five-decade history, not one had ever been considered worthy of such a precaution.