Christopher Dean

A dazzlingly talented skater and choreographer, Christopher Dean was one-half of the world's most famous and acclaimed ice dancing team. Born July 27, 1958 in Nottingham, England, Christopher Colin Dean supported himself as a police constable while pursuing his passion for ice dancing in his spare time. Lightning struck when he was paired with fellow skater Jayne Torvill, and the two became the greatest ice dancers in the history of the sport, revolutionizing the field with their innovative, audaciously crowd-pleasing routines frequently choreographed by Dean himself. Winning the British Championships seven times, the European Championships four times, and the World Championships four times, Torvill and Dean achieved global superstardom for their gold-medal Olympic victory in the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, where their iconic performance of Ravel's "Boléro" earned them a slate of perfect 6.0 scores for artistic impression, the only time in history this feat had been accomplished. Although they earned a bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics, they would go on to dominate the professional circuit, winning five World Professional Championships and starring on their own reality competition, "Dancing on Ice" (ITV, 2006- ). Although the world waited breathlessly for Torvill and Dean to turn their on-the-ice passion to real-life romance, Dean instead was married to elite-level ice dancer Isabelle Duchesnay from 1991-93 and to elite-level singles skater Jill Trenary from 1994-2010. Showered with honors, fame and national hero status, Dean remained a beloved icon and innovator of his sport.