A MONEY SPINNER

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 192, 11 May 1937, Page 14

A MONEY SPINNER

Girl Ice-Skater Gets Princely Salary ' QONJA HENIE will earn about £lOO,kJ 000 this year—• thereby becoming one of the mostly highly paid performers in the world, writes a Hollywood correspondent. Sonja, women’s amateur figure skating champion for years, turned professional a year ago at a time when many experts thought her long reign as queen of the iee was being threatened by England’s Cecilia Colledge, who has now succeeded her as champion. When she decided to turn professional Sonja showed sound business sense. She rejected the requisite number of film offers, only to capitulate to a princely salary offered by Twentieth Century-Fox and agreed to make two pictures a year. The first film, “One in a Million,” has been a big success, and her next, “Thin Ice,” will be made before the end of this summer. But between pictures Sonja gives exhibitions in the larger cities for as much as £2400 a night. Ninety thousand people went to see her skate in Chicago. She will be one of the few athletes to become a star in her own right. Many fighters, a few swimmers, golfers and ■ tennis stars have tried, but few have made more than one film. i One girl who may rival Sonja as a i money-maker is Helen Wills-Moody, who, < it has just been announced, is about to . sign, a contract to make tennis “shorts.” i