Hall of Fame
USF Career Years: 1970-1974
Richard Dwyer was born November 18, 1935 in Santa Monica, and grew up in Burbank. His parents were from the Midwest: his mother from Illinois, and his father from Nebraska. The couple moved from Nebraska to Oregon, and then to California in 1913. Once in California, his father worked for Warner Brothers' Studio as a sheet metal worker. His father had skated as a child, when Dwyer's grandfather would flood the back yard to use as a rink for the family of five children. In 1943, the father started taking the family to the Ice Follies, and later, skating at the Pan Pacific in Los Angeles. Dwyer took to skating and started competing in amateur shows in Chicago, Seattle, and Vancouver, and became close friends with the children of Roy Shipstad, of the Shipstad and Johnson Ice Follies (Pro Skating Historical Foundation).
When Richard Dwyer was fourteen years old, Roy Shipstad of the Ice Follies decided to retire from performing in the show. Roy Shipstad was looking for a young skater to take on his role of "Debonair." At that time, ice shows followed promising young amateur skaters and looked for talent to recruit. Dwyer had just won the National Junior Men's Figure Skating Title in 1950. The Shipstads brought him into the show under Roy Shipstad's guidance (LiveAbout.com).
The Jesuits at Loyola High School in Los Angeles helped him attend fewer days of school a week so he could travel to participate in shows. They arranged for him to attend the local Jesuit high school in whatever city the show was performing. He attended 26 different high schools (Pro Skating Historical Foundation). In the 1950s, shows stayed in one city for three or four weeks at a time, so the young skating star would attend a full day of classes like any high school student (LiveAbout.com).
He served in the Army Reserve at the age of 23 in 1958, and was called up again in 1961 under John F. Kennedy when the Berlin Wall was constructed.
He graduated from USF in the class of 1974. He performed as an amateur figure skater, and later, wearing a top hat and tails, professionally as “Mr. Debonair” in the Ice Follies and in the Ice Capades for 30 years. He won the 1946 Pacific Coast Juvenile Men's Championship, the 1948 U.S. National Novice Men's Championship, and the 1949 U.S. Junior Men's Championship. At the Senior Nationals in 1950 he was 2nd in Free Skate and 4th in Figures. He was inducted into the ISI Hall of Fame in 1979, the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993, and the USF Hall of Fame in 2010.
Dwyer still skates at Pickwick Ice in Burbank, CA, and remains involved with the current generation of skaters. "You know, people say to me, 'You have been here forever, how do you feel?' And, I would say that it’s just an honor to still be here and skate (Pro Skating Historical Foundation)."
Photo credit: Don Bosee Studios, San Francisco, courtesy of Richard Dwyer.
