Camel Spins in Colorado: The Monty Hoyt Story

Born September 13, 1944, in Baltimore, Maryland, Monty Hoyt was the son of newspaper writer Wallace Taber and Helen May Lininger, a wealthy socialite who entertained everyone from President Dwight Eisenhower to Ethel Merman and Bob Hope. 

Helen May Hoyt. Photo courtesy History Colorado.

After his parents' divorce, Monty was adopted by his stepfather, Edwin Palmer Hoyt, the wealthy editor and publisher of "The Denver Post" and "The Portland Oregonian". 'E.P.' served as domestic director of the Office of War Investigation during World War II, was close friends with Senator Charles L. McNary, personally knew several U.S. Presidents and had been a houseguest in the White House.

Palmer Hoyt. Photo courtesy University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives. 

Monty grew up in Denver, Colorado, with his three brothers in a wealthy, staunchly Republican home. He excelled at French and German at George Washington High School and managed to stay on the honour roll - despite having the longest absentee record in his class - while regularly making the hour drive between Denver and Colorado Springs to train as a figure skater under legendary coach Edi Scholdan. His brothers all skated too. Greg, the second oldest, was the 1964 Midwestern Champion in novice men's. In the summers, Monty performed with a stock theatre company and he was such a talented actor. His Thespian talents were recognized and he was soon offered the child lead role that Jerry Mathers ultimately played in Bob Hope's film "That Certain Feeling".

Monty Hoyt accepting a leather-bound brochure from General Motors PR representative Thomas Pond. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Monty's figure skating career didn't exactly start with a bang. In his first competition in Minneapolis, he took a nasty fall on a split jump, smashing his chin on the ice and skidding into the judges. His first success didn't come until 1959, when he claimed the U.S. novice men's title at the U.S. Championships in Rochester, New York. After finishing fifth in the junior men's event the following year in Seattle, he rebounded to take the U.S. junior men's title the following year at his home rink.

When Tim Brown, the bronze medallist at those Championships, declined a spot on the World team due to illness, Monty was offered a position. His mother worried he'd miss too much time from school due to the planned USFSA World tour of Europe after the World Championships in Prague, so the spot was given to Douglas Ramsay, the fourth-place finisher in the senior men's event, instead. Helen May Hoyt's decision ultimately prevented Monty from getting on Sabena Flight 548, which killed the entire U.S. figure skating team, including his coach. Curiously, his mother reportedly told the story that the cockpit of Sabena Flight 548 was breached by international terrorists and 'shot up'. 'E.P.' Hoyt, who was well-acquainted with several people in the CIA, never refuted Helen's story. Helen had a bit of a reputation in skating circles. Once, Dick Button later recalled, she marched into F. Ritter Shumway's hotel room and grabbed him by the shirt -pulling out a handful of chest hair - demanding that her son's performance be included on an early television broadcast. The veteran USFSA official exclaimed, "Get that woman out of my room!"

Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine (left) and University Of Denver, Special Collections and Archives (right)

After Edi Scholdan's death, six foot tall, one hundred and fifty pound Monty worked with famed coaches Sheldon Galbraith, Gustave Lussi and Carlo Fassi. At the age of seventeen, he was the unanimous winner of both the figures and free skating in the senior men's event at the 1962 U.S. Championships in Boston, drawing great admiration from the audience of three thousand and judges alike for his near-perfect free skate set to a medley of operatic overtures.

Top: David Edwards, Scott Ethan Allen, Monty Hoyt and Jim Short at the 1962 U.S. Championships. Bottom: Monty Hoyt.

After his winning performance at the 1962 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Monty told Associated Press reporters, "This is the first time I've ever won in free skating. Usually, I get a lead in the figures and have to skate like blazes to stay ahead. This time I had a bigger lead and was more relaxed." Monty, who had earned the nickname 'Mr. Figures' for precisely that reason became the first man since Dick Button to win U.S. junior and senior titles in successive years.

At the World Championships that followed in Prague, Monty had a strong showing in figures but delivered only a mediocre free skate, highlighted by a fall where he slid right into the referee. The Czechoslovakian judge had him as low as fourteenth in the free skate, and he later joked that he was the only skater who had a conversation with a referee during his program. On the European tour that followed, he dazzled audiences with his solo performance to "Stars and Stripes Forever" and a duet with Dorothyann Nelson until a bout of influenza caused him to return home to America prematurely.

Monty Hoyt with members of the 1964 U.S. Olympic figure skating team

Unfortunately, things started to unravel for Monty the following season. He lost his U.S. title, finished off the podium at the North American Championships and after finishing a solid seventh in figures at the World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, dropped to eleventh overall after a dismal free skate skated outdoors in bone-chilling temperatures on hard, brittle ice where he fell right in front of the judges and slid into the referee. What may have contributed most to Monty's disappointing result at the 1963 World Championships was the fact that he was a 'hothouse' skater through and through who had little experience dealing with such adverse weather and ice conditions. 

The following season - Monty's last - he chose to skate to the music "Battle Hymn of the Republic". It wasn't all glory, glory, Hallelujah though... He finished third at the U.S. Championships, tenth at the Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck and eleventh at the World Championships in Dortmund. It's interesting to note that although he dropped a spot from Innsbruck to Dortmund, his brother recalled that his latter performance was the better of the two. 

Left: Christine Haigler and Monty Hoyt. Right: Monty Hoyt at the Broadmoor Skating Club.

Retiring from competitive figure skating at the ripe old age of nineteen, Monty gave up on plans to attend Harvard and study languages when he received a Boettcher Scholarship to attend the University of Denver.

Photo courtesy University of Denver, Special Collections and Archives

In his junior year, Monty joined the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity and was voted 'Junior Man Of The Year' for his work in editing the "Clarion" school newspaper. He later earned a Marshall scholarship to attend Oxford University in 1967, where he graduated with a B.A. from Corpus Christi College.

Photos courtesy University of Denver, Special Collections and Archives

Monty married Katharine Lee Hamilton of Downsview, Ontario, became a father of two. He worked as the Washington correspondent for the "Christian Science Monitor" and was a member of the Ford adminstration's Presidential Commission on Olympic Sports. In August 1972, he was featured on a half-hour series on WNAC called "Lamp Unto My Feet". The episode, entitled "Tuning In To Perfection", featured his skating career, work with the "Christian Science Monitor", the Sunday school class he taught, and him speaking about his Christian Science beliefs. Off the ice, he enjoyed playing golf and bridge, swimming and horseback riding.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Several years after his stepfather's death in June of 1979, Monty returned to the skating world as a judge. Tragically, just as he was in the process of working towards judging at an international level, he was diagnosed with cancer in January of 1997. 

Monty Hoyt passed away at the age of fifty-three on October 9, 1997, at his home in Phoenix, less than two months after the death of his mother, Helen Hoyt, who had also been battling cancer. Although mother and son were spared the tragedy of Sabena Flight 548 crash together, their lives ultimately came to a close within weeks of one another, thirty-six years later.

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