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50 free Sonja Henie trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Sonja Henie trivia quiz covers the Norwegian who dominated women's figure skating for a decade and then became one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars. The easy questions handle the basics: her country, her three Olympic golds, the studio that signed her and the white boots and short skirts she made standard. From there it moves into the record books, from her last-place finish at eleven to the ten straight world titles no woman has matched. The harder end is for skating historians and old-movie fans: the disputed 1927 judging in Oslo, the torn-up scoresheet and lucky draw at Garmisch in 1936, the ballerina her father hired as a coach, the Glenn Miller film that produced the first gold record, her three husbands including a future Yankees owner, the ice-show war with Arthur Wirtz, the lunch with Hitler that outraged Norway, and the modern-art centre outside Oslo that bears her name. There are also questions on the Disney and Caddyshack references that kept her name alive. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Henie, her films, her rivals and the Olympic Games she skated in before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our figure skating, Winter Olympics and classic Hollywood quizzes are natural next stops.
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Q 01Sonja Henie competed for which country?
Norway
She was born in Kristiania, now Oslo, in 1912, the only daughter of a prosperous furrier.
Q 02How many Olympic gold medals did Henie win in women's singles?
Three
She won in 1928, 1932 and 1936, a haul no ladies' singles skater has matched since.
Q 03How many consecutive World Championships did Henie win?
Ten
Her run from 1927 to 1936 remains the women's record, matching Ulrich Salchow's ten men's titles.
Q 04Henie's father Wilhelm had been a world champion in which sport?
Cycling
He was also a prosperous furrier, and both parents gave up their own pursuits to manage Sonja's career.
Q 05Which famous Russian ballerina did Henie's father hire to help train his daughter?
Tamara Karsavina
Henie's formal schooling ended once serious training began, and she was educated by tutors.
Q 06Which Russian dancer did Henie idolise after seeing her perform in London?
Anna Pavlova
Henie studied ballet from an early age and later brought dance choreography into competitive skating.
Q 07At the 1924 Winter Olympics, aged eleven, Henie finished in what position?
Eighth of eight
Just a few years later she was world champion while still in her mid-teens.
Q 08How old was Henie when she won her first world title in 1927?
Fourteen
She beat defending Olympic and world champion Herma Szabo of Austria in a disputed 3-2 decision.
Q 09Why was Henie's 1927 world title in Oslo considered controversial?
Three of the five judges were Norwegian
The Austrian and German judges both put Herma Szabo first; the episode helped push judging reform.
Q 10Which other skater is the only one besides Henie to successfully defend a ladies' singles Olympic crown?
Katarina Witt
Witt also matched Henie's run of consecutive European titles between 1983 and 1988.
Q 11Henie and which Swedish skater are the only two people to win three Olympic golds in single skating?
Gillis Grafström
Grafström took the men's title in 1920, 1924 and 1928.
Q 12At which resort did Henie win her first Olympic gold in 1928?
St. Moritz
Red flags were placed on the rink to mark the worst patches during the ladies' free skate.
Q 13The 1932 Olympics, where Henie won her second gold, were the first Games to hold figure skating where?
Indoors
The events took place at the Olympic Center Arena in Lake Placid, New York.
Q 21What was the title of Henie's 1936 Hollywood debut film?
One in a Million
It featured footage of the 1936 Winter Olympics and became one of the highest-grossing films of 1937.
Q 22Which comedy trio appeared alongside Henie in her debut film?
The Ritz Brothers
Adolphe Menjou played a broke showman and Don Ameche a Paris Herald reporter.
Q 23In Thin Ice (1937), Henie's skate instructor falls for a skier who is secretly what?
A prince
The skier was played by a young Tyrone Power, who reunited with her in Second Fiddle.
Q 14Which British skater, only eleven at the 1932 Games, ran Henie close for gold in 1936?
Cecilia Colledge
Colledge is credited with the first double jump by a woman and with inventing the camel and layback spins.
Q 15After the 1936 Olympic school figures, what did Henie reportedly do with the results sheet?
Tore it into little pieces
She then drew the plum last skating slot while her rival went second of 26; a fairer staggered draw was adopted years later.
Q 16The 1936 Winter Olympics, site of Henie's third gold, were held in which German town?
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
The 1936 European Championships took place in Berlin the same year.
Q 17At home in Oslo, Henie trained at which venue, where a statue of her now stands?
Frogner stadion
Her coaches there included Hjørdis Olsen and Oscar Holte, and a statue of speed skater Oscar Mathisen stands beside hers.
Q 18Which American coach based in London trained Henie for the latter part of her competitive career?
Howard Nicholson
Her fame was such that police were called for crowd control at appearances in Prague and New York.
Q 19Henie is credited as the first figure skater to adopt which items now standard in the sport?
White boots and the short skirt
Once white boots caught on, she switched to beige to stay unique.
Q 20Which studio chief signed Henie to a long-term contract at Twentieth Century-Fox in 1936?
Darryl Zanuck
Her father had staged an ice show in Los Angeles specifically to launch her film career.
Q 24Which 1938 film, co-starring Ethel Merman and Don Ameche, was Henie's biggest box-office hit?
Happy Landing
Its production numbers used 84 skaters, half of them dancers who learned to skate and vice versa.
Q 25Second Fiddle (1939) parodied the search for an actress to play which famous role?
Scarlett O'Hara
Irving Berlin wrote the score, and Henie insisted on total control of the skating numbers.
Q 26Which bandleader's orchestra featured in Henie's 1941 hit Sun Valley Serenade?
Glenn Miller
The film's 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' earned the first ever gold record for 1.2 million sales.
Q 27Who performs 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' in Sun Valley Serenade?
Dorothy Dandridge
The Nicholas Brothers dance the number, and the song was Oscar-nominated for Best Song.
Q 28Henie's 1939 film Everything Happens at Night, about a hunted Nobel laureate, was banned where?
Nazi Germany
Ray Milland and Robert Cummings played rival reporters chasing the story in the Swiss Alps.
Q 29Which 1945 film was Henie's only Technicolor picture and her only attempt at drama?
It's a Pleasure
A skating variation on A Star Is Born, it exposed her limits as a dramatic actress.
Q 30Who produced Henie's touring 'Hollywood Ice Revue' and acted as her financial adviser?
Arthur Wirtz
When she broke with him in 1950, his shows featured new Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott and controlled the best arenas.