Eddie the Eagle: ‘I want to ski on my 100th birthday’
As Britain’s most famous ski jumper prepares to tread the boards in pantomime, Michael Edwards talks about his journey to the Olympics, appearing on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and how he wants to teach and stay on the slopes forever.
Michael Ewards, AKA Eddie ‘the eagle’ Edwards, is without doubt Britian’s, if not the world’s, most famous ski jumper. In fact, he is certainly the only ski jumper to have a Hollywood blockbuster made of his life story. He first won global fame with his unlikely entry representing Team Great Britain in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Whilst he finished last in the events in which he competed, his unlikely entry as a British outsider in a sport which he had only been in training for a matter of months captured the imagination and the hearts of a global audience.
But it wasn’t just his ‘can do’ attitude winning him adoration, it was the personality and cheerful demeanor behind the ski goggles which were truly worthy of a gold medal.
“I was just doing what I needed to do,” explained Edwards on the Three Rivers Podcast. “All I knew was that I loved my skiing and I loved my ski jumping, and I was prepared to do anything so long as I could carry on skiing and ski jumping. And if that meant sleeping in a car, or in a cow shed or in a barn. If that meant scraping food out of bins, if that meant sleeping in a psychiatric hospital then so be it. I was just doing what I needed to do.”
Edwards, who is appearing on stage at Watersmeet Theatre in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, for a production of Beauty and the Beast, says there are similarities between his famous ski jumping and his newfound career as a performer.
“There are a certain amount of transferrable skills. Learning to cope with fear and things like that is quite handy. It’s very nerve wracking appearing on stage in front of many, many people and doing things that you are not really experienced at, like trying to learn lines…
“And then trying to do dance moves and trying to sing as well. So, it has been very nerve wracking, but I have used my skills – visualisation which I used to use with my skiing and ski jumping. They keep me calm and I just get my head down, concentrate and keep going.”
His global stardom during the 1988 games led to many new opportunities for Edwards, from sponsorships and TV adverts, to an appearance on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson – America’s most watched and beloved nightly talk show.
“I didn’t know at the time that it was the biggest show in America. It was great fun… it helped not knowing how big it was. He [Carson] was lovely. He didn’t come and see me [before] other than to say hello, because he wanted everything to be very spontaneous, so I walked out on the show and I had only said hello to him and it was lovely, and the repour we had and with Burt Reynolds as well it was really, really good. It is one thing I will remember for the rest of my life appearing on that show with such a great film star.”
Michael, or Eddie, is gaining yet another new name for the new panto production – appearing as Professor Crackpot - although the show is bound to feature many references to his skiing past.
But it’s not all in his past, the skilled plasterer turned skier still regularly takes to the slopes and plans to return to ski instructing soon.
He said: “Eventually I want to go back and do a refresher course for my instructor license and become a ski instructor again and carry on skiing. One of my biggest aims now is I want to be skiing down a black run on my one hundredth birthday!”
And with his history, who would ever doubt that Eddie the Eagle will fulfil his aim?
You can listen to the full interview here and see him in Beauty and the Beast between 5 – 31 December at Watersmeet.
Tickets:
Box Office, High Street, Rickmansworth WD3 1EH
01923 711063 opening hours Tue-Fri, 10am-2pm