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They've enjoyed an incredibly successful career spanning several decades, won countless medals and even counted Princess Diana, Placido Domingo, Gene Kelly and Jack Nicholson amongst their fan base. So, when did Christopher Dean realise he and Jayne Torvill were such huge stars? 'When it became harder to go to Marks & Sparks and buy my socks!' he laughs.
And it's that very British sense of modesty combined with their astonishing talent that has made Torvill and Dean arguably the best-loved and most well-known stars in their field.
Jayne and Chris were both born into working class Nottingham families - Jayne in 1957, Chris a year later. Jayne first took to the ice on a school trip to the local skating rink aged eight. It all came fairly naturally and the next day she was back. Chris got his first pair of skates for Christmas aged ten, and after two weeks of stomping around on his mum's linoleum, he was finally taken to the city to try them out on the ice. 'It wasn't an epiphany or anything', he remembers. 'I just started doing it and I kept on doing it'.
Having both discovered that they quite enjoyed this skating lark, Jayne and Chris became frequent visitors to the rink, both teaming up with a partner and taking lessons. Success came quickly, with Jayne becoming a British Senior Pairs Champion and Chris winning the British Junior Ice Dance competition.
It was through their skating teacher that Jayne and Chris were first paired up as potential dancing partners, at the age of 16 and 15 respectively, after both being ditched by their previous partners. 'We got on well right away. I think it was because we'd both been dumped!' laughs Jayne.
Oh, and let's just clear up all those romance rumours right now. 'People always ask about that', says Jayne, 'and I know it sounds weird, but we were so absorbed in what we were doing that we didn't have relationships with each other or with other people, everything was geared around the training and the competitions'.
Their focus and determination paid off and they were soon being placed second and first in local competitions, graduating to national and then international level, whilst still holding down regular work - Jayne in an office and Chris as a policeman.
The decision to finally jack in the day jobs and go full-time came in 1980. They'd come fourth in the World Championships and decided that in order to be serious contenders for the top slot they'd need to commit as much time as possible to their training. Scratching a living out of their savings, the pair were desperately hunting for sponsorship, which thankfully arrived just as the money was starting to run out - Nottingham City Council granted them the princely sum of £14,000 for four years.
The money allowed the pair to go off and train at a rink in Germany with top-class facilities - a far cry from their days of grabbing some time here and there during closing hours at their local rink, then cleaning the ice themselves afterwards.
With a proper training site and some real commitment, the pair started to realise they were serious contenders. 'One thing led to another', remembers Chris, 'and it felt like we were on the upward march, so we just kept on doing it'. And that upward march led on to the pivotal moment in their career - the 1984 Olympics, and a set of straight sixes.
'Everything was building towards the Olympics', says Jayne. 'We'd already got a few sixes, so there was an expectation of how many we were going to get, and that was a pressure that we didn't need. We just wanted to skate as best we could, but when we got all the sixes that was a big bonus.
'When we finished the routine we got this huge response from the audience, and we were just happy it had gone really well. I was collecting arms full of flowers, and then there was another huge roar when the marks started to come up'.
History was made, and Torvill and Dean were firmly implanted in the public's mind as two of the country's greatest sports stars.
After the 1984 Olympics came the World Championships, another triumph for the pair, which was followed by the decision to turn professional and tour around the world with their own show. 'We were becoming a bit stifled with the rules and as professionals we could use any music for any length of time with all the moves we wanted. We just really enjoyed that freedom', explains Jayne.
Then in 1994, after ten years of performing on their own terms - as well as both getting married, a rule change at the Olympics meant that professionals were also able to compete, so Jayne and Chris decided to enter competition once more. 'We were at a point in our professional careers that we liked the idea of doing it because it was ten years since we'd won and we felt we were physically in a better place', remembers Jayne.
And now, after several years of retirement as competitors and performers the pair are back on our screens on ITV1's Dancing On Ice. Both admit they had slight reservations about the show, which sees celebrities pitted against each other on the ice, ('They can't skate, it's not going to work!' as Chris put it), but once they sat down and thrashed out exactly how it would work, they realised they had a potential - which quickly turned into an actual - hit on their hands.
In fact, the show turned out to be such a success that the nationwide UK tour of Dancing On Ice Live starts in March, which will see the celebrities compete against each other every night, as well as a Golden Moments DVD (released in November 2006), featuring clips from the series alongside classic Torvill & Dean footage.
'The show has been great for skating, it's brought a new awareness,' says Jayne proudly. 'Skating was the thing to do last winter!'
Now, Torvill & Dean train celebrities in the art of 'ice-dance'. Dancing On Ice - The Tour is set to take the magic of the TV show across the UK on tour in March and April 2007. Celebrity performances will be judged live every night both by audience members and the expert panel from the TV show. When votes have been counted, the couple with the highest votes will perform a magical finale of Torvill & Dean's Olympic gold-medal winning routine of Bolero. "The tour will be taking the show that's seen on TV live onto the rink," Jayne reveals. "We're taking a selection of both last year's and this year's celebrities."
"We're going to recreate the studio and have that event each night with the judges and celebrities - and indeed us!" Chris adds.
"The audience get to vote and we'll be doing two more numbers as well. So bring your mobile phones!"
© Torvill & Dean's Dancing On Ice - The Tour 2007 |