Katarina Witt on the cover of Playboy Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt poses for the cover of Playboy magazine in December, 1998. She appeared in a photo shoot inside the magazine. — Anna Nicole Smith: The model landed her first Playboy cover in March 1992 with the name Vickie Smith. She went on to do four more covers. — Katarina Witt (December 1998): The Olympic figure skater had competed at the highest level just four years before. Playboy December 1998. PLAYMATE: Erica, Jaclyn, and Nicole Dahm (Triplets) COVER: Katarina Witt PICTORIALS: Skating star; Inside the Playboy Masion; Sex Stars of 1998features Cindy Crawford, Liv Tyler, Carmen Electra, Karen McDougal, Patricia Arquette, Drew Barrymore, Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Anderson, Cameron Diaz and many more.
LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – Katarina Witt’s Playboy photos were the first thing one judge for Dancing On Ice looked up after news was announced about her new TV role. Katarina Witt Playboy photos were published in the magazine’s December 1998 issue. To date, the Playboy pics still rank historically for the publication. They remain one of the few spreads that prompted a sellout of the magazine. But this week, her fellow co-star on Dancing on Ice tells news that he is still curious about the spread.
Katarina Witt posed for Playboy pictures in December 1998; but at that time, Hugh Hefner confirmed to news that his magazine had only sold out one issue in company history. That all changed by January 1999. Hefner reported to news that Witt became only the second celebrity to cause a sellout of an issue. While Lindsay Lohan’s own January 2012 Playboy pictures have been a commercial hit, they were nothing like the sensation by Witt years earlier.
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Witt had posed for Playboy after a series of new television and film appearances. Two years earlier, she appeared in Jerry Maguire opposite Tom Cruise. She appeared in Princess on Ice, a German film. She even gave vocals for the film’s theme, Skate with Me. She appeared in two comedy episodes before the Playboy spread. And thereafter, she appeared in the film Ronin and the TV series VIP.
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Witt has gone on to appear in various TV and film roles since. But this decade, she made news heading to reality TV. Katarina appeared on two seasons of Dancing on Ice for German TV. Now she is doing the same for the ITV version.
The 46 year old skater tells news “I’m going to tell it to the contestants as it is,” she says. “If I like somebody I will rave about them. But if I’m not happy with something I say it too.”
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Witt tells news she is still happy with her Playboy spread. She was reportedly paid $1 million in 1998 for the spread. She became the first woman since Marilyn Monroe in 1953 to sell out the spread. The photos taken in Hawaii were all Witt’s idea.
“I did Playboy because I wanted to be provocative. The image of figure skating is so nice and clean and cute… I wanted to break that. I wanted to get away from being an ice princess. I wanted the pictures to be sensual and natural and that’s what they were.”
The skater is now anxious to do the ITV versions of the show. She tells the Mirror “I’m going to tell it to the contestants as it is. If I like somebody I will rave about them. But if I’m not happy with something I say it too.”
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While she will have different tastes than Jason Gardiner, she tells news “I think it’s a good thing if this year’s couples have a strong bond and great chemistry. It makes their skating better and it’s really romantic.”
She joins Jayne Torvill, Christopher Dean, Robin Cousins and Karen Barber. But host Phillip Schofield has his own preoccupation. “When I heard she was on the panel, I […searched] her and the first thing that came up was Playboy. It took me by surprise.” Katarina adds “I will be wearing more on the show than in that photo-shoot.”
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The fans came prepared. They handed Katarina Witt pictures of herself to autograph as she left the Bradley Center after practice for Thursday night's World Team Challenge. Despite a chill wind and a tight schedule, the two-time Olympic champion signed her name on various photos of her from skating events.
Soon, Witt will have fans asking her to sign more unusual photos, the ones showing her nude that come out in December's issue of Playboy.
No athlete of Witt's stature ever has posed without clothes for a magazine of this type. Although her discipline blurs the lines between sport and entertainment, many will see her decision as reinforcing the idea that being a great athlete isn't enough for a woman to profit from her accomplishments.
Witt said she made between $500,000 and $1 million for the two-day outdoor photo shoot in Germany.
'I didn't need the money,' she said, 'but it's a big paycheck.'
It is one that many people may wish she had done without.
Three years ago, two-time Olympic heptathlon champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee was asked to comment on a calendar in which several Australian women track and field athletes had posed in various stages of undress.
Joyner-Kersee said: 'I thought as women athletes we had reached the point where we didn't have to use our bodies that way.'
Witt counters by saying that in many sports, athletes' bodies already are exposed to a point where the clothing they use to compete nearly is superfluous.
'An athlete has a different, more open relationship to his or her body,' she said. 'You look at swimmers and track and field athletes, and you can see every single line of their bodies. Athletes have beautiful bodies. Why not show that?
'I think the thoughts people have about the photos are more sinful than what they will see.'
Nicole Bobek, who won the World Team Challenge with Witt third and Russia claiming the team title, finds no fault in Witt's decision to pose 'at this point in her life, when she is an adult who has accomplished so many wonderful things. It would have been worse if she had done it when she was still an amateur or right after the Olympics.'
Witt finds it objectionable that magazines had published a picture 10 years ago of her breast being exposed inadvertently by an ill-fitting skating dress during a gala performance. Trying the philosophical equivalent of splitting the angels on the head of a pin, she thinks Witt the skater can be separated from Witt the sex object.
'When I go on the ice, I don't want people to think, `She was just in Playboy,' ' Witt said. 'On the ice, I'm a skater. I did something off the ice, and I'm a woman.
'I have been asked many times to do this. Ten years ago, I said, `No, no way.' Now it is almost the other way. I can't wait for the magazine to come out.'
Some think the Playboy shoot is a way for Witt to keep that career going or shift its direction.
'I don't see why you have to hope this will lead to something else,' Witt said. 'Why not just take it for what it is?'
Although Witt has had small roles in two movies--a walk-on in 'Jerry Maguire' and few lines and some skating in 'Ronin'--she has no illusions about her niche in the entertainment world.
'I went from 10 seconds of fame to three minutes of fame,' she joked about her cinematic achievements.
Figure skating is where she has had nearly two decades of fame, beginning with a world title in 1982 at age 16 and culminating in 1984 and '88 Olympic gold medals.
Witt will be doing less skating this season. She will perform on the winter Champions on Ice tour, but the World Team Challenge is her only scheduled competitive event. She returns Friday to Chemnitz, Germany, for a gala to celebrate the 70th birthday of her longtime coach, Jutta Muller. She will be in New York the first week of November to promote the Playboy appearance.
'I'm very careful about saying, `I don't want to be skating at such and such an age,' ' Witt said. 'I didn't think I would be doing it now, but I am able to, and I still love it.'
Katarina Witt Today
The photo shoot was done near a waterfall. The only reference to ice in the pictorial comes in a headline.
Katarina Witt Wikipedia
'These pictures put me in a different light,' Witt said. 'I've always been controversial on the ice--my costumes, my programs. But this has nothing to do with skating.'
Is Katarina Witt Married
Globetrotting: Tamara Moskvina of Russia, who coached the 1-2 pairs finishers in the 1998 Winter Olympics, has taken over the coaching of new U.S. pair Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman. Moskvina has relocated, at least temporarily, to Stamford, Conn., while her home rink in St. Petersburg, Russia, is renovated. Ina split last summer from Jason Dungjen, her partner of seven years, with whom she won two U.S. titles and finished fourth in the 1998 Games. . . . Michelle Kwan was named Sportswoman of the Year by the Women's Sports Foundation.