Barney met Sonja Henie
for the first time in 1936 on the set of
THIN ICE when he worked as a film reviewer.
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What
has been called "the longest-running, open-ended, most enduring publicity
stunt of all time" was created by Barney Oldfield. In February 1941,
Barney was stationed at Fort Crook near Omaha. Olympic ice skater and movie
star Sonja Henie came to town with her ice show. The press agent for the
ice show called Barney to see if he could come up with some sort of "stunt" to
get Henie into the newspaper. Barney agreed, provided that soldiers at
Fort Crook be provided with two hundred free tickets to her show. |
Barney's
idea was simple enough. He carved a heart out of a block of ice which would
be presented to Sonja Henie. Barney rounded up a few soldiers from Fort
Crook who gave Henie the heart in her dressing room. |
The heart,
which had been colored with a blue-green dye, started dripping all over
the floor. Henie tried in vain to autograph the heart with a heated nail.
In an attempt to make a graceful exit, Barney announced that they would
keep the heart for her until she returned to Omaha. Henie had a fight with
the Aksarben Arena Management and never did return. |
 However,
the heart was saved in storage at the Omaha Cold Storage Company, shrinking
in size over the years. After Sonja Henie died in 1969, Barney returned
to Omaha to place a rose on the heart. In 1977, Charles Kuralt did
a story on the famous valentine on the CBS television program 'Who's
Who'.
An
opportunity for yet another story arose in 2003 when Sonja Henie's
valentine heart mysteriously disappeared from the Omaha Cold Storage
Company. (Read
the World Herald article.) |
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