Andy Warhol roller skating
If you keep up with my posts here at DM, you know I often put together cool photo-sets featuring famous people doing things that we all like to do like hitting the beach or lying in bed. This time around I’ve pulled together something fun for you to kill time with this Friday - images of people way cooler than us on roller skates.
Bettie Page and Gus the Gorilla roller skating, mid-1950s
Some of the images are from the wide variety of films with either roller skating themes or scenes in them such as Raquel Welch tearing it up on the derby track in the 1972 film, Kansas City Bomber. Others are from the late 70s and 80s when Roller Disco was all the rage. There’s even a few that go way back in time that I slipped in because they were just too cool not to share.
I’ve also included a video that features Dutch girl band, the Dolly Dots roller skating around in leotards lipsynching to their 1979 track, “(They Are) Rollerskating.” Because, like I said, roller skating RULES!
Grace Jones roller skating at Compo Beach, 1973
Judas Priest, 1981
Raquel Welch tearing up the derby track in the 1972 film, Kansas City Bomber
Diana Ross, 1970s
Sandy West (RIP) of The Runaways, Hermosa Beach, 1977
Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson and Howard Leese backstage at the “Japan Jam” on the island of Enoshima in Japan, 1979
Betty Grable, 1930s
Richard Pryor, early 80s
David Lee Roth and a friend
Cher, late 70s
Dorothy Stratten and Hugh Hefner, 1979
Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers from the 1937 film, Shall We Dance
Natalie Wood
Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe cutting loose while shooting the 1952 film, Monkey Business
Disco diva Donna Summer and her husband Bruce Sudano
Barbra Streisand (as Fanny Brice) in the 1968 film, Funny Girl
Gene Kelly in Paris shooting the 1974 film, That’s Entertainment
Judy Garland and a 22-year-old Robert Stack on a roller skating date, 1941
The Dolly Dots serving up some great late 70s, early 80s roller boogie in this video for their 1979 track, “(They Are) Rollerskating”
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Roller Skating in the American South, 1970s