Mabel Fairbanks: Beyond The Edge

Endless summer escapes start here. Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside down. Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at netflix.com/house. - Hey everyone, Ari here, host of Blind Landing. This season of Blind Landing is all about figure skating with new reporters helping to tell each story. And I'm joined in the studio today by one of our contributing reporters, Danelle Wedderburn. Hey Danelle. - Hey Ari, excited to be here. - So Danelle, what are we here to talk about today? - Well, unlike Chris who co-reported the last episode, I am not a fan. I'm a competitive figure skater, not a skater, period. The closest I got was spinning around in my socks on the kitchen floor as a kid, trying to replicate what my mom and I saw when we'd watch the Olympics together. As a young black girl, one thing that always stood out to me whenever we watched figure skating was how rare it was to see black skaters on the ice. So we'd cheer a little bit harder when we did. And over the years, I've always wondered, like, "Why is it so hard to see black skaters on the ice?" And over the years, I've always wondered, like, "Why aren't there more black figure skaters?" And that's something that you and I and our producers have been talking about, which is why we started looking into the history of black figure skaters. And in doing so, we came across the story of one extraordinary woman named Mabel Fairbanks. Mabel Fairbanks was a black figure skater during the '40s and '50s. She headlined ice shows all over the world, She headlined ice shows all over the world, but because of segregation, Mabel was never allowed to compete in a single figure skating competition. She was barred from competing because of the color of her skin, which drove Mabel to coach and mentor the first generation of black national champions and Olympians. Mabel opened the door for so many black figure skaters, changing the sport forever. - Mabel Fairbanks passed away - Mabel Fairbanks passed away in 2001. And at first, we thought that there weren't any videos or audio of Mabel, but a few months ago, our producer Jenna made an amazing discovery. - Today's Tuesday, January 7th, 1999. I am Sharon Donnan, and I have the pleasure of interviewing Mabel Fairbanks. Mabel, I thought today we would start off with some of- - Tucked away in the basement of an archive on VHS tapes, - We're just gonna test right now to see if the construction is too noisy, or if it's filtered out. And why don't you say a few words, Mabel, and we'll see how strong your voice is. - Okay. Now? - Yeah. - Oh wow. - This is interviewer Sharon Donnan, and that little voice at the end with the big laugh, that's Mabel Fairbanks. Sharon, a former student of Mabel's spoke with her for the LA 84 Foundation's archive over the course of five days in January of 1999. - Using excerpts of these tapes, never before heard by the public, we're bringing you not just the story of Mabel Fairbanks, but Mabel herself, her voice, in her own words. I'm Danelle Wedderberg, and this is a story. From "Blind Landing." Mabel Fairbanks, "Beyond the Edge." - Endless summer escapes start here. Inspired by fan favorites like "Stranger Things" and "Squid Game." Brave the upside down, face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games, shop exclusive merch, and enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat, play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. - As a young girl, long before she skated, before she even knew about figure skating, Mabel Fairbanks knew she was destined for greatness. - I realized that I was very special, that I was most interesting, the most important individual, in the world. - Mabel always had faith in herself, even when the path to greatness wasn't always clear. Before she was Mabel Fairbanks, she was born May Bell Felder, sometime around 1917 in Florida. Her ancestors were Black and Seminole, part of a rich legacy of Gullah Geechee Maroons, enslaved runaways from South Carolina and Georgia, who created free settlements near indigenous tribes in the Florida Everglades. By the time she was in her early teens, Mabel's father left the family, and her mother passed soon after. Without a steady guardian, without a steady home, Mabel realized she could go anywhere and knew exactly where she wanted to go. - Well, I wrote my brothers in New York and asked them if they would send for me, that I could take care of myself. - Mabel started a new life in New York City and arrived just in time to see the Harlem Renaissance in full swing. Here, tailors and barbers rubbed shoulders with jazz musicians and number runners. Bright-eyed kids played in the streets, while dapper adults communed on brownstone steps. Black people from all over the world came here to live side by side. This was Harlem in the 1930s. - So then, when I went to New York, though, I had more fun and more freedom, and I loved that. - Young Mabel, wide-eyed and spirited, a plump little brown-skinned girl who dreamt of making it big. This was the place for her. Mabel was living and working with her brother. They had moved to New York, as part of the Great Migration, when millions of Southern Black Americans went north for a better life. - My brother had a fish market. Now, this was on 8th Avenue in Harlem, and to pay for my board and my food, I had to help in the fish market, which was okay. - While working at her brother's fish market, Mabel saw the toll of the Great Depression firsthand, especially with one family. - I said, "Now, how's she gonna feed all of those kids, three kids, and herself, with one fish?" So I always gave her more than what she bought. And then her change, I would always give her more than she gave me. And so that went on for a couple of weeks, and then my brother noticed that I was giving away the fish and the money. So he says, "I don't think you're gonna be able to live here." - Mabel's brother, Fyon, fired her, kicked her out of the family home, and sent her off with $5. Soon, Mabel found herself sleeping in the middle of Central Park, when one day. - This lady was passing by with her baby on a carriage, and she said, "Why are you sleeping in the park?" I said, "Because this is the only home I have." She said, "Well, you can't sleep out here, and you're gonna die out here when it become winter." She said, "I tell you what, I live right across the street. You can come work with me, and babysit." - Mabel, like so many during the Great Migration, came to New York for greater opportunities. Domestic work, the kind of thing her mother did, was exactly what Mabel was hoping not to do. But being a live-in nanny paid her bills, and put her in proximity to a different world, where she was exposed to new things. - One day, when it got very, very cold, the pond froze over, and then all these people were out there skating, and I said, "Well, look at the people going around and around." She said, "Yeah, they're ice skating." So I said, "Oh, that is beautiful. I'd like to do that." I go to the pawn shop. I see these skates in the winter. I said, "May I buy them?" He said, "Okay," so I got 'em down to a dollar. Well, then I got these skates and went across the street to Morningside Park. I skated there for a few weeks, but I couldn't figure out why I was falling all the time. I would fall every time. - Morningside Park had a frozen pond with bumpy patches of snow. It was hard for anyone to glide smoothly across that ice, but especially Mabel, who'd trip up and fall in her oversized skates. But there was a real rink just a few blocks away, the Central Park Rink. not good enough to skate over there because I saw them skate there and they can go around and around falling. And I discovered that I could skate around too, just like the other kids. So when I had so much fun, I said, well, that's for me. That's what I want to do. At first, skating was a hobby, something to fill the time when she wasn't working as a domestic. Until a trip to the movie theater changed the course of Mabel's life. I went to see a movie, and it was called Sonia Henney, One in a Million. Practicing is very important to me. Sonia Henney was a three-time Olympic champion turned movie star. She was the pinnacle of beauty and grace in the world of figure skating. She's got youth, animation, freshness. I've just seen the greatest ice skater in the world. I said, well, gee, that's what I want to do. To be like Sonia Henney, to be an Olympian, a touring performer, a star, Mabel had to get really good. And that meant a lot of practice. But skating wasn't free. Mabel had to find a way to pay the entrance fees to ice rinks. The New York Mirror and the Daily News. I had coupons, free skating. So I clipped out all the clippings, and everybody in the neighborhood was clipping coupons for me, and I would go to this rink to skate. Mabel had the whole neighborhood clipping free skating coupons in the newspapers for her, so she could follow her dream. But that's exactly how they saw it. Just a dream. They said, if that's what you want to do, go ahead. But no, Negroes don't ice skate, but go ahead if you want to do it. But not everyone entertained Mabel's face. The reality was, this was the 1930s, a time of racial segregation and widespread discrimination. Even when Mabel finagled a free coupon or finessed the 50-cent entrance fees, that still never guaranteed her smooth entrance into a rink. I wanted to go into an ice skating rink, so I stood in line. And then when I got to the window, the lady wouldn't take my money. Go back, little girl. Go away, little girl. Go away. Finally. Everybody was in but me. So I got back up to the window. I said, hey, miss. Hey, miss. I'm next. Go away. Go away. So then the manager, he looked out across the ticket window and says, you slid her in. She can't do any harm. So they let me in. But that was their mistake. From then on, they had to let me in forever. Getting through the front door was always the first challenge. Once Mabel made it inside, she still faced verbal, sometimes physical harassment on the ice. The parents. Oh, the parents. We don't want her skating without you. In fact, we don't even want her on the same ice. Get out of here. So I said, I paid my 50 cents, so you go see the manager. The manager of the ice rink on 52nd and Broadway looked out for Mabel. He let her skate late at night when there were far fewer people. On the ice. On the rink at night, Mabel was able to be free. The only sounds were the wind in her hair and her blade slicing through the ice. Every now and then, skating instructors would catch a glimpse of Mabel's undeniable talent and give her a lesson. Which is how Mabel learned. What would become her secret weapon. Skating backwards. The head instructor of the rink, he said, do this. He showed it to me. And I did it. And then I started going so fast. I was going around 20 miles per hour around that rink. I was going so fast until I didn't know how to stop. He forgot to teach me how to stop. So I fell from this end and went all the way to the other end. On my back. Once Mabel refined her unique talent for skating backwards, it started catching people's attention on the ice. And soon, word traveled outside of the rink. A newspaper had me come over there to Brooklyn Ice Palace and had speed skaters come over. It said, now you skate backwards and the speed skaters are going to skate forward. I can skate faster than the speed skaters. So anything going backwards I could do. I wasn't too good going forward, but backwards, I hit it all. So that was my thing, skating backwards. Over the next few years, more and more newspapers started writing about Mabel. Even Time magazine wrote a piece about her, saying that she was as good as the top skaters. With the newfound praise and attention, Mabel thought she could make a living as a professional skater in ice shows. I tried. I tried to get into the center theater show and try to get into the ice fallers. They said, we don't hire Negroes. Because there was a Negro around that time. And I kept trying to tell them I was black. They said, you should be ashamed of yourself calling yourself black. And I said, I'm not a Negro, I'm black. I said, my grandfather told me I belonged to the black race. But that didn't mean a thing. Mabel knew who she was. And she wanted others to see her as she saw herself. But she was trying to explain. She was trying to explain herself to someone who didn't see her at all. She said, you know what would happen if you go out on that ice, everybody in the arena would walk out. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll work for free the first night, and then if the people do not walk out and applaud me, you can give me a contract. They said, no, we can't take that chance because if the audience do not walk out, then the cast would walk out. They will not skate with you. Rockefeller Center Theatre wouldn't hire her. Ice Follies rejected her. It seemed like no one wanted to give Mabel a chance. Until. Sonia Henney came to town, and I'd gotten very good now. Her manager, he said, you know something, I could get you into Sonia Henney's show. Sonia Henney, the woman Mabel watched as a little girl on the big screen. The most famous skater in the world. This? It was the chance of a lifetime. The agent, he told Sonia that he had this black girl. Sonia, when she came, she said, is Mabel Fairbanks as good as people say she is? He said, if she wasn't, I would not have signed her up for your show. So she said, then if she's that good, she's too good for my show, she'll steal it. No, she cannot be in it. Sonia Henney, the world's best figure skater. But America's best figure skater wanted to nurture Mabel's talent. Maribel Vinson, whenever she came to New York, she would work with me. Maribel Vinson was a nine-time U.S. national champion. She knew greatness when she saw it, but she also knew the limits of how far Mabel could go. And she said, now this is our secret, don't tell anyone. I'm working with you, giving you lessons. She said, because you're not going anywhere. They're not going to allow you in competition. There were no signs of change on the horizon in the exclusive white world of competitive figure skating. I just thought, if you're that good, you're just going to the Olympics. But no. It was the mid-1940s, and with no route to joining a tour, no path to competing, Mabel realized. She had to take matters into her own hands. Maribel Vinson said to me, Mabel, you're not going to get into any show. You have to do your own show. But that was so much easier said than done. After all, to do an ice show, you need a rink. So Mabel and a family friend named Wally Hunter built her very own portable ice rink. Uncle Wally had built a little six-by-six ice rink. And I would practice until I got tired, and then I would go to bed and sleep a couple hours and get up and practice some more until I learned to mask that six-by-six. And Mabel had it down to a science. Just put in crushed dry ice, and then on top you water it down, and within an hour, you had a sheet of ice. She managed to design a whole show on that six-by-six mobile rink. She'd write her own music. And sew her own costumes. Mabel was doing things on the ice that hadn't been done before. She was infusing modern and tap dance into her routines. Modeling herself after cutting-edge black dancers like Catherine Dunham and Jenny Ligon. But when Mabel practiced at the ice rinks, the white establishment there, they just didn't get it. I had all this jive and everything I was doing on the ice. They'd say, you're not skating. That's dancing. And then when I got ready to dance, they'd say, you're not skating. You're not dancing. skating. There's always some excuse. Most of Mabel's gigs were for the people who understood her best, the Black community in Harlem. Night after night, Mabel brought the portable rink to supper clubs and community centers, putting on fundraisers for children, vets, and hospital patients. Mabel hypnotized crowds with her signature moves and vibrant costumes, dressed in feathers, fur, and rhinestones, with brightly colored skates and flaming red hair to match. It was a union of camp and old-school glamour. Mabel was really starting to get her name out there. And the name was not May Belfelder. It was Mabel Fairbanks. A new bold and classy stage name for a young woman who is becoming just that. Beat the heat. A new chapter of Mabel's life started in January 1950, when she got her very first touring opportunity, an ice show that was traveling through Latin America and the Caribbean. The way the promoters saw it, what made Mabel a liability in America made her an asset in countries like Antigua, Mexico, and Barbados. "You're going to a dog country. You've got to have a dog skater. That's for sure." For some Black artists during segregation, one way to escape the unique confines of American white supremacy was traveling abroad for work. This was a chance for Mabel to grow as a performer. Skating on custom-built sets alongside a cast of other artists, learning new moves and routines, and experiencing that creative growth helped Mabel land her first big gig back in the States. "When I got back from Mexico, well, that's when Frosty Frolics came up for me." "It's Frosty Frolics, your musical comedy on ice." Frosty Frolics was a weekly variety TV show that featured the country's most talented ice skaters, including Mabel. It was filmed in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1800s. She'd made a new home for herself there. Driving down the sun-drenched roads, turning on to the Paramount studio lot to perform in front of a live audience. It was everything she wanted. "It was just fantastic. I was just in seventh heaven doing it, and everybody in the audience stood up applauding. Oh, so I stole the show, of course." "Then they got angry because I stole the show." Mabel was expected to dull her shine and fade into the background. "I did all these numbers, and then, 'Don't you ever do that again. You're not gonna be in the show. I'll find some way to get you out.'" And soon enough, a higher-up at Frosty Frolics made it clear that there would be a price to pay for her star shining so bright. "Mabel, you've got to fall. I said, 'What do you mean, fall?' He said, 'If you don't fall, I'll let the audience see you fall. I'm gonna write you out of the show.'" The Frosty Frolics producer wanted Mabel to fall in front of the audience. He wanted Mabel to look like a fool. "So, oh, stupid me. I went on and did a fall. So, he wrote me out of the show anyway. But I wasn't clever enough to know this." Taking that fall, Mabel called that moment the one regret of her career. Mabel knew it was possible to achieve greatness because she saw her peers doing it. Mabel would mingle with other Black performers, jazz and blues women like Ella Fitzgerald and Josephine Baker. Like Mabel, they also moved to Harlem as young girls with big dreams and grew up into women who were calling the shots, who had agency, who were changing things for the next generation. That's what Mabel wanted to do. That's who Mabel wanted to be. It might have been too late for Mabel to reach the heights of competitive skating, but she felt this was the moment for the next generation of Black skaters to break through. "I wish I wouldn't let anyone turn me around because God had chosen me." "I wish I wasn't made to put Black skating on the map." And that's exactly what she did. That's after the break. By the mid-1950s, Mabel had settled into her life in L.A. and found a new career as a skating instructor. It was the start of the civil rights movement. Athletes like Jackie Robinson and Althea Gibson had broken the color barrier in baseball and tennis. And Mabel knew this was the moment to make a change in the skating world. "Since I could not get in, then I had to train other Black skaters to get in." It finally seemed possible for a Black skater to enter the competition ranks. But there were still big hurdles to making that change happen. As Mabel saw it, three big hurdles. "I say I've got to work to get minorities in to clubs." The first hurdle was membership. In order to compete, you needed to join a skating club. But no clubs would give Black skaters membership. "That's when I learned about individual membership." Mabel discovered an ingenious loophole. If her students said they were too busy with school to join a skating club full-time, they could take the skills test needed to qualify for competitions with an individual membership. "And then when I got ready to test them, the club said, 'We can't test them. We don't test Negroes.' I said, 'Well, you gave me a rule book, and this rule book said individual members.' I said, 'They are my individual members, so you have to test them.' Oh boy, they were mad." The second hurdle was skating tests. To make it to the next level, Mabel's students had to show judges how well they could do the basic jumps and spins. But passing those tests meant getting approval in a sport where prejudice could be veiled under the guise of subjective scoring. "So then this judge, she was so mad. So then when I had a Black kid go out for a test, she stood up in the bleachers. I will never pass one of Mabel's students. They all fail when I'm judging." "I said, 'Well, I've got to do something about her.'" Mabel reported her to the U.S. Figure Skating Association. "So I wrote to U.S. FSA and told them this woman was biased. And I said, 'This woman should not be judging.' And from then on, she passed every one of my kids. She was so afraid of me." Her instincts were right. The times were changing. The third and final step in Mabel's plan was to go to school. She had to go to school for a long time. But the final step in Mabel's plan was also her greatest joy. Finding kids who could skate. And I mean, really skate. Kids like Atway Wilson. "I was this little Black kid who loved to figure skate, who wanted to be a good figure skater. And she was able to nurture that element for me to be very proud of who I was." Atway Wilson met Mabel in the late 1950s. He was eight years old, and Mabel threw him right into the deep end, his first time on the ice. "I remember when she would take my little hand and she'd be swinging me across that ice and everything. And my eyes are like getting really big, like going, 'Wait a minute, this is a little too fast. But okay, I'm trusting you, Mabel.'" Mabel left a lasting impression on Atway, one that he remembers vividly, 60 years later. "You know, she always had her gold skates or pink skates or red skates. Red hair sometimes, pink hair sometimes. You know, Mabel, body-wise, was not a little petite ballerina. She had a strong bone. You know, she had that strength about her." Mabel had been teaching for years, but Atway was the first Black student she thought could go all the way. "And Atway just loved it. He ate it up. Learned real fast. And he was so full of himself." Atway was the first Black student she thought could go all the way. He ate it up. Learned real fast. And he was so full of himself." He was fast and he was so far above everybody else. - Even before I was skating, she was instructing other black kids, sort of recreationally, but she said, "This little boy has this talent. This little boy is going to break open the doors Mabel Fairbanks is opening for him. And Mabel was right. In 1966, Atoy became the first African American to win a U.S. national title in figure skating. Mabel had just that unique spark that just, you would want to do anything for her. You know, if she'd say, jump higher, yes, I'll jump higher because you just, you feel it. The combination of Atoy's dedication and Mabel's ability to train and inspire was a recipe for success. Mabel's plan was working. Black figure skaters were making their way onto the scene. I didn't think it was happening in Detroit. I don't think it was happening in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago. Uh-uh. It was happening right here with Mabel here in Southern California. And that is such myself, Leslie Robinson, Richard Yule, and Shelly McClady were the first African American national pair champions. There was no question that for some reason, the stars were all aligned, that most of the top black skaters were being taught by Mabel Fairbanks. And the bond is strong. I can't even explain to you how strong it is. This is Thai Babylonia. We are all bonded. Atoy, myself, Richard, Shelly, Bobby, Randy. We're family. She was one of the youngest in Mabel's constellation of promising black skaters in the 60s. And Tyra remembers looking up to the older kids, who'd whiz past her on the ice. On the railing, watching Richard, thinking, I want to double lutz like Atoy's double lutz. I mean, just, Mabel had a rainbow color stable of skaters. Mabel embraced everyone, and she didn't set anyone apart. You could be a beginner skater, or you could be a nationally ranked skater, or you could be a recreational skater. She treated us all the same. Mabel had an uncanny ability to recognize someone's star quality before they even recognized it in themselves. And maybe never more so than when she brought Ty together with another student, Randy Gardner, as a pair skating team. We were taking from her as little solo skaters, and she said Ty, hold his hand and skate around the rink. I said, okay, you guys are going to skate together, you know, and you're going to do very well. An 18-year-old Ty Babylonia from Mission Hills, California, 20-year-old Randy Gardner from Los Angeles. Ty and Randy, they became U.S. national champions and eventually world champions. Ty Babylonia and Randy Gardner have just completed a performance that's the best in the world. Mabel's coaching led to the manifestation of a shared dream. She funneled it all into us. Everything. To the point where if our parents couldn't pay for some lessons, no big deal. Pay me later. You don't have to pay me at all. She was that kind and so not selfish. Mabel and her students, they were family. She was my second mom. We were the children she never had. She always, always called you a most amazing word. You were always her little precious. She would put us all in her little car, drive us to the rink, we'd stay there all day, and we would have sleepovers on Friday night. She had a beautiful home, Craftsman House in Laurel Canyon, where we would, you know, spend the night. That was our second home. In some way, she was our mother. She was our friend. She was our mentor. And eventually, um, we deserted her. We left her. Randy and I left. Richard Ewell and Shelly McElhady left. Bobby Beauchamp left. We all left her. Mabel's students would make their way to the national level and find themselves at a crossroads. Stay with Mabel, or move to a coach, with more competitive experience and cachet in the skating world. I don't remember the conversation with the parents and Mabel that we were leaving. I just knew we were on to the next level of our career, and we were excited about it. As a little kid, you don't understand emotions, and that she, this was really rough on her, and she was sad, devastated, when we all left. Um, yeah, I mean, maybe, we were selfish, you know, in our own way, because we wanted to be champions. We wanted to be on those Olympic teams. We wanted to be on those national podiums. And as we're moving in the higher ranks and things are this short, it was sort of necessary. There was an evolution, and then you had to evolve from there. But Mabel wasn't so sure that it was necessary. All the black kids, they all made mistakes. Once they got up to nationals, the parents felt they needed a white instructor next to them. The way Mabel saw it, she brought them this far. Who was to say she couldn't take them all the way? Right. They just can't see. They don't see how I knew how I should be played. Bless their little hearts so it doesn't bother me. Despite what Mabel said, Ty knew the pain cut a little deeper than that. You know, she was pissed. As I think anyone would be when you lose your family to another skating coach. A white male. Yeah. She wasn't happy about it. But for Ty, as hard as it was to leave Mabel, there was no doubt in her mind that she needed to go train with another coach, John Nix, to make it to the top. He was the number one pair skating coach. I mean, it was so next level, and we improved so quickly with him. He had done it. He lived it. Mabel didn't live it. Mabel was not at the Olympics. Mabel was just surviving. She was limited. I hate describing it that way, but she was limited especially as a pair coach. There's no comparison. But she did the best she could. But Mabel wasn't ready to lose her family. In the 1970s, after her star skaters had left, Mabel went to work for the coach that took on Ty and a number of her athletes, John Nix. As Mabel describes it, working with Nix was complicated. John Nix kept saying, why don't you come work over here? Why don't you work over here? Because he wanted all my students over there, of course. In her new position at Nix Rink, Mabel felt relegated to the side. With Mabel, there's a little resentment to Mr. Nix. It was hard on her. It really, really was hard on her. Despite the complexity of her emotions, Mabel never took it out on the skaters. She stayed focused on the bigger picture. You know, life is too short to be angry with anyone. I have to be on this earth such a short length of time. I don't have time to be angry with anyone. I can't carry a chip on my shoulder. So I just say, be happy and help other people to overcome. The burden they have. In the 1980s, with things slowing down in L.A., Mabel jumped at the opportunity to help a new generation of athletes. A coach named Jim Hulick invited her to come up and work with his group of diverse skaters in Northern California. He would ask me to do certain things with Rudy and Christy Yamaguchi. The only thing I would do would sort of give them a good advice mentally, you know. I love serving as their mentor. The skaters Mabel mentored up north, Debbie Thomas, Rudy Galindo, Christy Yamaguchi, went on to reach new heights for Black and Latino and Asian American skaters. It was one more generation to experience Mabel's magic. By the 1990s, Mabel had retired from coaching. She came back to Southern California and she was retired from figure skating and, you know, she lived a modest life, a quiet life in Burbank and all, and I would hang out, we'd go out for lunch and sometimes she'd, you know, let's go down to the ice rink and see the kids. See how they might, you know, some of these kids are doing. Now again, the kids are no longer kids, they're now coaches themselves. But to Mabel, they would always be kids. The kids she never had. You think to yourself, it's like, okay, now it's our turn to take care of her. She took care of us for years, now it's our turn to take care of her. And that's what we all did. Shop exclusive merch and enjoy food and drinks, beat the heat, play, eat, and shop on real Repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house. In 1997, Mabel was in her 70s when a letter came from Hugh Graham, the president of U.S. Figure Skating. Dr. Graham wrote me a letter and saying that congratulations. You have been chosen as one of the inductees to the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame. It was long overdue, but Mabel would become the first black skater inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame. I called Ty and told her that I was accepted and I'd be going. And she said, oh, that's good, Mabel. I will take you. That acknowledgement in 1997, that induction, that was it. That was her Oscar. And Ty was going to make sure that Mabel showed up to her Oscars looking like a star. When she was inducted into the Hall of Fame, you know, she had really nothing elegant to wear. She had clothes, but it's like, well, no, we can, you deserve something better, Mabel. So we, I took her shopping and she got this, she goes, I go, what, what's your look? What do you want to look like? She goes, I want to sparkle. So we got her this little sparkly jacket and a black velvet dress and she looked amazing. Ty brought Mabel to Nashville, Tennessee. for the induction ceremony at the 1997 National Championships. They walked on the red carpet, arm in arm, onto the ice, with Mabel leaning on Ty for support. As the world of competitive skating, the world that had rejected Mabel for so many years, finally recognized what she saw in herself as a young girl in Florida. That she was special. That she was important. But she looked glamorous. She was happy. She was proud. I loved it. And just the reaction from people she didn't even know in the arena. They, they just, they rose and the thunderous applause. Then they hand me the flowers and then everybody was stood up when they called my name, of course. And was waiting. And I was like, I'm going to be the name. And shut up. I would say it was the happiest day of her life. I would say it was the happiest day of her life.