Donny and Marie Show Review
Jan. 4, 1999

written by Susan Heil

Kristi Yamaguchi was on the Donny & Marie show today (Monday 1/4). The show was apparently taped prior to the engagement but near Christmas as Donny & Marie pretended to discuss their respective New Year's Eves (common for these shows to tape 2 weeks in advance actually). In any case, this was one of the better talk show appearances by a skater.

Kristi wore a lovely pearl gray pantsuit that had a nice fluid movement to the lines of the jacket. She was quite personable and charming and although Donny & Marie didn't seem overly knowledgable about skating (they asked if she still skated pairs) they seemed quite enthused about having her on the show and the audience was *very happy* to see Kristi. Marie asked Kristi about a diamond "3" she had around her neck (yup - this is Bret Hedican's jersey number) and Kristi just smiled and said she liked the number. She briefly discussed her pairs career with Rudy Galindo and put a positive spin on their experiences and what they achieved. She also discussed how she got into skating and her admiration about Dorothy Hamill when she was young. Donny & Marie mentioned meeting Scott Hamilton at a Target function in Minneapolis a year or two before and they asked how he was recovering from the cancer.

They asked about SOI and Kristi mentioned the new skaters added this year and there was nice applause at the mention of Tara and Ilia. Donny wanted to know who the other 4 were so Kristi mentioned the other names. They also wanted to know if there were tricks/jokes played backstage at SOI and Kristi mentioned that in the last show or two of the tour, they typically switch costumes or put vodka into someone's water and such (Marie murmured that she likes to do things like that too !)

Then Kristi was asked about the connection between figure skaters and hockey players - her expression froze momentarily and I held my breath thinking we would get "the lowdown" finally...Marie quickly rephrased the question to inquire about rivalries between hockey and figure skaters and differences etc. Kristi jokingly said that figure skaters don't smell as bad on the ice and she also mentioned how there are different ice preferences for hockey vs. figure. Finally Donny & Marie brought up the fact that Kristi dates a hockey player and Kristi was laughing but was clearly uncomfortable. Marie asked how long they have dated and Kristi said "a couple of years now". They continued teasing her about whether this was getting serious but she didn't say anything else. She was rather good natured about the whole thing - typical Kristi class act!

All in all, it was an enjoyable interview. It seemed like more questions and even followup questions were asked then what you normally get on talk show appearances by skaters (which I seem to catch alot of since I don't go to work until later in the morning).

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