ROY BLAKEY born in Enid, Oklahoma on this date (d: 8/23/2024) was a figure skater and photographer who devoted his life to the acquisition of an archive that is the single most comprehensive collection of the history of ice shows and figure skating known. 

As an 11-year-old in Oklahoma, Roy Blakey became mesmerized by the brilliance of the Olympic figure skating champion Sonja Henie when he watched her 1941 film, “Sun Valley Serenade.”

It was the start of his lifelong fascination with the theatrical end of figure skating, which led him to careers as a performer in ice shows around the world and as a historian who celebrated those extravaganzas by amassing a vast collection of artifacts, including skates, costumes, posters, postcards and programs.

With no ice rinks in Enid, Okla., Mr. Blakey turned to roller skating. He also started his collection, which he later called the IceStage Archive, by writing to skating stars for their autographs, and to hotels for programs from the shows they staged. He continued to build the collection during his 15 years as an ice-show performer in the 1950s and ’60s, and for the rest of his life.

The archive totals more than 44,000 items, tracing the history and cultural impact of shows like Holiday on Ice, the Ice Capades, the Ice Follies, Disney on Ice and Ms. Henie’s “Hollywood Ice Revue.”

Some of the most valuable pieces in his archive are skates and costumes worn by Ms. Henie, who won a gold medal in singles figure skating in the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Winter Olympics. He bought one pair of her skates on eBay.

An appraisal expert valued the collection at $1.9 million in 2014, said they were unaware of any other archive like Mr. Blakey’s. “He’s the only person I’m aware of who curated a collection that told the story of the ice shows and how important they were,” she said in an interview. “It was extraordinary.”

The archive was donated in August to the University of Minnesota Libraries’ Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. “If the IceStage Archive ended up someplace else that wasn’t an L.G.B.T. collection, people could approach it without acknowledging the queerness of the ice shows and more specifically the male performers,” said Aiden Bettine, the Tretter’s curator. The New York Times helpfully added “Mr. Blakey, like many ice show performers and enthusiasts, was gay.”

Now there’s some hard-hitting, deep-digging investigative reporting for you.

Blakey was also well known in the gay community as a photographer. In 1972, Roy Blakey’s HE was a groundbreaking book. Male nudes had appeared in other photography books including those by Kenn Duncan, George Hester, Skrebneski and David Vance but were always published alongside female nudes. Blakey’s book, devoted solely to male nudes, stood in stark relief. 

Roy Balakey died at his home in Minneapolis on August 23, 2024.