Katarina Witt

German figure skater and multi Olympic medal winner, Katarina Witt was born on December 3, 1965. She was affectionately called 'Kati' or 'Kat' in Germany and was voted as 'The GDR Female Athlete of the Year' in a German newspaper, by the readers of 'Junge Welt'. Katarina Witt won her first Olympic gold medal in 1984, and reaffirmed her status as the best female figure skater, in the succeeding Olympics of 1988 by winning the gold again. She won her first figure skating competition on her seventh birthday, a victory she claimed as her birthday gift to herself. Katarina Witt claimed six European Championship gold medals in the years 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988. She teamed up with fellow figure skater Brian Boitano to perform at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1988; the show called 'Witt and Boitano Skating', and was sold out. In 1989, she took to acting as she starred in the film 'Carmen on Ice'; she won an Emmy award for her role in the same. With her come back into skating, she won the seventh place in the 1994 Winter Olympics for which she received a Golden Camera. She published her autobiography the same year titled 'My Years between Compulsories and Freestyle', in German. By 1995, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. She reappeared on the big screen with cameo role in the film 'Jerry Maguire' (1996) and another cameo in the film 'Ronin' (1998). Katarina Witt posed for the 1998 December issue of 'Playboy', the same issue became Playboy's second ever fully sold out issue. On the small screen she portrayed a vamp in the hit television series 'V.I.P' starring Pamela Anderson. Time magazine proclaimed her as 'the Most Beautiful Face of Socialism'. The year 2005 saw the release of her second book titled 'Only with Passion'.