Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2002 | 9:23 a.m.
When professional figure skater Charles Cavanaugh hoisted his wife, Lucille, above his head with just his powerful left arm in the "sit lift" maneuver, the crowd in Berlin in 1953 erupted in a thunderous ovation.
So loud was the applause that the show's star, Sonja Henie, bolted from her dressing room to see what the commotion was.
Although the Cavanaughs were not credited with inventing the sit lift, that night they made it one of their signature moves in a career that would span four decades and include their sons as part of the act.
Charles W. Cavanaugh, who performed all over the world and in front of such state leaders as England's Queen Elizabeth and Argentina's first lady Evita Peron, died Saturday at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center from pneumonia. He was 83.
The Cavanaughs were long considered one of America's top-drawing acrobatic adagio ice skating teams. Their career included Las Vegas engagements at the Desert Inn in 1953 and at the Riviera and the Hacienda in 1958.
"My husband was not the type of skater who wanted to do a solo, but together we had a charisma on ice that audiences enjoyed," Lucille Cavanaugh said. "In ice skating the male partner presents the female skater. He always presented me in the best light."
Their son Dennis, an entertainment attorney in New Jersey who as a teenager performed with the Cavanaughs, said his father "had elegant strength."
He also called his father a humble man who requested that no funeral services be held for him.
Cavanaugh is the second Southern Nevada resident who performed on the 1953 tour with Henie to die in recent months. Frank Lucas, a chorus line dancer who stood 6-foot-4 and performed duets with the 5-foot-2-inch Henie, died Sept. 23 in Henderson at age 75.
The Cavanaughs had a similar height difference. He stood just over 6 feet and she was 5-foot-2.
Born Oct. 7, 1919, in Freeport, Ill., Charles Cavanaugh was one of two children of hoteliers Charles Cavanaugh and the former Laura Holsinger.
Cavanaugh excelled in baseball -- his first love -- and skating. He graduated from Rockford Central High School and earned a baseball scholarship to the University of Chicago. The left-handed pitcher made it to the Philadelphia Athletics organization, but injuries ended that career in 1939.
In 1940 Cavanaugh turned to skating where, at a tryout in Chicago, Henie saw him perform and hired him for a show being produced in New York. In 1943 he met 16-year-old Lucille, a chorus line skater in that production.
"I was going out to the pharmacy one night and he stopped me at the stage door and told me I could not go outside without a jacket because it was too cold," Lucille said. "He asked me out to dinner and four years later we got married."
The couple's big break came when that show's adagio team left in 1947 for a European tour and the newlyweds were called out of the chorus line to replace them.
In 1970 Charles Cavanaugh broke new ground when he signed with the Italian Line for the family act to appear on a 13-by-15-foot ice rink aboard the SS Leonardo Da Vinci -- the first ice show aboard an ocean liner.
The Cavanaughs retired in 1978, when he was 59. They lived for several years in Florida before moving to Las Vegas in 1987.
"My father lived his life as a man who always kept his word and would do whatever he could to help people in need, whether it was mentoring young skaters or helping the homeless," said Martin Cavanaugh, who started performing with the act at age 5 and today is a Las Vegas geologist.
The family said donations can be made in Charles Cavanaugh's memory to Faith Lutheran Junior and Senior High School, 2015 Hualapai Way, Las Vegas 89117.
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