GLOUCESTER, England (AP) — As he waited in the wings at the premiere of “Beauty and the Beast,” Michael Edwards felt the nervous shiver he felt four decades ago while peering through thick glasses at a dangerously steep diving board.
The athlete-turned-entertainer better known as “Eddie the Eagle” was no stranger to fear, but this was different: he was facing a theater full of children.
He could have broken his neck in ski jumping; here he only risked stumbling over his lines and not causing laughter.
Edwards added acting to the busy business of playing Eddie the Eagle, feathering his nest and extending his fame far beyond his brief flight as Britain's first Olympic ski jumper brought him fame despite finishing last at the 1988 Calgary Games.
There's almost nothing he hasn't done since he stepped into the spotlight. He recorded songs, danced on ice, twice dressed as a chicken (eagle costumes are few and far between), gave interviews in an Amsterdam brothel, filmed commercials for cars and shows, and talked for hours about what he knows best: how he landed here.
“I'm always very, very grateful to be dubbed Eddie the Eagle, and it's amazing that I'm talking about this 38 years later,” he told The Associated Press. “I hope I encourage other people to go out, get off their butts and go after their dreams.”
An unlikely start
It wasn't immediately clear that Edwards was on his way to stardom.
He grew up (and still lives) on the outskirts of the Cotswolds, in western England, where snow rarely falls and the hills are unmistakable. His father expected his son to follow him into plastering, as he had done after his father and grandfather.
But teenager Edwards had other plans after a school trip to the Italian Alps sparked his passion for skiing. He has become a regular at Gloucester Ski Centre, where the bristly plastic surface, shorter than three football fields, allows skiing all year round.
He became a good downhill skier but did not make the British ski team for the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. Undeterred, he set his sights higher after realizing there were no ski jumpers in Britain.
Birth of a legend
Edwards went to Lake Placid, New York, where he rummaged around for skis and equipment, including a strapless helmet that he secured with rope and oversized boots that he wore with five pairs of socks.
At 22, he was learning what the world's best jumpers learned as children.
“It was like a crash course. And yes, I did take a lot of risks,” he said. “When I finished ski jumping, I was just as scared doing my last jump as I was the first. You never get used to it.”
With no money or sponsors, he scrounged food from trash cans, slept in barns, in cars, and even in a psychiatric hospital in Finland, not to mention medical hospitals.
“It would be easier to name the bones I didn’t break,” he joked.
He fractured his skull twice while wearing a helmet, broke his jaw, broke his collarbone in five places, broke three ribs, damaged his kidney and his knee. This didn't stop him.
He trained for larger jumps and competed at international competitions. Despite attempts by British sports federations to stop him from competing, he eventually jumped far enough to represent Great Britain at the Olympics.
From dunce to champion
Edwards arrived in Calgary to a sign welcoming “Eddie the Eagle”, unaware that it was for him.
Reporters liked his enthusiastic determination and appearance. He was burly by ski jumping standards, with a prominent jaw, a thin mustache and bulging eyes behind thick lenses in pink-framed aviator glasses.
Few outside the world of ski jumping remember the winner, “The Flying Finn” Matti Nykänen, who soared over 120 meters and won every event.
The most famous remains the man who finished last – 19 meters behind his nearest competitor, but setting a new British record of 71 meters (77 yards).
Edwards waved his arms madly after landing, sending the 85,000-strong crowd into a frenzy.
He was again given a hero's welcome, escorted by police through the crowds at London's Heathrow Airport.
“My feet haven’t touched the ground, oh my God, for about three and a half, four years,” he said. “I have traveled all over the world opening shopping malls, golf courses, hotels, doing fun trips, being on many TV shows and radio shows, meeting movie stars, TV stars, musicians, bands, famous people, royalty all over the world and it has been amazing.”
Eagle's wings are clipped
The ski jumping world was less enamored and made sure there would never be another ski jumper like Edwards.
“We have thousands of Eddie Edwards in Norway,” grumbled Torbjorn Iggeseth, technical director for ski jumping at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the sport's regulatory body. “But we never let them jump.”
The so-called “Eddie Eagle Rule” set a minimum distance beyond his reach and ended Edwards' jumping ambitions.
When opportunities for advancement evaporated, Edwards returned to plastering.
Then the winning move is on Splash! Reality jumping competitions helped revive his second career in 2013. Three years later, the biopic Eddie the Eagle, starring Taron Egerton as Edwards and Hugh Jackman as his trainer, allowed him to relinquish his trowel.
He now earns between £3,000 and £12,000 ($4,000-$16,000) for negotiations several days a week, helping him recover from financial setbacks.
Much of the small fortune he made in his first wave of fame disappeared because the trust fund needed to maintain his amateur status was poorly managed, he said. An emotionally difficult 2016 divorce from the mother of his two daughters drained even more of his savings.
The long-awaited medal
The adaptation of Beauty and the Beast at the Watersmith Theater in Rickmansworth, near London, is his second foray into pantomime.
Panto, as it is known, is a uniquely British take on the classic Christmas tale, combining music, dancing, slapstick, dressing up, jokes for children and raunchy humor for their parents, and often featuring minor celebrities alongside first-time actors.
Fun plot twists are hidden in the nods to Edwards' fame, even though half the audience wasn't old enough to even see the film when it came out, let alone watch it at the Olympics.
In Van Halen's Jump, his character Professor Crackpot, Belle's bumbling father, takes the stage with his latest invention, jet-powered skis.
At 62, Edwards has shaved his once blond hair, his mustache is missing, his bite has been surgically corrected, his glasses have been removed, and his nearsightedness has been corrected with implanted lenses.
In a recurring gag, the kids in the audience yell “head off” as he fumbles around for his giant glasses.
He later skis across the stage in a replica of his baby blue Calgary ski suit. He takes a downhill stance to outrun Santa's speeding sleigh, according to the video projected behind him. Edwards completed the jump, landed successfully and received the gold medal.
This scene did not serve as a plot point, but reflected what Edwards is best known for: jumping and landing on his feet. The public likes it.
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AP Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
