Also did underwater swimming and is credited as being the first to do underwater ballet.
At the age of just 12, she was selected for the Olympic games skating contest at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria. Belita won 16th place in the competition, which was won by none other than Sonja Henie. In 1937 Belita took fourth place in the British figure skating championships.
Belita later claimed to have been "forced" into entertainment at the age of two by her show business-oriented mother, who had herself once been a figure skater. Initially her mother wanted her to become a ballet dancer and only put her on the ice in order to improve her poise.
Common misinformation about her second husband: he was Irish-born actor James Berwick (1929-2000), who sometimes went by his birth name James Kenny. The couple married in 1967 and ended after his passing in 2000. Belita was never married to actor James Kenney (1930-1982), who, by sheer coincidence, was christened Kenneth Berwick.
During the 1940's she was described as one of Hollywood's top box office stars and appeared in around 10 highly profitable low budget productions.
In Hollywood at age 18, she spent five years under contract to Allied Artists. Her salary was reportedly $2,000 a week, all of it taken by her mother because it was against the law to pay minors.
She claimed to have been forced into show business at the age of two by her mother who had herself been a figure skater.
She competed in the ice skating competition at the 1936 Winter Olympics, held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria. She came in 16th place - the gold medallist was her later Hollywood rival Sonja Henie .
She skated for Great Britain in the 1936 Olympics.
She was prepared to try her hand at anything and by the time she was 20 could speak four languages, paint, sing, dance, play the violin and piano, fence, box and wrestle, cook, sew, knit and milk a cow.
Was taught mime by Marcel Marceau.