It's not very often you can say that a British Olympian has been the voice behind an Academy Award winning song. In fact, there may only be one instance.
Before he recorded the lyrics for the 1968 Oscar winning best song 'The Windmills of Your Mind', Noel Harrison was singing to Team GB athletes on the slopes.
The son of well-renowned theatre actor Rex, Harrison first made his mark as an alpine skier, and represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics and four years later in Cortina d'Ampezzo .
With Team GB athletes just one year away from descending on Cortina once more for the 2026 Games, we're looking back at the history of one of Team GB's most multi-talented athletes.
How Noel Harrison learnt to ski
Born to Sir Reginald 'Rex' Harrison, a Tony Award winning stage and film actor best known for playing Henry Higgins both on stage and in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady, and Noel Margery Collette Thomas, Noel Harrison was raised in England.
As a teenager, he moved to the Alps to live with his mother who quickly fell in love with a ski instructor and the journey began from there.
Harrison took to the slopes like a duck to water and soon rocketed up the ranks to reach the Klosters Resort second team and gain a place on the British ski team.
"My mother moved to Switzerland in 1948 when I was 14 and fell in love with a ski instructor," said Harrison during an interview on radio show Purple Haze, broadcast on Australian station 88.3 Southern FM, in 2010.
"So that was very handy and I got skiing lessons and took to it very quickly so by 1952 I was on the British team.
"It was an honour, and I was good enough to be in the Olympics for Britain."
Noel Harrison's skiing career
Harrison's sporting career consisted of competing in two Olympic Games and being crowned Britain's first ever giant slalom national champion.
At his first Games in Oslo, the singer finished 58th in the downhill and 74th in the giant slalom, sadly recieving a DNF in his slalom event.
Four years later, now with the title of national champ on his CV, he was back on the slopes at Cortina d'Ampezzo, one of the hosts of the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Games.
Harrison rectified his Oslo mistakes and recorded his best Olympic finish in 1956 with 47th place in the slalom, also improving on his giant slalom with 64th.
But even during the Games, a budding music career called, with Harrison noting that he joined forces with his fellow alpine skiers John Boyagis and Rupert de Larrinaga in Oslo to play guitar and serenade the other athletes.
"There were three of us in the alpine team in 1952 and both of the other guys also played guitar so we were three guitar pickers," he said in the same radio interview.
"We taught each other songs and things like that, we were in Norway for that Games and played when we could."
Noel Harrison's music career
With his skiing career officially tucked away following compulsory military service, Harrison opted for a career in show business.
He became nothing short of a musical star, with a pair of minor hit records in the USA before he recorded the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” for the soundtrack of the film “The Thomas Crown Affair”, directed by Steve McQueen, which became a top ten hit in the UK and several other countries.
The song landed French composer Michel Legrand his first Oscar and has now has a pretty upbeat and jazzy rendition by the one and only Sting following the film's 1999 remake.
And that's hardly mentioning his touring days with the Beach Boys and Cher.
Noel Harrison acting
Harrison also went down the path of his father and branched out into acting and after guest starring in the “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", he became a regular cast member of the spin-off show “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.”.
He appeared in musical theatre from the seventies onwards, including playing the role of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady", a part made famous by his father in the film of the same name.
Harrison continued his recording career throughout the rest of the century and finally, after many years in North America, returned to England in 2003.
A music career that started out singing songs on the slopes to his Team GB teammates, turned into a whirlwind phenomenon of Hollywood and top 10s that proved Harrison was nothing short of multi-talented.
Many thanks to the help of Wayne at Thewindmillsofyourmind.com and the Harrison family for their assistance in this article.
Sportsbeat 2025