Jill Kinmont Boothe, whose story was the basis of 'The Other Side of the Mountain' dies

Submitted by Editor on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 12:55pm

Jill Kinmont Boothe, the former ski champion and Olympic hopeful who was left paralyzed after a skiing accident in Utah in 1955 and whose life story was the subject of the film "The Other Side of the Mountain" and a subsequent sequel, died Thursday at Carson Tahoe Hospital in Carson City, the Los Angeles Times reports. She was 75.
Ruth Rhines, senior deputy coroner of Carson City, confirmed that Boothe died. A cause of death wasn't given and Rhines could not confirm reports that Boothe died of complications related to surgery.
Read the rest of the Los Angeles Times story here.

Here is what was submitted in Kinmont's Wikipedia entry:

Jill Kinmont grew up in Bishop, California, skiing and racing at Mammoth Mountain. In early 1955, she was the reigning national champion in the slalom, and a top prospect for a medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics, a year away. While competing in the downhill at the Snow Cup in Alta, Utah, on 30 January, 1955, she suffered a near-fatal accident which resulted in paralysis from the neck down. It ironically occurred the same week that Kinmont, weeks shy of her 19th birthday, was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine dated 31 January 1955.
After her rehabilitation, she went on to graduate from UCLA with a B.A. in German and earned a teaching credential from the University of Washington. She had a long career as an educator first in Washington and then in Beverly Hills, California. She taught special education at Bishop Union Elementary School from 1975-96 in her hometown of Bishop. She is an accomplished painter who has had many exhibitions of her artwork.
Kinmont was the subject of two movies: The Other Side of the Mountain in 1975, and The Other Side of the Mountain Part II in 1978. Both films starred Marilyn Hassett as Kinmont.
Jill married trucker John Boothe in November 1976, and they made their home in Bishop until her death.
She was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1967.