Hamilton stars in skating special

Scott Hamilton has seen enough high drama in real life. When it comes to a skating show, he'll stay light and bright and upbeat.

"The most important thing is how the audience responds," Hamilton said by phone. "I want people to say, 'I laughed, I cried, it's better than "Cats.' "

That's the approach of today's special on NBC.

Kurt Browning will be there, as usual. "Kurt's my twin brother, from different parents," Hamilton said.

Others include Stephen Cousins, Todd Eldredge, Lucinda Ruh, Rory Burghart and several duos - Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, Yuka Sato and Jason Dungjen, Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur.

At times, they skate to live music by Susan Anton, Gary Morris and Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. That can be tricky.

"The musicians, if they get into something, might want to improvise a little," Hamilton said. "The skaters are used to being exact. We'll go, 'Oh, my ...' "

Hamilton's shows tend to be light and cheery. At 44, he still does buoyant back flips. "Scott is the symbol of eternal youth," analyst Dick Button told one interviewer.

That contrasts with the dramas in his life. Hamilton faced a serious digestive disorder as a boy, then cancer.

It was during a 1997 "Stars on Ice" show in East Lansing, he said, that an ongoing pain became devastation. He slipped off to an Illinois clinic the next day and learned he had testicular cancer.

That's long past, Hamilton said. "I just feel great. It's been five-and-a-half years in remission."

In recent years, he's been busy raising money for a family wing of the St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Memphis and for a cancer program at the Cleveland Clinic.

It was during a September fund-raising performance in Cleveland that Hamilton proposed to Tracie Rose Robinson, 30.