A Boss Who’s at Home on the Ice : The Ice Capades fell on hard times, until American skating champion Dorothy Hamill stepped in as star--and owner.

Even with a dozen skaters on the ice at practice time, you can still pick out Dorothy Hamill. The short ‘do and the endearing smile give her away.

In 1976, the 19-year-old U.S. figure skater won an Olympic gold medal--and won the hearts of most of the Olympic-watching world. Her wedge hairdo caused a buzz not heard since Jackie Kennedy’s hats.

The cut hasn’t changed, and neither has her passion for figure skating. After nearly 20 years--and a stint in “just about every ice show that’s existed”--Hamill is still going strong. In fact, she is now more involved than ever--as an owner and performer in the Ice Capades.

The 55-year-old Ice Capades was in Chapter 11 when Hamill and her husband of seven years, Ken Forsythe, a sports physician and former Olympic skier, took over the company last year. As a former Ice Capades skater, Hamill saw potential in the show--but things had to change.

Hamill won’t bad-mouth the old regime. While she will say that making money “some day” would be nice, “the most important thing really is putting Ice Capades back on the map, getting its credibility back in the marketplace. That’s the goal.”

The changes so far have been both behind the scenes and on the ice. Audiences see a more theatrical presentation as opposed to a variety show, and the skaters do more acting and storytelling--and better skating. That last fact has drawn world-class skaters to the company who might otherwise not join an ice show.

J. Scott Driscoll, a former U.S. Open Champion who plays the Cat in the Ice Capades’ current “Hansel, Gretel, the Witch and the Cat,” says he likes the chance to act, “but there’s also more than enough skating, lots of triple jumps. . . . You get a chance to show your skills.”

There are 30 skaters in each of the two Ice Capades productions: “Hansel, Gretel, the Witch and the Cat,” which ends its run in Anaheim today and heads to the Forum in Inglewood on Wednesday, and “Cinderella,” Hamill’s first production after taking over, which played here last fall and is now on the East Coast.

Driscoll, who spent five years with Disney on Ice, says life is easier when the producer is also a skater.

“Dorothy knows the situations we encounter not only performing but living on the road,” says Driscoll, who also appeared in “Cinderella.” “She makes us feel comfortable, and we’re able to do our jobs.”

Before Hamill took over, Ice Capades skaters had to pay their own hotel bills while on tour and often were cramming four and five into a room.

“You can’t expect world-class skaters to do that and to perform,” Hamill says firmly. “And in the old days it was 11 to 13 shows a week. Now our max is seven shows a week because the level of skating is so high.”

It’s ironic that the sport Hamill took up as a young, painfully shy child as a way to express herself has thrown her into the middle of the thing she feared most--crowds.

Growing up in Connecticut, Hamill got good at skating and started to win titles, but she also got sick before competitions and froze at the thought of having to talk to people. Now, Hamill says, she is sure people took her shyness the wrong way.

“The last thing in the world I’d ever thought I’d do is win the Olympics and then have to talk to people,” she says with a laugh. “If people wanted to ask me about a double axel, I could tell you, but I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say.”

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The years after her Olympic win weren’t all smiles and curtsies. The transition from the Olympics to exhibition skating proved difficult. Also, in 1984, her two-year marriage to the late Dean Paul Martin ended.

The one constant, though, has been her desire to skate. There is no question about Hamill’s confidence once she’s on the ice, a place she never seems to tire of.

“There have been a couple times . . . ,” Hamill says, before going on to explain that it wasn’t the skating she burned out on but the way she was skating. “The producers were only interested in making money. And as a want-to-be artist, it wasn’t enough for me.”

At one point, against her manager’s advice, she took a lower-paying but more satisfying spot, in a company run by John Curry, whom she says “was the greatest skater in the world.” Her interest then, as now, was to challenge herself and improve her skating.

Hamill keeps the standards high for both herself and the Ice Capades company--and that’s what some say has attracted big names in skating to join her.

For instance, Elizabeth Manley, a 1988 Olympic silver medal winner, is performing in “Cinderella,” and Moscow’s world and national champion Alexander Fadeev is portraying Hansel, while U.S. Nationals team member Jennifer Ito of Burbank is Gretel. The story of “Hansel” was adapted for the ice by Desmond Heeley; the 1893 Engelbert Humperdinck opera “Hansel and Gretel” was arranged by British composer Geoff Westley.

Although Hamill played the lead in the inaugural “Cinderella,” she says that at 38 she’s too old to play Gretel:

“Cinderella was a very difficult (role) with everything else I had to do. I was on the ice the entire show, and I was sick all year with one cold after the other.” (During one performance, she even fell and broke a rib but finished the show.)

Her role this year, the Evening Star, is not as demanding, Hamill says. “It’s beautiful and everything but not challenging the way Cinderella was.”

For parents with young children, though, this year’s show has more to offer.

“Last year there wasn’t quite enough for the really little ones,” Hamill says. “I think we have a bit more this year. There’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Three Blind Mice and the Jumping Jacks--they do back flips everywhere.”

Hamill is already planning for next year, when the Ice Capades will bring “Sleeping Beauty” to the ice. But she probably won’t travel with the show, because daughter Alexandra will be starting the first grade. Hamill will stay at home in Scottsdale, Ariz., where she and Forsythe, the Ice Capades’ chief executive officer, moved the company headquarters. “I’ll be more involved behind the scenes,” Hamill says. “(Touring) is just too hard with her going to school.”

I t will be a change for Hamill, though there is a practice rink nearby, she says.

“The reason I think she’s stayed in the spotlight all these years,” Driscoll says, “is that she’s always expected more out of herself. She works just as hard as we do, and we’re quite respectful of that. She didn’t just sit on her Olympic gold.”*

* “Hansel, Gretel, the Witch and the Cat.” Today, 1 and 5 p.m.: Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. Wednesday-next Sunday, call for times: Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. Tickets: $13-$17.50; Thursday matinee, $10. Ticketmaster: (213) 480-3232 or (714) 740-2000.