Christopher Bowman, 40, figure skater

LOS ANGELES - Christopher Bowman, 40, the former U.S. figure-skating champion dubbed "Bowman the Showman" for his flair on the ice, was found dead Thursday at a hotel in the San Fernando Valley.

Though his death initially was reported as the result of a possible drug overdose, "we don't have anything that points specifically" to that as the cause, assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said yesterday.

Investigators also were trying to determine whether Mr. Bowman's death was the result of an accident or natural causes. The two-time Olympian was 6 feet tall and weighed an estimated 300 pounds.

"There was some prescription medication present" but no evidence of illegal drugs, Winter said.

Mr. Bowman, a former child actor, was one of figure skating's bigger personalities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He won the U.S. men's figure-skating titles in 1989 and 1992 and was runner-up in 1987 and 1991.

He also won a silver medal in the 1989 world championships and a bronze the next year. He skated in the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics, finishing seventh in 1988 and fourth in 1992.

Mr. Bowman also had some run-ins with the law. In November 2004, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors involving having a gun while drunk in Rochester Hills, Mich.

In 1993, while skating with the Ice Capades, he was beaten at a hotel in a seedy neighborhood in Pittsburgh, according to a police report.

Born in Hollywood, Calif., on March 30, 1967, Mr. Bowman played Benjamin in the TV series

Little House on the Prairie

for one season and appeared in dozens of commercials.

He recently returned to acting. He played an assistant coach in the forthcoming movie

Down and Distance

starring Gary Busey.

Mr. Bowman had a daughter with his former wife, Annette Bowman, according to the Detroit Free Press.