Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams (born
August 8,
1921) was a
United States competitive swimmer and
movie star, famous for her musical films that featured elaborate performances with
swimming and
diving.
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Esther Williams |
Born in
Inglewood,
California, Williams was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth. She qualified to be in the United States swim team in the
1940 Olympics, but the games were canceled due to
World War II. Williams instead went to
Hollywood, where she quickly became a popular star of the 1940s and 1950s. Her brother, Stanton Williams, also had a brief acting career during the 1920s before his death while still a teenager.
Many of her films, such as
Million Dollar Mermaid and
Jupiter's Darling, contained elaborately staged swimming scenes, obtained not without physical cost to the performer. She broke her neck filming a 50 ft (15 m) dive off a tower during a climactic musical number for the
1952 release
Million Dollar Mermaid which landed her in a body cast for six months. She subsequently recovered, though she still suffers headaches as a result of the accident. Her many hours spent submerged resulted in her rupturing her
eardrums numerous times. In her
autobiography, Williams details several other occasions in which she nearly drowned shooting her oxygen-defying stunts, but she often used a
stunt double.
Her love life was a source of media interest. She has been married four times. From 1945 to 1958, she was married to singer/actor
Ben Gage, with whom she had three children. In her autobiography, she portrays him as an
alcoholic parasite who squandered her earnings. She was romantically linked with
Jeff Chandler. Her third husband was actor
Fernando Lamas.
Esther Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s and lives with her current husband, Edward Bell, in
Beverly Hills. She lends her name to a line of women's swimwear.
Personalities (
1942) (short subject)
Inflation (1942) (short subject)
Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942)
A Guy Named Joe (
1943)
Bathing Beauty (
1944)
Thrill of a Romance (
1945)
Ziegfeld Follies (
1946)
The Hoodlum Saint (1946)
Easy to Wed (1946)
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) (
cameo)
Fiesta (
1947)
This Time for Keeps (1947)
On an Island with You (
1948)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (
1949)
Neptune's Daughter (1949)
Screen Actors (
1950) (short subject)
Duchess of Idaho (1950)
Pagan Love Song (1950)
Texas Carnival (
1951)
Callaway Went Thataway (1951) (cameo)
Skirts Ahoy! (
1952)
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)
Dangerous When Wet (
1953)
Easy to Love (1953)
1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (
1955) (short subject)
Jupiter's Darling (1955)
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars (
1956) (short subject)
The Unguarded Moment (1956)
Raw Wind in Eden (
1958)
The Big Show (
1961)
The Magic Fountain (
1963)
That's Entertainment! III (
1994) (narrator)
* Williams, Esther.
The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1999.
*
Classic Movies (1939â€"1969): Esther Williams
