Esther Jane Williams (b. August 8 1921
[ Actress Esther Williams Hospitalized. (October 25, 2006) AP. Retrieved 2007-11-14. "While some references give a later birth date, Williams told The Associated Press in 2004 that she was born Aug. 8, 1921."][According to the California Birth Index, 1905-1995 located at the Center for Health Statistics, Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California.] or 1922
[ Infection Hospitalizes Esther Williams. (Oct 25, 2006) MSN Music. Retrieved 2006-12-04. From the article: "Associated Press archives list Williams' birthday as Aug. 8, 1921. Boll said Tuesday that the actress was born Aug. 8, 1922."]) is a retired United States competitive swimmer and movie star, famous for her musical films that featured elaborate performances with swimming and diving.
Early years
Williams was born in Inglewood, California to Bula Myrtle Gilpin and Louis Stanton Williams. She was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth. She was National AAU champion in the 100 meter freestyle. Williams 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 untimely death while still a teenager.
She appeared with swimming star Johnny Weismuller in Billy Rose's "Aquacade" during the San Francisco World's Fair, 1939-41, where she first attracted attention from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts, as she noted in her autobiography. She also had to fend off the amorous attentions of Weismuller, whom she said acted as if he were Tarzan on and off the screen.
Career
Many of her MGM films, such as
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and
Jupiter's Darling (1955), contained elaborately staged synchronized swimming scenes, with considerable risk to Williams. She broke her neck filming a 50 ft (15 m) dive off a tower during a climactic musical number for the film
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 in a studio tank resulted in her rupturing her eardrums numerous times. In her autobiography
The Million Dollar Mermaid (1999), Williams detailed several other occasions in which she nearly drowned shooting her oxygen-defying stunts, since she rarely used a stunt double.
After years of appearing in musical comedies at MGM, she moved to Universal International in 1956 and appeared in a non-musical dramatic film,
The Unguarded Moment. After that, her film career slowly wound down. She later admitted that husband Fernando Lamas preferred her to not to continue in films.
Personal life
Her love life was a source of media interest. She has been married four times. She met her first husband Leonard Kovner while at Los Angeles City College. She later wrote in her autobiography
The Million Dollar Mermaid that "he was smart, handsome, dependable...and dull. I respected his intelligence, and his dedication to a future career in medicine. He loved me, or so he said, and even asked me to marry him." They were married in the San Francisco suburb of Los Altos on June 27, 1940. On their split she said "I found, much to my relief, that all I needed for my emotional and personal security was my own resolve and determination. I didn't need a marriage and a ring. I had come to realize all too quickly that Leonard Kovner was not a man I could ever really love." They divorced in 1944.
She married singer/actor Ben Gage on November 25 1945, with whom she had three children. In her autobiography, she portrays him as an alcoholic parasite who squandered her earnings. She also disclosed in her autobiography that she had a passionate affair with actor Victor Mature while they were working on the film
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), citing that at the time her marriage was in trouble and, feeling lonely, she turned to Mature for love and affection, and he gave her all she wanted. She was romantically linked with Jeff Chandler, but broke off the relationship when she discovered that Chandler was a cross-dresser, which she revealed for the first time in her autobiography. She and Gage divorced on 20 April 1959.
She then married former lover, Argentine actor/director, Fernando Lamas on December 31 1969. They were married until his death from pancreatic cancer on October 8 1982. She currently resides in Beverly Hills with actor-husband Edward Bell, whom she married on October 24 1994.
Later life
Esther Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s and currently lends her name to a line of women's swimwear and to a company that manufactures swimming pools and swimming pool accessories. She co-wrote her autobiography
The Million Dollar Mermaid (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999) with popular media critic and author Digby Diehl.
[http://www.estherwilliamspools.com/ewabout.htm]
Filmography
Features:
- 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)
- 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)
- Jupiter's Darling (1955)
- The Unguarded Moment (1956)
- Raw Wind in Eden (1958)
- The Big Show (1961)
- Magic Fountain (1963)
- That's Entertainment! III (1994)
Short Subjects:
- Personalities (1942)
- Inflation (1942)
- Some of the Best (1949)
- 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955)
- Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars (1956)
Notes
Further reading
- Williams, Esther. The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1999.
External links
1921 birthsAmerican film actorsAmerican swimmersHollywood Walk of FameLiving peoplePeople from the Greater Los Angeles Area
Esther WilliamsEsther WilliamsEsther WilliamsEsther WilliamsEsther WilliamsEsther WilliamsEsther Williams
