Esther Williams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Esther Williams | |
|---|---|
 from the trailer for Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) |
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| Born | Esther Jane Williams August 8, 1921 Inglewood, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress/Swimmer |
| Years active | 1942–1963 |
| Spouse(s) | Leonard Kovner (1940–1944) (divorced) Ben Gage (1945–1959) (divorced) 3 children Fernando Lamas (1969–1982) (his death) Edward Bell (1994–present) |
| Official website | |
Esther Jane Williams (born August 8, 1921,[1][2] although some sources incorrectly cite 1922[3]) is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star. Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records before she turned 20. Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics because of the outbreak of World War II, Williams joined Billy Rose's Aquacade, where she caught the attention of MGM scouts. Through the 1940s and early 1950s, Williams made a series of films known as "aquamusicals", which featured elaborate performances with synchronized swimming and diving. These films often paired Williams with popular MGM male stars, such as Van Johnson, Ricardo Montalbán and Howard Keel.
Williams left MGM in 1956 and appeared in a handful of unsuccessful feature films, followed by several extremely popular television specials, including one from Cypress Gardens, Florida. Since her retirement from film in the 1960s, Williams has become a businesswoman, lending her name to a line of swimming pools and retro swimwear, instructional swimming videos for children, and serving as a commentator for synchronized swimming at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
As of 2009 Williams lives with her fourth husband, Edward Bell, in Beverly Hills.
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[edit] Early years
Born in Inglewood, California, Williams was the fifth and youngest child of Louis Stanton Williams and Bula Myrtle Gilpin (October 8, 1885 - 1975) [4]
Louis Williams was a sign painter and Bula Williams was a psychologist. The two were lived on neighboring farms in Kansas and carried on a nine year courtship until June 1, 1908, when they eloped and set off for California. However, they ran out of money in Salt Lake City, Utah, and settled there. William's brother, Stanton (September 4, 1912 - March 3, 1929) was discovered by actress Marjorie Rambeau, which lead to the family (including sisters Maurine and June and brother David) moving to the Los Angeles area to be near the studios. Louis Williams purchased a small piece of land in southwest area of town, and had a small house built there. Williams was born in the living room, which was also where the family slept until Louis Williams was able to add bedrooms. In 1929, Williams' brother, Stanton Williams, died after his colon burst. [4]
In 1935, Bula Williams invited 16-year-old Buddy McClure to live with her family. McClure had recently lost his mother and Mrs. Williams was still grieving over the death of her son. One night, when the rest of the family was visiting relatives in Alhambra, McClure raped Williams. Williams was terrified to tell anyone about the incident, and waited two years before finally revealing the truth to her parents. They seemed unsure of Williams's story, claiming that McClure was "sensitive" and were sympathetic towards him when he admitted his guilt. After Williams stood up to him and banished him from her home, McClure joined the Coast Guard, and Williams never saw him again.[4]
Williams was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth. Her older sister, Maurine, took her to the beach and the local pool. She took a job counting towels at the pool to pay the five cent entry fee, and while there, had swimming lessons from the male lifeguards. From them, she learned the 'male only' swimming strokes, including the butterfly breaststroke, with which she would later break records. [5]
Williams planned to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics but it was canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.
Williams graduated from Washington Preparatory High School in 1939, where she served as class Vice President.[6] During her senior year of high school, Williams received a D in her algebra course, preventing her from getting a scholarship from the University of Southern California. She enrolled in Los Angeles City College to retake the course. To earn money to pay tuition, Williams took a job as a stock girl at I. Magnin department store, where she also modeled clothing for customers and appeared in newspaper advertisements. [4]
While Williams was working at I. Magnin, she was contacted by Billy Rose's assistant and asked to audition as a replacement for Eleanor Holm in his Aquacade show. Williams impressed Rose, and she got the role. [7][4]The Aquacade was part of the Golden Gate International Exposition, and Williams was partnered with Olympic swimmer and Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller, who, as Williams wrote in her autobiography, repeatedly tried to seduce her during the show's run. Despite this, Williams remained with the show until it closed on September 29, 1940. [4]
[edit] Career
It was at Aquacade that Williams first attracted attention from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts. MGM's head, Louis B. Mayer, had been looking for a female sports star for the studio to compete with Fox's figure skating star, Sonja Henie. Williams signed her contract with MGM in 1941. [4]
In her contract were two clauses: the first being that she receive a guest pass to the Beverly Hills Hotel where she could swim in the pool every day, and the second that she would not appear on camera for nine months to allow for acting, singing, dancing and diction lessons. Williams wrote in her autobiography, "If it took nine months for a baby to be born, I figured my 'birth' from Esther Williams the swimmer to Esther Williams the movie actress would not be much different."[4]
While top stars at the studios such as Judy Garland, Betty Grable and Shirley Temple took part in bond tours during, Williams was asked to take in hospital tours. At this point, Williams had achieved pin-up status due to the number of photographs of her in bathing suits. [4] To prepare, Williams and her publicity assistant would listen of Bob Hope and Jack Benny's radio programs and retell the funniest jokes while at the hospitals. Williams also invited GIs to dance with her on stage and take part in mock screen tests. The men would receive a card telling them their lines, and they would act out the scene in front of the other soldiers. These tests were always romance scenes, and included Williams begging the men to make love to her character, to which they were required to say refuse ... multiple times. When the men said the final "no", Williams would pull at her tear-away skirt and sweater, leaving nothing but a gold lamé swimsuit. The scenes would always end with the men giving in and kissing her after that stunt. Her hospital tours continued into the 1950s. [4]
[edit] 1940s
Three weeks after signing her contract, George Sidney directed William's first screen test. The studio was impressed, and when Lana Turner eloped with Artie Shaw, Williams screen tested with the leading man Clark Gable, for the film Somewhere I'll Find You.[8] However, Turner divorced Shaw after four months of marriage, and rejoined the cast of the film. [4] After several short subject films, Williams appeared in Andy Hardy's Double Life as Sheila Brooks, a coed with whom Andy falls in love.[9] This was followed by a small part in the film A Guy Named Joe, which starred Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne. It was there that she first worked with Van Johnson, with whom she would later partner in five films. [4]
Bathing Beauty, previously titled Mr. Coed, starred Red Skelton as a man who enrolls in a women's college to win back his swimming instructor fiance, played by Williams. This was her first Technicolor musical, and the studio changed the title of the film to showcase Williams. Nearly all of the posters for the film featured Williams in a bathing suit, though the swimming sequences make up a small portion of the film. Her date to the premiere at the Astor Theater in New York City was future husband Ben Gage. For the event, MGM publicity set up a six story-tall billboard of Williams diving into Times Square with a large sign that said "Come on in! The water's fine!" [4]
Williams appeared in the film Ziegfeld Follies as herself, which was followed by the musical romance Thrill of a Romance. Van Johnson co-starred as a decorated war veteran who falls in love with Williams while on her honeymoon. Thrill of a Romance was the 8th highest grossing film of 1945. [10] Williams had to help Johnson swim, and she placed her hand under his back to keep him afloat. The studio's publicity department also tried put the two together in public as much as possible, in hopes of encouraging a romance, though Williams was involved with Gage at the time. When asked why they didn't date, Johnson replied, "because I'm afraid she can't get her webbed feet into a pair of evening sandals".
Williams tried a more serious role in 1946's The Hoodlum Saint, with William Powell. Audiences were expecting Powell's Nick Charles persona, and rejected the idea of a romance between Williams and Powell onscreen. [11] She also appeared in Easy to Wed, a remake of 1936's Libeled Lady, with Johnson and Lucille Ball.
Fiesta (originally called Fiesta Brava)[12] starred Williams as Ricardo Montalbán's twin sister, Maria, who pretends to be her bullfighting brother in hopes of luring him back home. Audiences, and Williams, thought the film was silly, as Williams and Montalbán had vastly different accents. Montalbán was born in Mexico and was a native Spanish speaker, and Williams had a midwestern accent she had picked up from her Kansas-born parents. Production was difficult, with a multitude of problems. By 1947, Gage and Williams were married, and Gage had traveled to Mexico for the making of the film. He got into a fight with an employee of the hotel the cast was staying at, and was arrested and subsequently thrown out of the country. The director of photography, Sidney Wagner, and one other crew member died from cholera from eating contaminated street food, and many of the film's stuntmen were sent to the hospital after being gored by bulls. Director Dick Thorpe hadn't wanted the bulls killed (as they usually were at the end of a bullfight) because he believed them to be too expensive to replace.[4]
After filming was completed on Fiesta, Williams appeared in the romance film This Time for Keeps with singer Johnnie Johnston. In 1948, Williams signed a contract with swimwear company Cole of California to appear as their spokesperson. Because of this, Williams and the other swimmers in her films wear Cole swimsuits. Because the aqua-musicals were an entirely new genre, the studio's costume designers had little experience designing practical swimsuits. [4] William's plaid flannel swimsuit for Thrill of a Romance was so heavy that Williams was dragged to the bottom of the pool. She had to unzip the suit and swim naked to the edge of the pool to avoid drowning. Cole swimsuits used latex, which meant zippers were no longer necessary. While filming 1952's Skirts Ahoy, Williams discovered that members of the WAVES program received thin, cotton, shapeless swimsuits as part of their uniforms. Williams modeled a Cole swimsuit for the Secretary of the Navy and explained that the new swimsuits helped support women's figures; the United States Navy ordered 50,000 suits immediately. [4]
In 1949, Williams began filming Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It was a period musical which starred Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as players on a baseball team owned by Williams's character, K.C. Higgins. In her autobiography, she described filming as "pure misery", claiming that Kelly and writer Stanley Donen treated her with contempt and went out of their way to make jokes at her expense. The film was well-received critically and became a major commercial success, raking in $3.4 million in rentals and becoming the 11th highest earning film of the year. [13] Williams also made Neptune's Daughter that year, co-starring with Ricardo Montalbán, Red Skelton and Betty Garrett, who had also been in Take Me Out to the Ball Game.[4] In the film, Williams sings the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Montalbán.The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 22nd Academy Awards. Williams and Montalbán were originally slated to sing "(I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China", but studio censors thought the song was too sexual (interpreting the word "get" as "have") and instead used gave them "Baby, It's Cold Outside".[14] Neptune's Daughter went on to be the 10th highest grossing film of 1949.[13]
[edit] 1950s
In 1952's Million Dollar Mermaid, Williams played Annette Kellerman, an Australian swimming and diving star. Williams co-starred with Victor Mature, who played Kellerman's husband and manager, James Sullivan. The two engaged in a passionate affair during filming. Williams has often called this her favorite film, and named her autobiography after it. [4] Williams also won the Henrietta Award at the 1952 Golden Globes, for World Film Favorite – Female. [15]
1953's Easy to Love (also with Johnson) was filmed on location in Cypress Gardens, where a Florida-shaped pool had been built specifically for the film. Williams was pregnant during shooting, but still performed her own waterskiing stunts. [4]
In Dangerous When Wet, Williams worked with three important males - Tom and Jerry and future husband Fernando Lamas. During casting, Lamas told Williams he did not want to star in the film with her because he only wanted to be involved in "important pictures". His part had to be rewritten to convince him to take part in the film. Williams then made Duchess of Idaho, shot on location in Sun Valley, Idaho, co-starring Van Johnson.[16] MGM then paired her with Howard Keel for two films, Pagan Love Song and Jupiter's Darling. They both had cameos in the film Callaway Went Thataway. [17]
In 1953, Williams had been on maternity leave for three months while pregnant with daughter Susan, and had assumed that she would get straight to work on the film Athena when she got back.[18] However, production started without her, and the studio cast Jane Powell in the lead role,[19] and rewrote much of the premise that Williams and writers Leo Pogostin and Chuck Walters had come up with. The studio moved her to Jupiter's Darling. Two more films were planned, Bermuda Encounterand Olympic Venus, about the first Olympic swimmers, however, these were never made.[20][21]
Many of her MGM films, such as Million Dollar Mermaid and Jupiter's Darling, contained elaborately staged synchronized swimming scenes, with considerable risk to Williams. She broke her neck filming a 115 ft dive off a tower during a climactic musical number for the film Million Dollar Mermaid which landed her in a body cast for seven 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. She also nearly drowned after not being able to find the trap door in the ceiling of a tank. The walls and ceiling were painted black and the trap door blended in. Williams was only pulled out because a member of the crew realized the door wasn't opening.
[edit] After MGM
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 not to continue in films. She would, however, make occasional appearances on television, including mystery guest appearances on What's My Line?, Toast of the Town and two aqua-specials, The Esther Williams Aqua Spectacle in 1956 and Esther Williams at Cypress Gardens on August 8, 1960.[22] More than half of all television sets in use in the United States were tuned in to watch the Cypress Gardens special.[4]
[edit] Personal life
Williams said in a 1999 New York Times interview that one day her doorbell rang and on her doorstep was Danny Kaye and his daughter, Dena, in hopes of having Williams teach her to swim. Williams gave his daughter her first lesson. She also gave Candice Bergen's daughter Chloe her first swimming lesson. [14]
[edit] Marriages
Williams has been married four times. She met her first husband Leonard Kovner while attending 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.[4][23] 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." [4] They divorced on September 12, 1944.[23][24]
She married singer/actor Ben Gage on November 25, 1945[25][26]; they had three children, Benjamin (born August 6, 1949), Kimball Austin (October 30, 1950 - May 6, 2008) and Susan Tenney (born October 1, 1953) In her autobiography, she portrayed Gage as an alcoholic parasite who squandered $10 million of her earnings. While Williams was pregnant with her first child, Ben, Williams reduced her amount of water exercise, but began working with a program that taught blind children how to swim. During her filming of Pagan Love Song in Hawaii, Williams found out she was pregnant with her third child, and she needed to notify the studio back in California. Gage had met a man at the hotel who owned a ham radio and convinced the man to let them use it to call California. What they failed to realize at the time, though, was that anyone could be listening in on their conversation, and news of her pregnancy was broadcast to the entire West Coast.[4]
She also disclosed in her autobiography that she had a passionate affair with actor Victor Mature while they were working on Million Dollar Mermaid, 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 because, she claimed in her autobiography, Chandler was a cross-dresser. She and Gage divorced in of April 1959. [27]
She then married former lover, Argentine actor/director, Fernando Lamas on December 31, 1969. For 22 years, she lived in total submission to him, where she had to stop being "Esther Williams" and could not have her children live with her. In return, he would be faithful. They were married until his death from pancreatic cancer on October 8, 1982.[4] She currently resides in Beverly Hills with actor-husband Edward Bell, whom she married on October 24, 1994.[4]
[edit] Later years
Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s and currently lends her name to a line of retro women's swimwear. "Women worldwide are fighting a thing called gravity," said Williams. "I say to women when I talk to them, You girls of 18 have until about 25, 30 at the most, and then you have to report to me. My suits are quality fabric." [14] "I put you in a suit that contains you and you will swim in. I don't want you to be in two Dixie cups and a fish line."[28]
She is also the namesake of a company that manufactures swimming pools and swimming pool accessories. She came out with a line of Swim, Baby, Swim videos, which helped parents teach their children how to swim. She also appeared as a commentator for synchronized swimming at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Williams met her fourth husband as a result of his calling her to coordinate her appearance.[14] She co-wrote her autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999) with popular media critic and author Digby Diehl.[4]
In a 2007 interview with Diane Sawyer, Williams admitted that she had recently had a stroke. "I opened my eyes and I could see, but I couldn't remember anything from the past", she said. She has been recovering since then.[29]
[edit] Filmography
Short Subjects:
- Personalities (1942)
- Inflation (1942)
- Some of the Best (1949)
- 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955)
- Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars (1956)
[edit] "Esther Williams Trophy"
The Esther Williams Trophy is one of two trophies that have circulated among ships of various navies, after originating in the Royal Australian Navy. Initially, in 1943, the trophy was a joke between two friends, Lieutenants Lindsay Brand and David Stevenson (later the RAN's Chief of Naval Staff), serving in HMAS Nepal (G25), an N class destroyer attached to the British Eastern Fleet.[citation needed] Stevenson wrote on a photograph of Esther Williams, “To my own Georgie, with all my love and a passionate kiss, Esther”; Brand (aka "George") put the screen idol over his bed; the photo was taken to another ship by a fellow officer; and, the 'trophy' was then circulated by officers among some 200 other ships including in US Navy[30], British Royal Navy, and Canadian Navy ships in Asian waters. The original photo became the "trophy copy" to be kept in a safe location, while the second "fighting copy" was displayed where it could be stolen stealthily or taken by force with a good deal of roughhouse between the officers of the ships involved. After the "fighting copy" had been successfully removed from the custodial ship, the "trophy copy" would be presented to the new owners with appropriate ceremony.[31] In 1957, “Esther” was retired by the US Navy and sent to the RAN's Naval Historical Collection at Spectacle Island in Sydney. The trophy was brought into circulation again in 1997 by officers from HMAS Brisbane (D 41), and has been given official standing by senior officers, for instance when an RAN admiral officiated when the elder Brand was re-introduced to the trophy on June 30, 2004 for only the fourth time since 1943[32].
At various times, the holders of the trophy have either flown an Esther flag[33] or sent naval signals (signed 'Esther') to other nearby ships to indicate where the trophy resided. Notably, on April 16, 2008, the trophy attended the memorial service for the newly rediscovered wreck of HMAS Sydney II, off Geraldton, Western Australia, travelling in HMAS Anzac (FFH 150).[citation needed]
A documentary,[34] about the trophy's history was produced in 2007.
[edit] References
- ^ 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
- ^ Infection Hospitalizes Esther Williams. (October 25, 2006) USA Today. 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."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Williams, Esther (1999). The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography (1st ed.). ISBN 0156011352, 9780156011358. http://books.google.com/books?id=qItZAAAAMAAJ&q=the+million+dollar+mermaid&dq=the+million+dollar+mermaid&cd=1. Retrieved 2009-12-11.
- ^ "Swim Mark Shattered". Los Angeles Times: p. 8. May 27, 1939.
- ^ Photograph of Esther Williams's High School Yearbook
- ^ "Esther Williams Queen of Aquacade". Los Angeles Times: p. A12. May 13, 1940.
- ^ Hopper, Hedda (November 15, 1942). "Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood". Los Angeles Times: p. C3.
- ^ Scott, John L. (March 12, 1943). "Screen and Stage". Los Angeles Times: p. 14.
- ^ Box Office Report in re Thrill of a Romance
- ^ http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=88203
- ^ April 19, 1945 The Deseret News
- ^ a b http://www.boxofficereport.com/database/1949.shtml
- ^ a b c d 1999 New York Times Interview
- ^ "Esther Williams, Alan Ladd Get Movie Henriettas". Los Angeles Times: p. B1. January 27, 1952.
- ^ TCM Database listing for Duchess of Idaho
- ^ TCM Database listing for Callaway Went Thataway
- ^ Hopper, Hedda (Mar 7, 1953). "'Athena' Announced for Esther Williams". Los Angeles Times: p. 8.
- ^ Schallert, Edwin (January 6, 1954;). "Drama". Los Angeles Times: p. B7.
- ^ The Toldeo Blade, May 19, 1953
- ^ Box Office Barometer, November 15, 1947 "This states Olympic Venus as incomplete."
- ^ (Fredericksburg, Virginia) Free-Lane Star, August 9, 1960
- ^ a b "Esther Williams Sues for Divorce". Los Angeles Times: p. A10. August 15, 1944.
- ^ September 11, 1944 San Jose Evening News
- ^ "Esther Williams Will be Married Tomorrow". Los Angeles Times: p. A1. November 24, 1945.
- ^ November 17, 1945 Ellensburg, Washington Daily Record
- ^ April 9, 1958 Los Angeles Times
- ^ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 23, 1997 article
- ^ GMA interview with Diane Sawyer in 2007
- ^ Esther, USS Floyd B. Parks (DD-884) memorial page, accessed April 16, 2008
- ^ Karcher, Daniel M., CAPT USN "We've Come for Esther" United States Naval Institute Proceedings July 1986 pp. 115-16
- ^ Chasing Esther Willians, Navy News, Vol 47, No 12, July 15, 2004, accessed April 16, 2008
- ^ Esther’s Navy fame spans the globe, Navy News, Vol 48, No 10, June 16, 2004, accessed April 16, 2008
- ^ Esther Williams' Trophy, Digital Dimensions (2007), accessed April 16, 2008
[edit] Further reading
- Williams, Esther. The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1999.
[edit] External links
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