View source for Esther Williams

{{Bioheader}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Esther}}
{{Infobox actor
|          name = Esther Williams
|         image = Esther Williams-mdb.jpg
|       caption = from the trailer for ''Million Dollar Mermaid'' (1952)
|     birthname = Esther Jane Williams
|     birthdate = {{dob|1921|8|8}}
|      location = Inglewood, California, {{USA}}
|     deathdate = {{dod|2013|06|06|1921|8|8}}
|    deathplace = Los Angeles, CA
|    deathcause = Natural causes
| spouse        = Leonard Kovner (1940-1944) <br> Ben Gage (1945-1959) <br> Fernando Lamas (1969-1982) <br> Edward Bell (1994-)}}
{{shp|pin=1|msh=1|yank=1}}

'''Esther Jane Williams''' ({{star}} August 8, 1921– {{dag}}June 6, 2013) 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 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. 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 not to continue in films.

== Personal life ==
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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.

== Death and legacy ==
Esther Williams died in her sleep on June 6, 2013, from natural causes, in her Los Angeles home. She was 91. She was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

On her death, CNN quoted her International Swimming Hall of Fame biography, saying, "Her movie career played a major role in the promotion of swimming, making it attractive to the public, contributing to the growth of the sport as a public recreation for health, exercise, water safety – and just plain fun." Her stepson Lorenzo Lamas tweeted she was "The best swim teacher and soul mom." Her friend Annabeth Gish also tweeted a tribute, writing that Esther Williams was "An elegant, gracious movie star, legend and neighbor". Film historian Leonard Maltin called her "a major, major star, a tremendous box office attraction."

For her contribution to the motion-picture industry, Williams has a star on the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]] at 1560 Vine Street. She left her hand and footprints in front of the [[Sid Grauman|Grauman's Chinese Theatre]] on August 1, 1944.

Williams was mentioned in the "Court Charades" sketch in the 1970 "Monty Python's Flying Circus" episode "The Spanish Inquisition" where Eric Idle mentions her to which Graham Chapman responds "How can you find the defendant 'Not Esther Williams'?"

Scarlett Johansson's character, DeeAnna Moran in the 2016 Coen Brothers film, Hail, Caesar!, shares several similarities with Williams, most notably being an aquamusical star who becomes pregnant during production.

== Archive ==
Esther Williams donated her personal film archive, including twenty home movies, to the Academy Film Archive. The Academy Film Archive has subsequently preserved several of these home movies.
== Pin-up Gallery ==
<center><gallery>
image:EstherWilliams-5oct45.jpg|Yank Magazine<br>5 Oct 45
image:EstherWilliams.jpg|Yank Magazine<br>12 Oct 45
image:Esther_Williams_1943.jpg|Esther Wiliams in 1943
image:Esther_Williams_trophy.jpg|[[The Esther Williams Trophy]]
image:
</gallery></center>
{{yank|12 October 1945}} 

== Filmography ==
<table width="95%" border="1" align="center"><tr> <td width="50%" valign="top">
;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) 
</td><td width="50%" valign="top">
*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) 
</td></tr></table>

== "Esther Williams Trophy" ==
[[File:EstherWilliamsTrophy.jpg|thumb|right|200px|{{bc|The 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. 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, British Royal Navy, and Canadian Navy ships in Asian waters. 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 30 June 2004 for only the fourth time since 1943.

At various times, the holders of the trophy have either flown an Esther flag or sent naval signals (signed 'Esther') to other nearby ships to indicate where the trophy resided. Notably, on 16 April 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).

A documentary on the trophy's history was produced in 2007.

{{Sa-Esther Williams Trophy}}
== References ==

==External links ==
*{{imdb name|id=0930565|name=Esther Williams}}
*[http://www.thegoldenyears.org/williams.html The Golden Years] 
*[http://www.estherwilliamspools.com/ Esther Williams Swimming Pools website]
*[http://www.esther-williams.com/index.htm Official Esther Williams Website]
*[http://randomshelf.blogspot.com/2007/07/dvd-review-esther-williams-collection.html The Shelf: Review of The Esther Williams Collection, Vol.1]
*[http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=4911 Photographs of Esther Williams]
*[http://www.esthersfollies.com/ [[Vaudeville]] theater named in honor of Esther Williams]

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