Top Songs By Esther Williams
About Esther Williams
Hometown
Inglewood, CA, United States
Born
August 8, 1921
Genre
Soundtrack
b. 8 August 1921 or 1923, Inglewood, Los Angeles, California, USA. One of MGM’s top film musicals stars in the 40s and 50s, Esther Williams’ mother boasted that her daughter (one of five children) swam before she walked. By the time she was 15, she had won every national swimming competition and was set to represent the USA in the Olympic Games in Finland, but they were cancelled following the outbreak of World War II. She studied for a time at the University of Southern California before joining Billy Rose’s Aquacade in San Francisco, in which her co-star was Johnny Weissmuller. While in the show she was spotted by MGM talent scouts, and made her film debut in 1942 as one of Mickey Rooney’s girlfriends in Andy Hardy’s Double Life. She had some swimming scenes in that one, and in Bathing Beauty (1944). For Ziegfeld Follies (1946), special water ballets were created for her. Her first starring role came in Fiesta (1947), with Ricardo Montalban, and this was followed by a string of dazzling Technicolor movies in which her glamorous looks and pleasing personality were permanently on display. These included This Time For Keeps, On An Island With You, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, Neptune’s Daughter, The Duchess Of Idaho, Pagan Love Song, Texas Carnival, Skirts Ahoy!, Million Dollar Mermaid, Dangerous When Wet, Easy To Love, and Jupiter’s Darling (1955). With the demise of the big-budget Hollywood musicals she played several straight roles, but her appeal had diminished, and her last picture, The Magic Fountain, was released in 1961. While MGM went to great lengths to show-case her superb swimming ability in some of the most lavish and spectacular aqua-sequences ever seen on the screen, and co-starred her with several attractive leading men (including cartoon characters Tom and Jerry), her acting ability was not allowed to develop, and her quite pleasant singing voice was rather neglected. However, she did sing a lovely version of ‘The Sea Of The Moon’ (Harry Warren - Arthur Freed) in The Pagan Love Song, and handled some of Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer’s numbers extremely well in Dangerous When Wet. She also introduced Frank Loesser’s Oscar-winning ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ with Ricardo Montalban in Neptune’s Daughter. In 1962 she stopped making films, and went - as she herself put it - from ‘show business into business business’. Initially this concerned commercial swimming pools, but two husbands later - actor Fernando Lamas, and Edward Bell, whom she met at the 1984 Olympics - it had evolved into swimsuits. In a big way.
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