Esther williams

The actress is remembered above all for her aquatic shows, almost always present in her films. Esther was an excellent swimmer, which, coupled with her natural grace and imposing physique, made her the perfect dream woman of light stories and happy-go-lucky worlds, ideal to be seen clad in Technicolor bathing suits in the 1980s. that Hollywood was living its golden age.

Esther Jane Williams was born on August 8, 1921 in Los Angeles (California). From a very young age, she showed her talent for swimming, an activity to which she dedicated many years of her childhood and adolescence. She was actually about to go to the Olympics, but she had to quit because of World War II. She married very early, at the age of 19, to a certain Leonard Kovner, but the marriage failed four years later. Throughout her life, the actress would marry three more times, and among her husbands was Fernando Lamas , until her death. At just twenty years old, Williams was discovered by an MGM agent when she was working at a store in her hometown.

His first feature film was Andy Hardy’s Double Life , a fun film that falls within the saga of the character played by Mickey Rooney in numerous films. Here Esther was 21 years old and played a young woman who attracted the protagonist. The following year his importance grew in the war drama Two in Heaven , where he would coincide for the first time with Van Johnson , with whom he would later shoot another six films, the most successful of his career if we except his rise to fame in 1944. mermaid schoolThat year was the film that truly made her known: all charm, all legs, all delicate movements, all gleaming teeth and graceful youth, and of course an excellent gift for unsophisticated comedy. In that film, directed by George Sidney , she coincided with the comedian Red Skelton . Music by jazz bandleaders Xavier Cugat and Harry James also helped the ensemble . It was Clark Gable ‘s idea that from then on the actress would be nicknamed “The Mermaid of America.” Water musicals began to be his thing.

Then in 1945, she worked in the great cast of the Ziegfeld Follies musical reportage , and the adventurer Richard Thorpe brought out the best of the actress again in the gentle romantic musical The Passion Games , with Van Johnson. With Thorpe she would also form a good tandem, since she shot a total of five films. She and she reprized with actor Van Johnson the following year in one of her biggest hits: Easy to Wed. In it, Williams plays a millionaire who sues her father’s newspaper because her newspaper accuses him of being a seductive marriage breaker. She later dared to become a bullfighter in Fiesta brava (1947), with Ricardo Montalbán and where another great actress from musicals appeared,Cyd Charisse . She reprized with them and Thorpe in the comedy On an Island with You (1948), in which a group of filmmakers go to Hawaii to shoot a movie. And in 1949 she was Red Skelton’s partner again in Neptune’s Daughter , where Williams gave a good account of splendid aquatic numbers.

He began the 1950s shooting hand in hand with Robert Z. Leonard Serenade Under the Sun , a pleasant romantic film, once again partnering with Van Johnson. And she continued shooting other light musicals, such as Pagan Love Song (1950), Texas Carnival (1951), Skirts on Board or The First Mermaid (1952). The actress, however, was very pigeonholed and almost always played identical roles: songs, aquatic choreography, romances and smiles. Emblematic of that cinema were her last two hits: Easy to Love (1953), with Van Johnson and La amada de Jupiter (1955), a comedy by George Sidney but this time with Howard Keel .as a partner of the actress.

But Williams was tired of doing the same thing, and despite MGM’s offers, she declined to do those roles again. And she took a chance on a crime drama, Shadows in the Night, with John Saxon . But that attempt to renew her career did not come to fruition and the filmography of the beautiful actress stagnated. She just appeared sporadically in some low-quality television series. Her last two works were dramas: The Big Show (1961) and The Magic Fountain (1963). Esther Williams was only 42 years old and her film career was over. She was still offered a role in the 70s, in The Poseidon Adventure or The Burning Colossus , but she did not hesitate to reject her offers.