Esther Williams is famous
as Hollywood's mermaid, the movie star who swam her way to popularity in MGM
movies. For ten years she was a huge star at the box-office, and outgrossed
several more publicised actresses by a large margin. Although MGM never promoted Esther as a Love Goddess, she was a prime mover in the evolution
of the Western pin-up, and is indisputably the link between the naughty postcards
of the Victorian era and the television show "Baywatch". Almost
certainly she was also a major influence on Hugh Hefner and his development of "Playboy"
magazine.
Esther was born in Los Angeles
in 1922 into a poor family which became even poorer during the depression
of the 1930s. On learning to swim, she found an immediate affinity with water
that apparently exists to this day. Esther's aptitude for swimming opened
doors that would normally have been closed to her. She was allowed to use
the pool at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and was invited to enter competitions
as a member of the club's team. Esther was a distinguished competitor who
set new swimming records, and rapidly she acquired medals and fame.
The late 1930s was a period
of change in feminine glamour. Big female stars in show business still confined themselves to
publicity photographs in which lighting, clothing and posture would give them dignity. Pin-up poses were for struggling starlets. However the public appetite
for pictures of young women in swim-suits was growing, and newspapers and
magazines were searching for suitable subjects and for excuses to print
such photographs. A swimming contest provided both, and the teen-age
Esther Williams became a target for photographers.
Esther's looks and achievements
came to the attention of Billy Rose who offered her a star role in his San
Francisco "Aquacade". This was Esther's introduction to show business, and it
left her disenchanted. In her splendid, riveting autobiography "The Million
Dollar Mermaid", Esther tells how, during her time in "Aquacade", she observed
and experienced sexual harassment, the abuse of power, and dishonesty among agents.
Esther resolved to quit the world of entertainment, and to be a housewife
with a modest conventional job in a department store. It was not to be. MGM
had plans for her.
Although the old Hollywood
studios made many decisions of comic absurdity, they also made several that were
absolutely right, and few were more shrewdly judged than MGM's assessment
of what could be achieved with Esther Williams.
MGM had noticed the general
public's growing enthusiasm for pin-up glamour. MGM knew there was also a
strong puritan ethos which disapproved of open admiration for the well-shaped
female body. MGM were aware of the commercial success of Sonja Henie's movies
at 20th Century Fox. (Sonja Henie was an Olympic ice skating champion who appeared
in a series of vacuous movies which centred on her skating talents.) MGM calculated
they would have similar box-office success if they could find a female swimming
champion who also qualified as a pin-up. It was to be an exercise in hypocrisy.
The films would be innocent, sex-free romances with plenty of healthy out-door
activities. The girl would be modest, friendly and morally pure.
The fact that she would be seen frequently in a swim-suit
would be just a little coincidence, a mere by-product of the story. For MGM
there was one problem. Was there a brilliant girl swimmer who qualified as
a pin-up?
In 1941,
Esther was a true Goddess. She stood five feet eight inches tall. She had
a pretty face, long athletic legs and a firm, shapely figure. Esther also
had a husband, a steady job, a level head, an independent mind and a disdain
for show business. Unfortunately for MGM, there was no other suitable candidate.
MGM laid siege and the war of attrition began. The siege of Troy lasted longer,
but MGM did have to wait a year before Esther signed with them. She was nineteen
years old.
Esther's first months at
MGM were spent studying deportment and elocution as well as acting, dancing
and singing. Numerous still photographs were taken of her, and MGM's publicity
department managed to place many of them on magazine covers, even though Esther
was still almost unknown. She was given small roles in a few films and then
MGM took the plunge. Esther was cast opposite Red Skelton in "Bathing
Beauty", the first authentic Esther Williams movie, the first film where
swimming was the unique selling point. "Bathing Beauty" was a huge
financial success, and vindicated MGM's faith in Esther as a commercial proposition.
MGM pushed the boat out,
and the series of Esther Williams movies began. They were of course formulaic,
and looked back to Sonja Henie's movies as well as forward
to the films Elvis Presley made in the 1960s. Like Henie
and Presley, Esther was adored by the cinema-going public and scorned by the
critics. None of her films ever won awards, but they certainly made a profit.
Esther makes clear in her autobiography that she was aware of the shortcomings
of her movies and of the limitations of her directors, but became resigned
to the fact that MGM would not risk a winning formula by raising
standards. Her despairing attitude was confirmed by Charles Walters,
one of the few directors she really liked, in an interview he gave in "Films
And Filming" (August 1970). Walters remembered reading Esther the good reviews
his movie "Lili" had received: "Esther was so touched she started
crying. "You're too good for me. They'll take you away. We'll never do
another picture together." She's a dear dame. The only person I know
who didn't want a theatrical career - she got into the business by mistake."
Such lack of self-esteem was never
apparent in Esther's movies, where she personified a sunny and optimistic
disposition. Whether playing a cross Channel swimmer or the owner of a baseball
team, a South American posing as a bullfighter (!) or an American swimming
instructor, Esther embodied positive values. She did not play spoiled brats
or flighty prima donnas. She played healthy and energetic young women who
had good manners and a sense of humour; and she did it wearing a swim suit.
Her movies demonstrated that displaying arms, legs and the outline of one's figure was
not the exclusive preserve of vamps and molls.
It was something that could be done by a well-brought up middle-class girl
who led a healthy life style and who was well liked by normal people. Esther
proved that such roles were not confined to starlets: they could be played
by a major box-office star. When
Esther ventured into business
partnerships marketing swimming pools and sportswear, both her screen persona and her status as swimming
champion and movie star gave her great impact when advertising these products,
and to this day Esther derives an income from her business ventures. Esther
had a more subtle influence in a different area.
In the mid 1950s,
the number of men's magazines displaying photographs of naked women increased
vastly. With hindsight it is obvious that only some of these magazines would
survive, and for a few years there was intense rivalry among the magazine
proprietors. One young entrepreneur found an ingenious way both of separating
his magazine from the competition and of shielding himself from charges
of sexism. Hugh Hefner made a policy decision that alongside the photographs, "Playboy" would print essays stressing the
women's qualities as companions. These articles presented the
"Playmates" as healthy, uncomplicated and positive women who just happened to be unusually well-shaped. They
also just happened to be rather similar to Esther Williams' screen persona.
Hugh Hefner has always been a movie fan . . . . .
The tide turned for Esther's
movie career in the mid 1950s when Dore Schary took over from Louis B. Mayer
at MGM. Schary did not share Mayer's taste for happy, colourful entertainment,
and seemed to feel that making drab movies was artistic. Esther's days at
MGM were numbered. Her problem was aggravated by the stills camera's tendency
to emphasise her age. Whereas most actresses in their publicity photographs
always look several years younger than they are, when Esther was thirty years
old, her publicity photographs highlighted the fact.
Freelancing, Esther made two
films at Universal and then effectively left the industry. She made only
one
further movie. For several years she performed in a stage act, sometimes for
very large fees, until she married Fernando Lamas and retired.
Since retiring, Esther has
been a fount of knowledge for many journalists, and biographies of Ava Gardner,
Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra all contain nuggets of information supplied
by Esther. Most of all, Esther has, in partnership with Digby Diehl, written
one of the best show business autobiographies ever. Structured and paced like
a well crafted novel, it spins a fascinating tale incorporating an uneven
childhood and worthless husbands, Louis B. Mayer's tantrums and Esther's experimentation
with LSD, attempts at casting couch seduction and the dissipation of her earnings.
Laced with spicy anecdotes, "The Million Dollar Mermaid" provides detailed information without ever becoming turgid. Yet, for all
its excellence, there is a fault line running through the book.
The physical size of men
is clearly significant to Esther, and repeatedly she makes an issue of it.
(For example, Esther tells of an occasion when she came across Micky Rooney
at the Beverley Hills Hotel, and she remarked on their difference in
height. Rooney responded with a sharp witticism and walked off. Did Esther
not realise that Micky Rooney might be sensitive about being small?) Esther
is candid about her sex drive, and is also at pains to emphasise
that she was feisty, audacious, and unimpressed by status.
Yet she admits that in her marriages she was submissive, to her own detriment.
Her book makes no attempt to explain this contradiction, and many readers will
leap to an obvious conclusion. (This website of course is far too polite
to speculate!)
This gap in Esther's self-revelation
combined with her unrecognised contribution to the history of the pin-up makes
her one of the more interesting icons from the classic age of movies. It is
high time that Esther Williams was restored to her rightful place as one of
the central figures in 20th Century popular culture.
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