I prayed that my seatmate on the plane would not want to talk, which mercifully was the case. It was one of those hot, humid times in New York, when brownout was a constant fear, air conditioners labored to no effect,Īnd the air felt too thick to draw into your lungs. I remember, in late August of that year, boarding an American Airlines flight from New York and being in a state of exhaustion. Behind that public facade was a woman in deep emotional pain. NBC was courting me to shoot a special called Esther I was also considering the possibility of jumping into television. During the location shoot in Italy, I'd begun a relationship, with my costar Jeff Chandler, My last movie, Raw Wind in Eden, had come out the previous year. The gossip columnists couldn't stop buzzing about my supposedly fabulous love life since Never was I more "unraveled" than in 1959, when being Esther Williams became an exercise in schizophrenia. Meanwhile, for most of that time I was working twelve-hour days in that huge pool at MGM, creating movie fantasies,Īnd then coming home each night to a personal life that seemed to repeatedly unravel. Perfect homemaker the Hollywood glamour queen and a sex symbol in a bathing suit - all rolled into one. The press portrayed me as a kind of post-World War II version of Martha Stewart - "the Mermaid Tycoon," as I was dubbed on the cover of Life the The world remembers me as a movie star, but most of my life I have thought about myself in various family roles - as daughter, sister, wife, and,Ībove all, mother. Misplaced trust, the passionate love, and the need for a safe haven. Edward Bell, my heart goes out to all of them for the naive expectations, the Sometimes I think that there must have been three different women who became Mrs. Kid walks through the gates of MGM a year later and swims her way to movie stardom. Of course, I have to chuckle as that same
I'm awed by the kid with no theatrical training who walked onto the stage of Billy Rose's Aquacade at the San Francisco Exposition and became a media darling overnight. I'm still rooting for that determined teenage swimmer who kicked and stroked her way through hundreds of miles of training in the water to a national championship. I love that sweet little child who grew up in the depression and, being the fifth child,įelt the need to try so hard to please her family. Which Esther Williams do you want to hear about? As I look back through the filing cabinet of my life while writing this book, I realize that there are many of us.
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