''I can't be married to a matron,'' Williams explained, adding that Chandler was “too big for polka dots. Find out more, The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Rare color video. Esther Jane Williams. Crucially, she also reunited with her three children, and managed to rebuild relationships with each. Most appalling of all was that he refused to allow her three children into their house. On December 31, 1969, Esther married Fernando Lamas until his death on October 8, 1982. Mayer, having seen the huge success that 20th Century Fox was enjoying with whimsical ice dancing films starring the Olympic figure skater Sonja Henie, instructed his minions, “melt the ice, get a swimmer, make it pretty.” They brought back Williams, who confounded Mayer by having absolutely no interest in making films, which made him want her even more. Dangerous When Wet (1953) Official Trailer - Esther Williams, Fernando Lamas Movie HDA young woman enters a contest to be the first to swim the English Channel.Director: Charles WaltersWriter: Dorothy KingsleyStars: Esther Williams, Fernando Lamas, Jack Carson They were later divorced in 1960. Fred Astaire had Gene Kelly, even Donald Duck had Daffy, but Williams remains the only Hollywood star never to have a challenger. She also made several films with Ricardo Montalbán, most memorably 1949’s Neptune’s Daughter, in which they sang Baby, It’s Cold Outside. F rom 1960, she coupled up with the actor Fernando Lamas, “a black belt in the bedroom arts” to whom she was later married from 1969 until his death from pancreatic cancer in 1982. Esther Williams and Fernando Lamas star DANGEROUS WHEN WET, a delightful musical about an American girl and her dream to swim the English Channel. In 1950 he came to the US and appeared … He was previously married to Esther Williams. They separated in 1952 and she finally divorced him in 1959, when Williams discovered that he had left her owing taxes amounting to $750,000 that she now did not have. During the last months of her marriage to Gage, Williams struck up an affair with her co-star in Million Dollar Mermaid, Victor Mature, “the one man I never had to teach anything to, not even how to swim.” The affair lasted until Williams broke her neck while taking a 50ft swan dive during filming, and took six months to recover. By 1949 he had starred in 14 Argentine films. Actor, Writer, and Director. Once her time at MGM had come to a close, the former prima ballerina of the water then tried her hand at dramatic roles at Universal, including The Unguarded Moment (1956) as a schoolteacher sexually attacked by one of her pupils. (Fernando, also, happens to be one of the only professional grade swimmers Esther ever co-starred with). Williams played a swimming instructor at a women's college and the picture ended with a spectacular water-ballet set to the Blue Danube waltz, with alternate jets of water and flame bursting from the pool. He was known for playing the "Latin Lover" in many movies during the 1940s and 1950s. I'm sorry that my physique doesn't fit in with your plans.''. By 16, she was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swimming team and had won three national championships in both the breaststroke and freestyle. “He never stopped looking for attention,” Williams said. In Spain, she dined with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the former getting very drunk: “'I used your favourite thing,' Wally shouted to me proudly. Sadly, Weissmuller was unable to enjoy the compliments, having died in 1984. Williams enjoyed a robust, if not always happy, love life. He sup­ported Greer Gar­son and Michael Wild­ing in The Law and the Lady(1952) which was a flop. Williams told the New York Times in 1999, ''I'll bet if I compare notes with Junie Allyson and Debbie Reynolds and anyone else who's had more than one marriage, the fact is that you fall in love and it's so wonderful to think about something other than yourself and whether the script's right for you and who's going to be your leading man, that you don't really ask yourself questions about the fellow.”. She lived in total submission to Lamas, who promised to remain faithful to her only if she put him first in everything – and gain weight so as not to be attractive to other men. Her older sister, Maurine, took her to Manhattan Beach and to the local pool. Buddy McClure raped Williams repeatedly for two years. Gender. All they ever did for me at MGM was to change my leading men and the water in the pool." Yet Williams’s swimsuit was a sign of her strength and skill, rather than sexiness. Lamas died in 1982, and six years later Williams married a professor of French literature, Edward Bell. The lifeguards taught her the “men’s strokes” that were considered unladylike; learning the butterfly would secure Williams her future income. Esther Jane Williams grew up destined for a career in athletics. There's a panoramic view to the Pacific Ocean and a custom-made Esther Williams kick board propped on the lawn. They were married in 1954. Williams and her team used a mixture of baby oil and Vaseline with thick coloured waterproof cream makeup, as well as industrial support from false plaits. Her brother Stanton, elder by nine years, was spotted by a movie actress, and the family move to Los Angeles to support him, but his career ended almost before it started when his colon ruptured in 1921, and he died. "No one had ever done a swimming movie before," she explained, "so we just made it up as we went along. In Fiesta (1947), Williams struck a blow for senoritas' lib by proving herself the equal of any male matador, while in Take Me Out To The Ball Game (in Britain, Everyone's Cheering, 1949), she played the owner-manager of a baseball team, whose initial interest in Gene Kelly lies in his ability to play ball. Born in her parents’ living room, which doubled as the family bedroom, Williams was the youngest of five children. Somewhat ironically, given modern controversy over its lyrics, the song was a replacement for a number dismissed by studio censors as being too sexual. Aug 27, 2017 - Explore Meg Hunt's board "esther Williams", followed by 129 people on Pinterest. Full name. MGM scouts saw her in the show, and signed her to a contract. In Sep­tem­ber 1949, he signed a con­tract with Metro-Gold­wyn-Mayer and went on to play "Latin Lover" roles.In 1951, Lamas starred as Paul Sarnac in the mu­si­cal, Rich, Young and Pretty with Jane Pow­ell. Her final movie appearance came in Fuente Magica (The Magic Fountain, 1963) directed by Lamas, whom she married in 1969. Like the starlets Lana Turner, Kathryn Grayson and Donna Reed before her, she started out for MGM in a Hardy Family picture, Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942) – though one that allowed her to swim with Mickey Rooney. 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With Esther Williams, Fernando Lamas, Jack Carson, Charlotte Greenwood. https://estherwilliams-dawn.blogspot.com/2010/02/fernando-lamas.html However, the showman Billy Rose noticed a photo of her, and starred her as Aquabelle opposite the Olympian and screen Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller as Aquadonis in his San Francisco Aquacade review. Williams’ costumes and routines became ever more complex, and keeping her looking beautiful underwater was a challenge in itself. Directed by Charles Walters, Joseph Barbera, William Hanna. Filmed on location at Cypress Gardens, Florida, it has over 30 waterskiers towed in arrowhead formation with Williams at the tip. She would later remark: "My pictures were put together out of scraps they found in the producer's wastebasket. “And the thongs! She took a job counting towels at the pool to pay the five cent entry fee, and while there, had swimming lessons from the male lifeguards. Inevitably, she thaws (after a swim) and falls for his rather blatant charms. Together they made profitable businesses of Esther Williams Swimming Pools and the Esther Williams Collection, one of America's most recognised swimwear brands. Variety magazine said that William was "pulled to stardom by her swimsuit straps". He was born Fernando Alvaro Lamas y de Santos in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he began his acting career and was an established movie star by 1942. Soul, review: Pixar stares death in the face with warmth, wit and wonder, The 30 best Christmas movies to watch on Netflix UK now, from Love Actually to The Princess Switch, ‘Livestreams feel like a new genre’: Ariana Grande’s director on the musical trend of 2020. Female. Esther Williams is a member of the following lists: American film actors, American television actors and California Republicans. Williams and Montalbán’s rendition won the Oscar that year for Best Original Song, and Neptune’s Daughter was one of the US’s top 10-grossing films of the year – not bad for a girl who couldn’t sing. Esther Williams, "Hollywood's Mermaid", who has died aged 91, ... (1953), co-starring her future husband Fernando Lamas, was taken up by her preparations to swim the English Channel. However, she did not give in to groping very easily on screen: "My movies made it clear it's all right to be strong and feminine at the same time," she claimed. Although Williams did all her own swimming, she often had a stand-in for the more dangerous stunts. The high spot of the film was Berkeley's elaborately staged aquatic production number in which Esther rises like Aphrodite from the water surrounded by nymphs, and dives from a tremendous height into the centre of a kaleidoscopic pattern formed by swimmers. Aged 17, she won the 100m freestyle, and set a record in the 100-meter breaststroke. Williams was often mocked by other actors and industry bigwigs, but she knew her job and she did it well, and bravely: who else was going to dive 50ft, or water ski into a chorus? The movie was a bigger hit than anyone had anticipated, and MGM spent the following decade hiring writers to invent scripts which allowed Esther to get wet. They jump and slalom around the beautiful amphibian before she seizes a trapeze dangled from a helicopter, rises to the height of 500 feet, and dives into the pleasure-garden lagoon. See more ideas about Esther williams, Esther, Williams. It is the first and only movie in which Esther starred opposite future husband, Fernando Lamas.