Sleeping With the Fishes

(Props to Monty)
Esther Williams, a star to those who thought that characters randomly breaking into song in the middle of a movie wasn’t awkward enough and that having them do it in a pool really took it over the top, has died at the age of 91. Williams won three gold medals at the US national championships in 1939 at the age of 17, earning a spot on the 1940 US Olympic team. Unfortunately, with Germany’s invasion of Poland, there were no 1940 Olympics. Instead, she and MGM put her athletic body in wet clingy suits and made the most of it for over a decade of water-logged spectacles orchestrated by Busby Berkeley like Bathing Beauty, Dangerous When Wet and Million Dollar Mermaid that proved unpredictably popular to undiscerning post-war audiences. MGM built a $250,000 25-foot deep swimming pool with underwater windows, colored fountains and hydraulic lifts that was usually stocked with a dozen bathing beauties. That pool also saw Williams rupture her eardrums seven times and break her back when the metal crown she wore during a 50-foot platform dive caused her head to snap back when she hit the water. She was as successful and interesting out of the water as Ryan Lochte, and her attempts at dry-land based drama were flops with audiences. Decades after her film career ended, her name was still so associated with swimming, she was able to parlay her fame into endorsements for swimsuits and above-ground pools.