Big screen star Esther Williams died yesterday at the age of 91. She had an unusual career in films, most of them built around elaborate water scenes where she swam for the camera.
Like a scuba diver caught in a dolphin net, Esther Williams became enmeshed in a Hollywood formula. There was little hope that filmgoers or movie moguls would accept her as anything other than a cheerful waterborne sprite. She suffered injuries and endured typecasting to hang on to her distinctive version of success.
I think it was a lot harder than it looks for Williams to “swim pretty”. Maintaining a graceful form, keeping your face turned towards the camera, remembering to smile and having bright, open eyes are all challenges that would defeat an ordinary cinematic swimmer.
I know when I’m in a pool, I squint. And that’s just where the aesthetic challenges begin. Once I get a little chlorinated water up my nose, the flailing starts and there is nothing going on in my area that a poolside observer would want to see.
Esther Williams was a star, and she earned it.
How do you fare in the water?
Trail Baboon 
I know a couple of synchronized swimmers. They train year ’round and spend a lot of time in the pool. The best of them also work out like Marines out of the water. All so they can make it look really easy, not to mention pretty.
Me, I am very out-of-shape and find doing a couple of laps challenging, but I’m working on it.
My idea of a good time in the water involves sitting in a hopefully not too chlorinated hot tub.
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These days, I’m with you, mig, the hot tub sounds great. Unfortunately, the YMCA that I go to, doesn’t have one.
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the YW on Cathedral Hill has one, could your membership somehow let you access that?
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Good morning. I learned to swim when my parents sent me to the YMCA for swimming lessons. I also had some training in how to rescue a drowning person that were given in my high school gym classes. Most of my swimming was done in lakes when I was a kid. I liked to explore the bottoms of lakes wearing a snorkel tube and goggles. Currently I do very little swimming.
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nice to have you back mig. lead us off too. \
I have a daughter who was a syncro girl and a sno who was a swimmer on the swim team.
I as a kid was like a fish and loved being in the water. I took swimming lessons starting in 1st grade and had passed all the stuff you could pass by the time I was in 3rd grade. they weren’t smart enough to have a program for people ahead of the curve so I sat and waited for the next class until I was the correct age. by then the fascination was gone.
when the daughter was on the syncro team they would practice hours every week with their egg beater arms and legs making it look like they weren’t moving. the first bunch of years was like watching paint dry all that to make you leg stick out of the water. not my idea of accomplishment but she loved, when she quit she got big as a house. the extra 4 million calories she burnt of were not getting burned off anymore and up she blew.
sons swim team was more fun to watch. races that had action followed by hours of sitting in a chlorine smelling school wing somewhere. pools are always 150 degrees inside and the waiting for the race to happen involves getting a strategic seat and then leaving purses, bags and towels to reserve your spot for the 2 minutes of race then away for 3 more hours to a spot in the wing of the school usually a blanket on the floor in front of the locker bank. when he gave it up I was sad but I got over it.
I had a pool in the back yard at my folks house I put in when I was in high school. it was fun and a great place to hang in the summer but lots of maintenance. april 15 to October 15 was pool season and the option of going far a dip on a sunny day or cranking up the heat for a warm morning or evening swim in the fall was delightful.
today I have replaced the pool with a bath tub. I take more baths than the average person and I have passed this tradition along to my children too, therapy of sorts. a book a blog or a tv movie all go very nicely in the tub and the only thing to be considered is the size of the water heater to keep that hot water coming for the duration of the soak.
my favorite national park activity may be sitting in the hot pots in Yellowstone where the hot water coming out of the rive bank heats the river and you sit and soak wit the water running over you at the desired temperature by moving around in the river to a spot where more or less cool water has been added to the hot. . different in December than in july with the water high or low. I have been scalded with hot water and I have been massaged with water comng straight out of the wall of the river bank at the perfect temperature for a back thumping treatment in ideal conditions.
I have lived in places where there is only a shower but I have never called it home. its got to be a tub and its got to be a good one not one of those little ones where your knees cant get under because its too cramped.
ester made it look easy to enjoy the water. I don’t care how it looks, I just enjoy it.
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How does a sno swim? Is it like a Face ook gem?
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Salt water, fresh water, chlorinated water, I love it all, and like tim, I spent a lot of time in it when growing up. During the years at the boarding school, the nuns would take us swimming during the summer. We’d walk as a group, twelve children and two nuns in full nun regalia, the half hour or more to get to the beach, each carrying our bath towels. One part of the trek took us on a narrow path along a field of peas which we’d steal handfuls of when we saw our chance. Interestingly enough, I remember those walks vividly, but have no recollection of actually going in the water. I do recall, however, sitting on the beach in my swimsuit on my towel, shivering, skin all shriveled up and lips purple, so no doubt I spent plenty of time in the water. In retrospect, I admire the dedication it took of Sr. Antonia and Sr. Maryanne to lead us all the adventures they did. I loved those two women, and if there is a heaven anywhere, I know they are there.
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My mom has similar recollections and fun memories of the nuns that worker teachers I have no such memories the nuns the top me where the St. Joseph penguins that wielded metal edged rulers that left knuckles bloody children cowering in the hallways St. Joseph nuns must have had a coaching Program that started off with children as being seen and not heard discipline and not enjoy and in general something to be dealt with and terrorized into submission I didn’t enjoy my time Catholic school although I did put in some hours underneath sister Mary Magdalene’s desk which was the ultimate Penance for bad behavior on the playground
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The nuns at our boarding school, tim, were also of the St. Joseph’s variety, back in the day when they wore the long black habits and veils, and those huge white bibs. With one notable exception, they were all kind, fun and gentle and treated us kids really well. The one exception, Sr. Celestine, was mean and strict; we all hated her. I’m sure every single one of us kids were secretly happy when she died after a short illness, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the other nuns felt the same way.
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our st joes pengins had the opposite deal. all mean and nasty and if there was a soft one ill bet she was tormented in her bunk until she conformed. we used to try to make em smile. we knew they were people but they never never never let it show
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Esther Williams was a lovely lady whose career was built on hypocrisy. Hollywood wanted an excuse to put a nearly naked beautiful woman in front of the camera. Williams’ swimming gave them the perfect excuse to shoot miles of sexy film footage without acknowledging that what they were peddling was sex, pure and simple. None of this reflects on Williams herself, who seems to have been as wholesome as she was gorgeous, and it isn’t her fault that America had such conflicting notions about sex when she was young.
I’m comfortable enough in water to avoid panic, but not by much. I have the natural swimming grace of a rock, if you can imagine a rock with whirling legs and arms. When I try to swim along the surface of a lake or pool I breath in water until it all falls apart and down I go. In spite of that, I have always been intrigued by what was going on under the surface of a body of water.
Thus it was a delight and total surprise to find, when I took a vacation in the Virgin Islands, that swimming in salt water is as easy as swimming in sweet water is not. Fitted with a snorkel, mask and frog feet I was graceful and maneuverable in the waters around the islands down there. I got to poke around in coral reefs, swim with a sea turtle, encounter a school of silver tarpon and feel terrified by encountering a school of barracudas with mouths full of razor blades. Swimming in salt water is a mind-blowing trip!
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They were peddling sex and nudity, but today their version of such would not even get a notice.
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someone once pointed out how much more erotic swimsuit and underwear models are than the centerfold in hustler,
you may have to just trust me on this one.
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I’m somewhat water-phobic and never learned to swim; less a fear of drowning, I think, than squeamishness about the sort of stuff that tends to be in water, that they use all that chlorine to get rid of. Flukes, those were a shock, thank you so very much, “X-Files” writers! Also, some years ago I had a series of nightmares that involved huge and malevolent lake fish appearing and disappearing in black water–not an experience designed to make me reconsider swimming lessons. Although, if I could swim I would dive coral reefs (while we still have some), as they are not only beautiful but tend to be in fairly clear water, where you can see what’s coming at you.
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I don’t swim well. Never have. My legs are like outboard motors. They provide excellent propulsion as long as they’re running. But if they get tired or stop, they’re anchors. And, even when they’re working, they’re heavy enough that I have to hyper-extend my back to get my head clear of the water so I can take a breath. And I’m fuzzy enough to not be very hydro-dynamic. Swimming is not my forte’.
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I can swim, but I don’t like to because I hate being cold, and I hate mosquitos, and I don’t like squishy mud or water plants on my feet. I might like sea water swimming the way Steve described.
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are you fro north Dakota?
is you house by the lake?
are you near the tree also
who is the school marm this year?
we will cut you a little slack this time around renee but you may want to reevaluate
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You are so funny! There are so few lakes in ND. Most are manmade. Remember, I grew up in ROCK county, MN, where our lakes were gravel pits, with a mother who was terrified I would drown in any body of water larger than a bathtub. I vigorously defend MN when ND natives extoll about “the Lake: (Sakakewea), that it isn’t a real lake like we have on MN.
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ok so whos the school marm?
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With the advent of the oil boom, we have had to hire, at least in our town, 36 new teachers, especially in the lower grades. We have had an explosion of babies, many whose mothers never received any prenatal care until they arrived here, since their spouses never had any medical insurance until they got here with oil jobs. We have had many at-risk premies as a result.
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Rise and Paddle Baboons!
I’ve been recovering from a virus this week that has kept me sleeping late–kinda fun when I can do that.
Ester’s perfect red lipstick always fascinated me–what did they put on her lips to keep that lipstick on? Maybe they sprayed her lips with waterproof varnish, or something.
I learned to swim in the LeMars Public Swimming Pool, which was really an old gravel pit with lifeguards, diving boards, and 2 rafts for destination swimming. If you could learn to swim in that murky wather with the turtles and the carp, you could swim anywhere. I swim little these days–donning a suit is humiliating. The chlorine in pools triggers sinus infections, and I don’t need that either.
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I learned to swim in Carr’s Pool in Ames, and that explains a lot of my squeamishness about the whole thing. I hated stripping in the big boisterous bathhouse areas. Both the boys’ and girls’ dressing areas were built of wood, wood that was Swiss-cheesed with hundreds of little spy holes. Everyone knew that. After getting in your suit you marched toward the pool through a pool of revolting green slime that was supposed to kill all the cooties on your feet and between your toes before you could get in the pool to turn loose germs that could afflict others. As a kid I was prudish and Victorian, so that public pool was way WAY too earthy and sexy for my comfort. There were wild rumors about what happened around the pool at night when things got dark.
We were often told we couldn’t swim in Carr’s Pool in summer because that was “polio season.” My mother didn’t want me to have fun in the water at the expense of living the rest of my life in an iron lung.
The Carr family was probably the largest family in Ames. As a kid I was told that was because some parents would drop off unwanted children at Carr’s Pool and then race away on howling tires before they could be identified . . . much like the way people dump unwanted cats or dogs near parks. I later understood that the Carrs just loved kids and so they adopted them about like a dog or cat rescue operation adopts unwanted pets.
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I grew up near Lake Harriet and my mother was a former summer camp lifeguard. Not learning to swim was not an option. My brother and I were taken to swimming lessons early and informed that we needed to learn enough to be safe in the water. My brother did well and advanced through all of the lesson levels with ease. I have a definite pull to my starboard side when I swim and have since I was a kid. I advanced enough to get past learning basic front and back crawl and can also to breast and sidestroke, but I never learned how to swim the butterfly stroke. I am not a graceful swimmer and I don’t swim as much as I used to, but like Mom wanted, I swim well enough to be safe in the water.
In junior high I had a friend with a pool in her back yard. Though none of us had seen an Esther Williams film all the way through, we knew who she was and the basic gist of what compelled her to swim. We could spend afternoons dreaming up our own versions of synchronized routines (none of them any good or elaborate, let alone involving making rings with three people by hooking feet over shoulders) with a couple of the girls (and one of the guys) swapping off as being Esther. Often it was an argument with Ricardo Montalban (in our “movies”) that caused “Esther” to storm, flounce or sprint in for a therapeutic swim with her assortment of “pool dressing” swimmers…
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Love it, Anna – I can imagine this…
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Morning–
I can swim enough to not drown. For a while anyway. I’m not exactly ‘comfortable’ in deep water… but I won’t panic.
I had swimming lessons as a kid. Once I jumped in the water and smacked my head on the bottom of the pool. Once some kid pushed me in the deep end and I flailed around for awhile before being helped out. So…. carrying some water baggage there.
Our daughter, who by the way, turned 18 yesterday, hated getting her head wet. Showers and baths were an ordeal to get her hair washed. But then the day care and summer camp started swimming everyday. And she went from ‘hating to get splashed’ to jumping off the low diving board.
Now, about that Ester Williams video. I watch that and am amazed by multiple things. First; how can she come out of the water and not have to wipe water off her eyes? Like the lipstick, does she wear some sort of ‘RainX’ make-up so the water just slides from her face??
And how long did the girls have to stay in the water until all the ripples stop on the flower circles. And then the sprinklers and flames! Imagine all the piping underneath to make that work! Plus, it’s hard to light water falling / rain to make it show up on camera.
There’s a lot more going on there than it appears on camera.
And it made me think of the waterscreens they use now. Make a projection surface out of water or even fog and you can project on it and walk through it. Couldn’t find a video that I liked enough to post.
I created the rain for a production of ‘Singing In the Rain’. We flooded the basement once or twice before getting things figured out. You could hear the water falling and smell it almost before you could see it.
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And I should mention our son, who didn’t much care if he swam or not until he spent a summer working at the day camp and swimming everyday. And now he’s a certified life guard working at a camp in Northern MN for the summer.
Uhm, yeah, the ice went off a couple weeks ago and he said he water is “…very cold. VERY COLD”. They haven’t been swimming much so far. And he used his first aid skills when a staff member fell while hiking around Gooseberry Falls last week.
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how?
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Happy birthday to Daughter! And yeah, I am kind of amazed at the effects work that goes into four minutes of film like the snip above. I have a dim memory from somewhere that synchronized swimmers use things like Vaseline to shed water from hair and face and have lots of tricks to keep their makeup looking tidy and fresh. There may have been something, too, about using gelatin for something?…Or maybe I’m thinking of something else where you use kool-aid to color hair or something…
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like with an appreciation for the brain behind the scenes
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I can swim because of classes in jr. high and high school, and I must have taken that same Water Rescue Class that Jim remembers. I may have exaggerated slightly on the number of required laps I swam… I felt inept in the water till I tried out a water aerobics class once, could do everything they wanted me to.
I love to play with the grandkids in the lakes when they come to visit. Other than that, I’m with PJ – a nice hot tub sounds wonderful.
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Can’t believe that I beat Holly to this one:
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my sisters school district has a principle she is elated to be done working under. earlier in the week the jerk sent out a note that stated no one could leave until Friday at 4 according to contract. one of the teachers sent a note to the superintendent reminding all the extra non reimbursed work they do because it is required and the superintendent sent a letter to all teachers to be certain they all understood they could not leave until Friday at 4
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Excellent.
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OK, this is a stretch, but you might swim in the black water…
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Not that much of a stretch at all, BiR. The question is “how do you fare in water?” Here’s another way:
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What a lovely rendition of that song? Who are the performers? I think I recognize Sara McLachlan.
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Yep, with Indigo Girls and Jewel.
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I first met and fell in love with jewell in a version of the wizard of oz with jewell as dorothy on pbs. she has tried a couple different angles to trying to capitalize on her talent. I don’t care she is my star forever. I feel for her. she is a talent that is a square peg that will not fit in a round hole
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Although I know this isn’t exactly what Dale had in mind, I’ll offer this with no apologies:
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I didn’t learn to swim till my teenage years, and never got very good at it. I can stay afloat if I have to. I prefer to stay in shallow water and wear a life jacket if I’m in a boat.
Nice musical selections, everyone.
Here’s another:
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Oh, wow, thanks for this. You really know some cool stuff, Linda.
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my aunt Maura was a swimmer like ester on a traveling water show in the post war world of the Midwest and married my uncle paul, she was kind of a hottie but a a good ol girl who taught everyone who needed to know how to swinm well enough to keep form drowning ,
as a kid I had kind of a purist view of what the world should look ike and ester Williams was my idea of everything life was worth living for. pretty, nice and motivating. if the world was like ester it would be easier to get out of bed in the morning.
you could feel the soul shining through and the appeal coming form deep down. anyone like that today? no one comes to mind.
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