Like Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe before her, Esther Williams achieved the seemingly impossible by transforming her skill at competitive swimming into a popular movie career. A star athlete and Olympic hopeful in her teens, she gained her earliest exposure to show business as the female lead in showman Billy Rose’s Aquacade. Executives at MGM who saw her swimming abilities and pin-up worthy looks signed her immediately to a contract with the studio. There she starred in a series of musicals built around Williams’ extraordinarily graceful water ballets. Audiences ate up the
Won several local swimming championships; after earning the Pacific Coast Championship was signed for the 1940 Olympics (which were ultimately cancelled when WWII began)
Left college and worked as stock clerk and part-time model at I Magin store
Impressario Billy Rose co-starred her with Johnny Weissmuller in his San Francisco Aquacade; quit to marry first husband
