“I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it’s true: I really did.” — Esther Williams

“Critics established a snobbery toward me.” — Esther Williams

My formal introduction to aquatic-mermaid-star Esther Williams wasn’t through her movies. Oh, I may have seen some of the numbers on the various afternoon movies shown on local TV, where I first saw the old movies that made me a movie fan. But no, not for Esther. I learned about Esther Williams through Judy Blume.

When I was a kid, 9 or 10 years old, my favorite book of hers was Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. It tells the story of a young Jewish girl whose family moves to Miami Beach from New York City in 1947. Sally lives a rich world of fantasy. She dreams of being a detective, or the star of some sweeping romance. During her first months in Florida, she becomes convinced that their next-door neighbor is Hitler, in disguise. Judy Blume has said that Sally J. Freedman was her most autobiographical book, dealing with a post-WWII childhood, the lingering spectre of Nazism over American Jews, and the domination of Hollywood over the dreams of kids. Movies are an escape for Sally from frightening reality.

Sally is obsessed with Esther Williams.

Here is an excerpt from Blume’s book:

Esther Williams was her favorite movie actress. Some day she was going to swim just like her, with her hair in a coronet and a flower behind her ear. Swimming along underwater, always smiling, with beautiful straight white teeth and shiny red lipstick. Esther Williams never got water up her nose or had to spit while she swam, like Sally, who didn’t like to get her face wet in the first place. Not even when she dove off the high board. You’d never know you had to kick to stay afloat from watching Esther Williams. And when she swam in the movies there was always beautiful music in the background and handsome men standing around, waiting. It would be great fun to be Esther Williams!

Check out this wonderful homage to Williams:

I was a kid who loved watching old movies whenever they showed up on channel 56. That’s how I first saw James Dean, Marlon Brando, Joan Fontaine, Vincent Price, Cary Grant, and all the rest of them. On a staticky little black and white TV on Saturday afternoons.

When I first saw an Esther Williams movie, I remember feeling a thrill, feeling so SMART because I already knew the name, and I already knew how important she was, because hadn’t Sally J. Freedman introduced me to her so well?

Thanks, Judy Blume.

Fanny Brice, the original Funny Girl, supposedly once wisecracked, “Esther Williams? Wet, she’s a star. Dry, she ain’t.”

When Esther Williams heard that remark, she laughed. She didn’t take herself too seriously. She didn’t have pretensions about who or what she was. She was a star. More “serious” actors would kill to have her charisma. You look at her and you feel happy. How many people can you say that about? She was an amazing athlete, the undulating movements of her body showing off her power, but also her grace, her legs curling around underneath her, her back arched like a swan’s neck, silky, elongated, beautiful. Through all of this … her smile seems – IS – real, and that’s what I think of when I think of Esther Williams. Well, I think of her body, its beauty, its fluidity, how she moved, the long strength of her legs. But mostly I think of her smile.

Here’s a clip from Easy to Love, 1953.

An apt title. It describes Esther Williams in 3 small words.

“It appeared as if I had invited the audience into the water with me, and it conveyed the sensation that being in there was absolutely delicious.” — Esther Williams