Esther Williams, Swimming Champion, Actress, Pin-Up Icon Dies; Fans And Family Mourn

Esther Williams, swimming champion, actress, and pin-up icon, has died. She was 91.

Esther Williams was a former swimming star turned movie star who appeared in aquatic Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.

Williams, 91, passed away early Thursday in her sleep, according to her publicist.

Williams appeared in such films as ''Neptune's Daughter," "Easy to Wed," and "Dangerous When Wet". She appeared in flashy, glittering swimsuit numbers and was a wholesome figure for scores of young girls.

Just as many other stars such as Judy Garland, Donna Reed did, Williams was had her big break in introduced in one of Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy films, "Andy Hardy's Double Life" (1942). Her co-stars included Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Red Skelton.

The swimming features were usually full of romance, laughs, and music, involving a thin plot to get Esther into the water, where she excelled. Sonja Henje, skating champion and movie star, had originated the trope-but Esther carried it forward in the water.

After big studios - and costly musicals - ended in the 50s, Williams attempted to break into non-swimming roles without success. She married costar Fernando Lamas in 1962 and retired from public life.

"I've been a lucky lady," she said in a 1984 interview. "I've had three exciting careers. Before films I had the experience of competitive swimming, with the incredible fun of winning. ... I had a movie career with all the glamor that goes with it. That was ego-fulfilling, but it was like the meringue on the pie. My marriage with Fernando - that was the filling, that was the apple in the pie."

Before she was a movie star, she was being groomed for the 1940 Olympics, which never occurred because of WWII. She won the 100-meter freestyle and other races at the 1939 national championships and also appeared at the swimming exhibition during the San Francisco World's Fair.

Throughout WWII, she was a popular pinup for GIs, and her personality and self-deprecating wit kept her popular afterwards.

Esther Jane Williams was born in Aug. 8, 1921, in Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles.

She learned to swim at a nearby public pool and folded towels in lieu of admission. As a teenager, she was trained by the Los Angeles Athletic Club in preparation for the 1940 Olympic Games at Helsinki, which never occurred. Esther left athletics to earn money and was discovered while selling clothes in a department store on Wilshire Boulevard.

When she was spotted by an agent and an MGM producer at the World's Fair job, she was incredulous at the idea that she'd do for swimming what Henje had for ice skating.

"Frankly I didn't get it," she recalled. "If they had asked me to do some swimming scenes for a star, that would have made sense to me. But to ask me to act was sheer insanity."

But, Williams says, she tried it. And the rest is history.

She is quoted as saying, "No one can avoid a challenge in life without breeding regret, and regret is the arsenic of life."

Fans and family mourn her passing, but Williams had a long, full life. After all, as she said, "I've been a lucky lady".