Esther Jane Williams (born August 8, 1921 or 1922) is a retired United States competitive swimmer and movie star, famous for her musical films that featured elaborate performances with swimming and diving.
Williams was born in Inglewood, California to Bula Myrtle Gilpin and Louis Stanton Williams. She was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth. She was National AAU champion in the 100 meter freestyle. Williams went to Hollywood, where she quickly became a popular star of the 1940s and 1950s. Her brother, Stanton Williams, also had a brief acting career during the 1920s before his death while still a teenager.
She appeared with swimming star Johnny Weismuller in Billy Rose's "Aquacade" during the San Francisco World's Fair, 1939-41, where she first attracted attention from MGM scouts, as she noted in her autobiography. She also had to fend off the amorous attentions of Weismuller, whom she said acted as if he were Tarzan on and off the screen.
Many of her films, such as Million Dollar...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 03/11/10 at 11:23 PM
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That's Entertainment! III is a documentary retrospective film released by MGM in 1994 to celebrate the studio's 70th anniversary. It was the third in a series of retrospectives that began with the first That's Entertainment! 20 years earlier. Although posters and home video versions use the title without an exclamation mark, the actual on-screen title of the film uses it.
Many changes had occurred since the first two films - including the deaths of Fred Astaire (who had co-hosted the first two films) and many other MGM stars of the past. Plus, the advent of home video and cable TV had made many of MGM's films readily accessible to audiences, a luxury they did not have in the mid-1970s.
In order to provide a "hook" for audiences, the producers decided to feature footage cut from famous MGM musicals. Many of these numbers were shown for the first time in That's Entertainment! III.
Highlights included:
Hosts for the third installment in the That's Entertainment! series were Gene Kelly...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111408
Duchess of Idaho was a musical romantic comedy produced in 1950 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, it was one of a series of films starring swimmer Esther Williams.In this movie, Williams' character attempts to play matchmaker for a lovelorn friend (Paula Raymond) by pursuing the man her friend loves all the way to Idaho and try and promote a match between the two. Along the way, Williams falls in love herself with a band leader played by Van Johnson.Duchess of Idaho is best remembered for its musical interludes, including performances by Mel Tormé, Lena Horne, Red Skelton, and dancer Eleanor Powell. This was Powell's first film appearance in six years, and her last as the 38-year-old performer retired from the screen after this cameo. Horne's contract with MGM also ended with this film, though she would make a couple more MGM musical appearances later in the decade.Several musical numbers filmed for the movie were cut from the theatrical release, including numbers...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042417
Ziegfeld Follies (MGM) is a 1946 Hollywood musical comedy film, directed by Roy Del Ruth and Vincente Minnelli, starring many of MGM leading talents, including Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Victor Moore, William Powell, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, and Esther Williams. It also featured Fanny Brice, the only cast member to have actually starred in the original Ziegfeld Follies.
Producer Arthur Freed wanted to create a film along the lines of the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway shows and so the film is composed of a sequence of unrelated lavish musical numbers and comedy sketches. Although produced in 1944-45, it was released in 1946, to considerable critical and box-office success.
Dance director was Robert Alton, Astaire's second-most-frequent choreographic collaborator after Hermes Pan. All of Astaire's numbers were directed by Vincente Minnelli.
John Mueller: Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039116
A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film made by MGM, directed by Victor Fleming, produced by Everett Riskin, from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm. It starred Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson.
A Guy Named Joe was remade in 1989 as Steven Spielberg's Always with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter and Audrey Hepburn.
Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy) is the reckless pilot of a B-25 Mitchell bomber flying out of England during World War II. He is in love with Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), a civilian pilot ferrying planes across the Atlantic. "Nails" Kilpatrick (James Gleason), Pete's commanding officer, offers him a transfer back to America to be a flying instructor. Dorinda has a feeling that Pete's "number is up" and begs him to accept. Pete agrees, but goes out on one last mission with his best friend Al Yackey (Ward Bond) to check out a German aircraft carrier. Wounded by an enemy fighter, he has his crew...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035959
Esther Williams was born
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