Shortly before her death at age 91 in 2013, Esther Williams revisited some of her old MGM musicals. “I’m watching this beautiful young girl,” she told her son Ben Gage. “She’s so pretty and charming. I really like her.” As Ben recalls to Closer, “The sweetest thing was that she was admiring herself.”
In the 1940s and 50s, the whole country admired Esther, the beautiful would-be Olympic swimmer who became Hollywood’s Million Dollar Mermaid in extravagant aquatic musicals. “[Very early] I sensed the water was my natural element,” said Esther in her 1999 memoir, in which she estimated she swam 1,250 miles for the cameras.
Esther, the fifth child born to a mother tired of child-rearing, was largely raised by her older sister in Los Angeles. She learned to swim early and earned the nickel it cost to access the public pool by counting towels in the pool house. The male lifeguards took a liking to Esther and taught her to swim advanced strokes, like the butterfly. “She basically learned how to swim like a man,” Ben says. “She blew all these other girls out of the water.”
But two tragedies impacted Esther’s early life. Her older brother, Stanton, who acted in silent films, died at age 16 from a burst colon. A few years later, a 14-year-old Esther was raped by a family friend whom her mother had taken in after his mother died. Esther didn’t let the ugly incident make her a victim. “Her greatest strength was her indomitable nature,” Ben says. “She never gave up. That’s what made her a champion swimmer. That’s what made her a movie star. She tackled everything with just absolute certainty that she was going to dominate.”
Becoming a Film Star Was a ‘Consolation Prize’ for Esther Williams
By 17, Esther was a competitive swimmer. “She was world class,” notes Ben. She had already won her place on America’s swim team for the summer Olympics when the games were cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II. Throughout her life, Esther regarded becoming a film star as a “consolation prize” to her dreams of Olympic glory.
While performing with Billy Rose’s Aquacade, which grew out of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Esther was approached by talent scouts for MGM Studios. At first, she didn’t believe they wanted to put her in films. It took a year of coaxing before she agreed to do a screen test, in which she was paired with Clark Gable, who kissed her repeatedly and called her a ‘mermaid.’ Esther made her big screen debut opposite Mickey Rooney in 1942’s Andy Hardy’s Double Life.
Two years later, Esther became a sensation in Bathing Beauty, a musical whose finale featured water ballet around fountains, fire and turquoise pools. “No one had ever done a swimming movie before, so we just made it up as we went along,” Esther said. “I adlibbed all my own underwater movements.” Seeing the potential, the studio built a state-of-the art $250,000 pool, which became the setting for a score of
Esther’s other big budget aquatic musicals.
As time went on, Esther’s onscreen feats of daring became riskier. She suffered a miscarriage and ruptured an ear drum seven times. During the making of 1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid, the heavy gold crown she wore during a swan dive off a 50-foot platform snapped her head back as she hit the water. Esther broke three vertebrae in her back, putting her in a cast for six months. “She went to Louis B. Mayer and said, ‘I’m quitting,’” says Ben, who explains the MGM honcho eventually agreed to Esther’s demand to stop doing stunts.
Esther Williams Was Married to Ben Gage for 13 Years
In her personal life, the performer’s young marriage to a medical student she called “dull” ended after four years. Esther and singer/actor Ben Gage, who would become the father of her three children, weathered a 13-year, roller-coaster ride of a marriage.
“He was the love of her life,” says their son, who also admits there was discord early on. “An L.A. Times article said that ‘Ben Gage’s job is holding Esther Williams’ towel.’ I think my dad burned down the empire to restore his ego.” At the time of their split, Esther accused Ben of being an alcoholic who got her in trouble with the IRS and squandered $10 million of her earnings. “I remember her, head in her hands, crying in our 27-room, three-story mansion in Pacific Palisades, months before it was gone,” Ben says. “She looked at me and said, ‘Honey, don’t ever do anything you don’t want published on the front page of the L.A. Times.”
She rebounded by “running away to Rome” with her Dangerous When Wet costar Fernando Lamas. “He was her only leading man that could actually swim,” says Ben, who admits that the marriage created a huge gulf between Esther and her children. “Fernando didn’t want any kids along. My brother and I went to military school. My sister, at 6, left with them but never really recovered from the experience. He was a bully.”
The couple’s 1963 film, Magic Fountain, would be Esther’s final movie. She retired and came to an agreement with her actor husband. “The contract she signed was, You be the breadwinner, so I don’t have to,” Ben says. “Promise me that the IRS isn’t going to knock on my door again and I’ll be your dutiful wife. They both honored that contract.” Esther remained married to Fernando until his death in 1982.
She met her fourth husband, Edward Bell, two years later when she was asked to be a commentator at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Over lunch, Edward told Esther he was a fan of her and Betty Grable. “She said to me, Betty Grable? That’s a dime-store girl!” he related to The Hollywood Reporter. The couple wed in 1994 and remained together until Esther’s 2013 passing.
She spent her later years nurturing other relationships too. “She loved my kids. Loved to get them in the pool. Loved to show them her movies,” says Ben. “They saw her differently and had a different relationship than I did — but then, they weren’t put in military school.” Ben admits that although he tried, it was difficult to get close to his mother. She felt more at ease with her close circle of female celebrities including Debbie Reynolds, June Allyson, Ann Miller and Joanne Carson. “She used to call it the Fossils Club. They spent a lot of time together and were all really good friends,” says Ben. “They understood the life they all shared — the troubles with men, money and fame.”
