Celebrating Esther Williams.

I do not remember the first film I watched of Esther Williams, but.. I do remember how colorful and amazing her swim routines were. Esther Williams, was a graceful bathing beauty and superior athlete. Not many actress could fill her flippers. These are my five favorite Esther Williams films.

On an Island With You(1948). Musical/ romantic/comedy film directed by Richard Thorpe. Cast: Esther Williams, Peter Lawford, Ricardo Montalbán, Cyd Charisse, Kathryn Beaumont and Jimmy Durante.

Williams stars as Rosalind Reynolds, a swimming star who goes to Hawaii to make a film, bringing along her fiance Ricardo. A military technical adviser named Larry, brought in for the film, is madly in love with her. After, having once done a number with her and been kissed at the end a show. Only problem is... she can't remember him. So he takes her to an island in hopes that she will remember after dancing with her. Ricardo, her fiancee and fellow co-star is not too happy about the romantic trip. Her best friend Yvonne Torro, secretly wants Ricardo for herself.

Williams and Lawford made a perfect couple and Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse, make a perfect dance team during their two romantic dance duets (look out Fred and Ginger).Jimmy Durante, fans will enjoy seeing him perform his jokes. He has a couple of cute scenes with Peter Lawford comparing profiles. The films vibrant colors will take you back to a island paradise. If you love happy and romantic musicals this one is for you. And of course we get to see Esther splashing around. :).

During a scene in which Williams falls into a hole camouflaged by vegetation, the crew had failed to cushion at the bottom of the hole to break her fall. She sprained her ankle and had to finish the film using crutches.

Cyd Charisse completed the most of this film (most impressively in two romantic dance duets with Ricardo Montalban), then broke her leg during the filming of the big ceremonial dance, where the corps de ballet is in island native costume. A double completed her scenes, but the injury kept her out of her next film, Easter Parade. That role, which would've advanced her to fourth billing, went to Ann Miller, making her MGM debut.

Neptune's Daughter(1949). Musical/romantic/comedy film. Cast: Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalbán, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat and Mel Blanc. It was directed by Edward Buzzell, and features the Academy Award winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser. This was the third movie that paired Williams and Ricardo Montalbán together, the other two being Fiesta (1947) and On an Island with You (1948), and the second to co-star Red Skelton (1944's Bathing Beauty).

Esther Williams, plays Eve, who is designing a new line of swimwear and is always worried about her scatterbrained, man-trap of a sister Betty. Who's next victim is... Jack Sprat, a masseuse at the club resort that Eve and Betty are staying. He has no luck with women and takes advice from South American polo player Jose who's all the ladies seem to love.

Jack, lacking confidence pretends to be Jose O'Rourke, when he begins dating Betty. When Eve finds out about "Jose O'Rouke", things become more complicated. Eve fears Betty's heart will be broken when Jose returns to South America. She arranges a meeting with the real O'Rourke and they eventually fall in love.

Frank Loesser, did the score for Neptune's Daughter. Loesser had a big hit on Broadway at the time and was working on another project when Neptune's Daughter came out. Played instrumentally, but not sung is his previous hit "On A Slow Boat To China" done during a swim suit fashion show sequence. Loesser, won a Oscar for best song with "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Montalban and Williams sing it first and later there's a comic routine with Skelton and Garrett, which is just as good....

 

Topping it all off is a water ballet by Esther and they typically got bigger and better in films as she tried to top herself.

Williams discovered she was pregnant with her first child with husband Ben Gage early into shooting.

Williams contracted with Cole of California to appear as their spokesperson before making the film. As a result, the company created the suits that Williams and the aqua chorus wore throughout the film.

After filming was done, Williams's doctor ordered her to stay away from activity and she instead gave swimming lessons to blind children. "Teaching those children how to swim was "one of the most gratifying experiences I've ever had."

The movie was filmed on location at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida.

Williams played a swimsuit designer in this film and went on to copy several swimsuit designs from this film in the line of swimwear she would later create.

Fiesta(1947). Cast: Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalbán, Mary Astor and Cyd Charisse. The film was directed by Richard Thorpe. The film was shot on location in Puebla, Mexico. This was Montalbán's first credited role in a Hollywood film. It was also the first of three films pairing Williams and Montalbán, the other two being On an Island with You (1948) and Neptune's Daughter (1949). Fiesta was the first time Williams's name was billed above the title.

Famous matador Antonio Morales, is thrilled when his wife gives birth to twins... a girl tan a boy. He names them Mario and Maria. As the children grow up, Antonio's wife dreads the idea of her son becoming a bullfighter, but it is the sister Maria, who has the dreams of becoming a bull fighter.

As a gift on their 21st birthday, Maria sends a copy of Mario's  music composition to Maximino Contreras, a famed orchestra conductor. Maximino, who later pays a call on the Morales family just before Mario's first bullfight. Antonio, promises to pass along Maximino's message... but does not.

Before a second bullfight, Maximino, stops by.. wondering why Mario never contacted him. Realizing that his father ignored it, Mario angrily walks out of the ring, disappointing spectators and disgracing his father.

After Mario disappears, Maria disguising herself as her twin brother and puts her life in danger fighting the bull. Will her brother, Mario get there in time to save her?

This film features wonderfully festive Mexican music where dancer Charisse, is just as amazing as Rita Hayworth. Montalban, is no slouch on the dance floor, in the bull ring and at the piano. His timing is excellent and it makes you wonder is he really playing the piano? Esther, does not have a swim number in this film.. I enjoy watching this film even though I am not a fan of bullfights, but in this film the scenes in the ring are very interesting because of the fancy cape work.

Easy To Wed(1946). Musical/comedy directed by Edward Buzzell. Cast: Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn.

The wealthy J.B. Allenbury, threatens to sue The "Morning Star," for 2 million dollars for an article they printed saying that his daughter is chasing after married men. Reporter Bill Chandler's job is to prove that the story is true.

To save his paper from financial ruin editor Curtis Farwood asks his friend Warren, to help come up with a plan. Warren, then asks reporter Bill Chandler to temporarily marry Gladys so that she can sue Connie for alienation of affection when an incriminating photograph of Bill and Connie Allenbury is printed. In order to get the damaging picture, Bill must befriend the Allenburys, who are vacationing at the Hotel Del Rey in Mexico.

He introduces himself to the Allenburys as a writer who enjoys hunting, which is J.B.'s favorite hobby. Bill, is having trouble getting himself photographed with Connie and Gladys and Warren become suspicious that Bill has become romantically involved with Connie. Warren flies to Mexico in hopes he can persuade them to drop their lawsuit.

When they refuse, Warren telephones Gladys, who arrives at the resort and tells J.B. she is married to Bill. When J.B. shares the news to his daughter, Connie decides to prove him wrong by proposing to Bill. They are wed by a justice of the peace. When Warren and Gladys threaten to expose Bill as a bigamist or is he?

This was the first film in which Williams sang.

This was Johnson and Williams' second film together, after Thrill of a Romance.

Van Johnson's biography, he states that Lucille Ball's performance as Gladys "reveals the embryo of her Lucy Ricardo role in the later I Love Lucy television series," and also states that Keenan Wynn had been in a motorcycle accident before filming, had his mouth wired shut and as a result, he had to talk between his teeth while losing thirty pounds in four weeks.

The film also features organist Ethel Smith in a musical sequence with Johnson and Williams, her second appearance in an Esther Williams film, the first being Bathing Beauty.

Bathing Beauty(1944). A musical starring Red Skelton, Basil Rathbone and Esther Williams and directed by George Sidney. Although this was not William's screen debut, it was her first Technicolor musical. The film is also Janis Paige's film debut.

Songwriter Steve Elliott, is engaged to Caroline Brooks, who has promised to give up her job as a college swimming instructor after their wedding. Steve, also plans to quit his songwriting career, even though his producer George Adams, is planning for him to write songs for his new water ballet show. Not happy about their plans George, hires Maria Dorango, an aspiring actress to help him stop the marriage.

Moments after the wedding, Maria rushes in, claiming that Steve is her husband and the father of her three redheaded children. Although Steve is innocent, Caroline storms off and returns to her teaching job. Steve and Carlos, follow close behind her, but are denied entrance to the all-female school.

Later, in a nightclub, Steve meets drunken lawyer Chester Klazenfrantz, who has been hired to change the rules to an all female College.

Steve returns to Victoria and registers as a student. Unaware of Caroline's relationship to Steve, Dean Clinton allows him to be admitted for a two-week probationary period, during which time the college can give him 100 demerits, which would get rid of him before Parents Day. Steve tries to speak with Caroline, but she tells him she is seeking an annulment.

Later, in music class, Professor Hendricks orders him to write his own version of the Scottish ballad Loch Lomond and teach the next day's class. With help from the other students and Steve's friend Harry James and his orchestra, Steve meets Hendricks' challenge.

That night, Steve visits Caroline at her house, until botany professor Willis Evans, who is in love with Caroline, arrives. When Caroline finds Steve is hiding in her closet, she commands Willis' Great Dane, to guard him, then reminding Steve that unless he is in his room in five minutes, he will be expelled for breaking curfew. Steve manages to trick the dog and run back to his room. Steve is then visited by George, who threatens to expose him unless he finishes his songs. When Steve swears revenge on the person who hired Maria, George offers to help Steve with his homework.

Concerned about Parents Day, Dean Clinton, commands Steve's professors, to make even life harder him. Mme. Zarka , the ballet teacher, forces him to wear a tutu and dance with the co-eds, but Steve once again meets the challenge. Now running out of options, Dean Clinton asks Caroline to go out with Steve and make sure that he arrives back at Victoria after the curfew. Caroline agrees and Steve is able to convince her of his innocence and as they make plans for their future together...

In this film Red Skelton, has great pantomime show in which he mimes how ladies' dress up in the morning and his swan lake ballet is very cute. Topping it all off is a water ballet by Esther.

Video: Esther Williams interview.

 

Neptune's Daughter (1949).

Neptune's Daughter (1949). Musical/ romantic/ comedy Cast: Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat and Mel Blanc. Directer: Edward Buzzell. Features the Academy Award winning song Baby, It's Cold Outside by Frank Loesser. Neptune's Daughter was the third movie that paired Williams and Ricardo Montalbán together, the other two being Fiesta (1947) and On an Island with You (1948), and the second to co-star Red Skelton (1944's Bathing Beauty).

At first aquatic ballet dancer Eve Barrett, rejects the offer by Joe Backett to become his business partner at the Neptune swimming suit design company, but changes her mind when she thinks about the publicity she will get out of the partnership.

When Joe learns that a South American polo team will be playing a big match in town, he and Eve begin planning a swim number for the event. Eve tells her love starved sister Betty about the South American team coming to town, Betty comes up with a plan to find herself a husband.

After practice, Jose O'Rourke, the captain of the polo team, goes to see Jack Spratt, a masseur, who tells Jose that he has never been on with a date woman. During the massage, Jose gives Jack advice on how to talk to women. Jack, now believes women can not resits him when he speaks to them in Spanish, which he calls the "language of love."

While looking for the South American team captain, Betty accidentally mistakes Jack for Jose. Jack keeps his true identity secret and accepts her invitation to have dinner at her house. On their date, Jack secretly plays a Spanish language instruction record while pretending that he is speaking to Betty.

Later, Betty tells Eve about her date and Eve tries to talk her out of dating any of the visiting polo players.

The next day, while giving a tour of the Neptune bathing suit factory, Eve meets Jose and warns him to stay away from her sister. Jose is attracted to Eve, and pretends to understand and agrees to break his date with Betty.

Jose asks Eve to go on the date with him, she says "yes" only to prevent him from dating her sister. Eve finds him attractive and begins to fall in love with him. Now, she thinks that she must find a way to break the news to her sister.

The mistaken identities and romantic complications turn this film into a great mix of fun. Garrett and Skelton's on screen chemistry was wonderful. I'm surprised that they did not do more films together..

 

Betty Garrett (May 23, 1919 – February 12, 2011). After graduating from grammar school, Garrett enrolled at the Annie Wright School in Tacoma, with a full scholarship. There was no drama department, so she organized musical productions and plays on her own.

Following her senior year performance in Twelfth Night, the bishop urged her to pursue a career on the stage. At the same time, her mother's friend arranged an interview with Martha Graham, who was in Seattle for a concert tour and the dancer recommended her for a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Garrett and her mother moved to Manhattan in the summer of 1936 and Garrett began classes in September. Her teachers included Graham and Anna Sokolow for dance, Sandy Meisner for drama, Lehman Engel for music, and Margaret Webster for the Shakespearean classics.

She felt she was destined to be a dramatic actress and shied away from playing comedic roles. During the summer months, Garrett performed in the Borscht Belt, where she had the opportunity to work with Danny Kaye, Jerome Robbins, Carol Channing, Imogene Coca, and Jules Munshin, and she was encouraged to work on her singing and dancing skills.

She joined Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre as an understudy in what was to be its last stage performance, a short-lived production of Danton's Death that gave her the opportunity to work with Joseph Cotten, Ruth Ford, Martin Gabel, and Arlene Francis.

She performed with Martha Graham's dance company at Carnegie Hall and the Alvin Theatre, sang at the Village Vanguard, and appeared in satirical and political revues staged by the Brooklyn-based Flatbush Arts Theatre, which eventually changed its name to the American Youth Theatre and relocated to Manhattan. It was during this period she joined the Communist Party and began performing at fundraisers for progressive causes.

Garrett made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue Of V We Sing, which closed after 76 performances but led to her being cast in the Harold Rome revue Let Freedom Sing later that year. It closed after only eight performances, but producer Mike Todd saw it and signed her to understudy Ethel Merman and play a small role in the 1943 Cole Porter musical Something for the Boys. Merman became ill allowing Garrett to play the lead for a week. During this time she was seen by producer Vinton Freedley, who cast her in Jackpot, a Vernon Duke/Howard Dietz musical also starring Nanette Fabray and Allan Jones. The show closed quickly, and Garrett began touring the country with her nightclub act.

After Laffing Room Only another production Garrett appeared in on Broadway closed there she traveled with the show as it played extended runs in Detroit and Chicago, after which she returned to New York and was cast in Call Me Mister. She won critical acclaim and the Donaldson Award for her performance. It led to her being signed to a one-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer.

Garrett arrived at the studio in January 1947 and made her film debut portraying nightclub performer Shoo Shoo O'Grady in Big City. Mayer renewed her contract where she performed in the musicals Words and Music, On the Town, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and Neptune's Daughter.

The Jolson Story had been a huge hit in the United Kingdom, and Garrett and husband Larry Parks decided to capitalize on its popularity by appearing in at the London Palladium and then touring the UK with their nightclub act. But, the increasing popularity of television led to the decline of music hall entertainment.

Then Garrett was cast opposite Janet Leigh and Jack Lemmon in My Sister Eileen, a 1955 musical remake of a 1942 film starring Rosalind Russell, when Judy Holliday dropped out of the project due to a contract dispute.

The following year, she and Parks replaced Holliday and Sydney Chaplin in the Broadway production of Bells Are Ringing during their vacation from the show.

Over the next two decades, she performed on Broadway in two short-lived plays (Beg, Borrow or Steal with Parks and A Girl Could Get Lucky with Pat Hingle) and a musical adaptation of Spoon River Anthology, and making guest appearances on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Lloyd Bridges Show, and The Fugitive.

In the fall of 1973, All in the Family added two new neighbors to the neighborhood, Frank Lorenzo and his feisty Irish American wife, Irene. Lear had been the publicity man for Call Me Mister, All in the Family writers Bernard West and Mickey West knew Garrett from her days with the American Youth Theatre, and Jean Stapleton had been in the cast of Bells Are Ringing, so Garrett appeared to be a front runner for the role of Irene. It went instead to Sada Thompson, but, unhappy after filming one episode, Thompson asked to be released from her commitment, freeing the role for Garrett, who remained with the series from 1973 through 1975.

The following year, Garrett was performing her one-woman show Betty Garrett and Other Songs in Westwood when she was offered the role of landlady Edna Babish in Laverne and Shirley. The character was a five-time divorcee who married Laverne's father Frank. Although Garrett reportedly felt she was never given enough to do on the show, she appreciated the fact that her musical talents occasionally were incorporated into the plot, and she won a Golden Globe for her performance. When the series was extended beyond what had been intended to be its final season, Garrett was forced to drop out because she already had committed to performing with Sandy Dennis, Jack Gilford, Hope Lange, and Joyce Van Patten in The Supporting Cast on Broadway. The play closed after only eight performances, but returning to Laverne and Shirley was not an option, as the writers had explained Edna's disappearance by having her divorce Frank.

Garrett appeared on television in Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Harts of the West, Union Square, Boston Public, Becker (for which she was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series), and Grey's Anatomy, among others, and on stage in Plaza Suite (with Parks), And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little, and the 2001 Broadway revival of Follies.

At Theatre West, which she co-founded, she directed Arthur Miller's The Price and appeared in the play Waiting in the Wings. She won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award twice, for Spoon River Anthology and Betty Garrett and Other Songs.

Garrett received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2003. On her 90th birthday in 2009, she was honored at a celebration sponsored by Theatre West at the Music Box Theatre in Hollywood.

In 2010, Garrett appeared alongside former two-time co-star Esther Williams during Turner Classic Movies' first annual Classic Film Festival. Their film Neptune's Daughter was screened at the pool of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, while a Williams-inspired synchronized swimming troop, The Aqualilies, performed.