Esther Williams: Splendid When Wet (And Dry)

What would we do without YouTube? When the death of screen siren Esther Williams was announced last week, movie buffs could turn to the Internet for a handy assortment of her best movie moments. Personally, I learned a lot about Williams’ consummate professionalism. Not only was her swimming stroke a thing of beauty, but she was able to sustain a radiant smile while doing the most ludicrous things. Like backstroking through flames and fountains. Or frolicking underwater with cartoon characters Tom and Jerry. Or diving from absurd heights in extravaganzas choreographed by Busby Berkeley. When, wearing a spangled red one-piece, she rises from the deep in the center of a formation of soggy chorines, I love the quick final cut revealing that all this is happening for the pleasure of a stage audience.Busby Berkeley films had been toying with that disconnect for years: suggesting that the impossibly kaleidoscopic moment we’ve just enjoyed -- one completely dependent on a sound stage and an overhead motion picture camera – is being presented in a Broadway-style theatre. (It was one of the great challenges of the Cirque de Soleil’s aquatic “O,” still drawing crowds in Las Vegas, to present on stage something approaching Berkeley’s swimming-pool magic.) Berkeley deserves high marks, but so does his star, who is a much better swimmer than Ruby Keeler is a tap dancer. And Esther Williams was a born performer besides. Even when required to do a waterlogged tango with a rather creepy rubber ducky, she radiated charisma.

I hadn’t fully realized until I surveyed the YouTube clips that Williams was a more than passable singer and comedienne. A big surprise was a dry-land scene from 1949’s Neptune’s Daughter, in which she (coy) and Ricardo Montalban (suave) perform Frank Loesser’s winter classic, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” This is, of course, the song in which a young lady half-heartedly tries to leave her beau’s apartment, while he professes concern for her determination to head out into a snowstorm. The lyrics are charming, though in recently years her “Say, what’s in this drink?” has reminded me uncomfortably of a prelude to date rape. Williams and Montalban’s rendition, though,  feels delightfully innocent. It’s what comes after that’s the real surprise: no sooner have they finished singing than we cut to another apartment where the tables are turned. Now it’s Red Skelton (adopting a vaguely Latin accent) who feels he has to depart, and perky little Betty Garrett who’s determined to hold onto him at all costs. Garrett, best known as Hildy the lovelorn cab driver in the movie version of On the Town, was frequently typecast as a man-hungry little dame. I met her in her later years, and admired her as a trouper who was still performing on stage when she was close to 90. Too bad, though, that she had to play hot and bothered in silly gender- reversal skits like the one with Skelton.

Esther Williams, however, remained cool and ladylike, even when she appeared on What’s My Line? That was the early TV quiz show in which a trio of distinguished New York-based panelists (in evening clothes!) blindfold themselves to figure out the identity of a Mystery Guest by asking pertinent questions. To disguise her voice, Williams put on a magnolias-and-hushpuppies Southern drawl. She delighted the audience with a sly and rambunctious wit, and capped her appearance when,  following up on an earlier joke,  she briefly sat in the lap of panelist (and Random House publisher) Bennett Cerf. If she wasn’t having a marvelous time, she’s a much better actress than I’ve ever given her credit for.