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| Actress Esther Williams dies at 91 | Actress Esther Williams dies at 91 |
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| US swimming champion-turned-movie star Esther Williams has died in Los Angeles aged 91. | US swimming champion-turned-movie star Esther Williams has died in Los Angeles aged 91. |
| Her spokesman said she died peacefully in her sleep. She had been in declining health due to old age. | Her spokesman said she died peacefully in her sleep. She had been in declining health due to old age. |
| A national swimming champion by the time she was 16, her success led to a career in Hollywood "aqua-musicals" designed just for her, in the 1940s. | A national swimming champion by the time she was 16, her success led to a career in Hollywood "aqua-musicals" designed just for her, in the 1940s. |
| She became known as Hollywood's Mermaid, starring in films including Dangerous When Wet and Easy to Wed. | |
| Williams became one of cinema's biggest box-office stars in the 1940s and 1950s, famously appearing in spectacular swimsuits that capitalised on her physical beauty. | |
| Her films were typically lavish song and dance affairs, following the same formula of romance, music and comedy - held together by a lightweight plot that provided infinite excuses for the actress to get into the water. | |
| Finales usually featured Williams diving into a pool or lagoon and surfacing to a crescendo of music, with water glistening on her beaming face. | |
| Her string of successful films included Thrill of a Romance, Fiesta, On an Island With You and Duchess of Idaho. | |
| Co-stars included Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Howard Keel. | |
| In the 1950s she attempted to branch out into non-swimming roles, but met with little success. | |
| "I guess what MGM found was that my audience wanted that bathing suit," she said, when her autobiography was released in 1999. | |
| "And you know, when Cinemascope came in and you've got that water all wrapped around you and they'd do big close-ups of me... I think it had too much pleasure connected with it for them to change it." | |
| She retired from the movies in 1962, following her marriage to Hollywood playboy Fernando Lamas. | |
| In her later years she hosted swimming events for ABC-TV's coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games and turned her attention to business, launching her own line of swimwear. |