 I ended up buying a restaurant. Already we had invested in a gas station and a metal products plant. |
| Clark Gable was the first to have called me a mermaid. |
| Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool. |
| Victor Mature was a big man; he had a great swagger. I liked him and I knew we'd be good together on screen. |
| The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it. |
| Howard Hughes himself was a regular at the restaurant, and in a way it became his headquarters, too. Howard had recently relocated to Las Vegas, so when he wanted to do business in Los Angeles, he went into the back of our restaurant to use the telephone. |
| The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages. |
| Which Esther Williams do you want to hear about? |
| I was the only swimmer in movies. Tarzan was long gone, and he couldn't have done them anyway; he could never have gotten into my bathing suit. |
| My training in Science of Mind had begun with my mother. She took me to a different church every Sunday, and she encouraged me to question the minister afterward. |
| Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the exciting world outside of my own home. |
| I remember when I first walked into Mayer's cavernous office. You had to walk 50 yards to get to him, and in that time he could really study everything about you. |
| I took my daily swim at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool despite the presence of onlookers. |
| I always took it for granted that there would be life after Hollywood. |
| I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it's true: I really did. |
| Everything about my teenage life was almost ideal. |
