Life magazine ran a page featuring me and three other girls that was clearly the precursor of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues.

I ended up buying a restaurant. Already we had invested in a gas station and a metal products plant.

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.

Even though I had a lucrative contract with MGM, I had a husband who was drinking and gambling our money away faster than I could make it.

The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it.

I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time.

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.

By the time I got home at night, my eyes were so chlorinated I saw rings around every light.

Which Esther Williams do you want to hear about?

With two little boys in diapers, I had to keep it simple if I were going to have a life at all.

Marriage to Fernando offered shelter and security, but the shackle was the price I'd pay.

I was all in gold sequins for Million Dollar Mermaid, 50 feet in the air.

When you're out of sight for as long as I was, there's a funny feeling of betrayal that comes over people when they see you again.

I was 15, and the years of hard swimming had packed muscle on my frame and made me very strong. Not as strong as a football player, but strong enough to inflict heavy damage.

Critics established a snobbery toward me.

Once I married Fernando, I became invisible.

I always felt that if I made a movie, it would be one movie; I didn't see how they could make 26 swimming movies.

I took my daily swim at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool despite the presence of onlookers.

I took a job at the pool in order to earn the five cents a day it cost to swim. I counted wet towels. As a bonus, I was allowed to swim during lunchtime.

Everything about my teenage life was almost ideal.

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.

Clark Gable was the first to have called me a mermaid.

Widowhood had done nothing to curb my smart mouth. So much for diplomacy.

I always took it for granted that there would be life after Hollywood.

There was a policy at Hughes against drinking at lunch, but the men ignored it.

Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the exciting world outside of my own home.

It appeared as if I had invited the audience into the water with me, and it conveyed the sensation that being in there was absolutely delicious.

We can't all win Olympic medals. Even I never won one.

I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it's true: I really did.

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.

Three events. Three gold medals. I was news, big news, in the sports world.

I think it's so funny when people think they can't control a movie star. They can. We're just women, you know.

What the public expects and what is healthy for an individual are two very different things.

Life magazine ran a page featuring me and three other girls that was clearly the precursor of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues.

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.

Victor Mature was a big man; he had a great swagger. I liked him and I knew we'd be good together on screen.

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.

I've got more junk in the trunk than most 5-foot-1 blonde girls, and I like it.

I wouldn't like to see a chick of mine taking her clothes off and kissing a fellow on screen. And my girls must get very hurt when they see me doing it.

It was pretty extensive - we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don't need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

We show girls were forced to live in whorehouses in each town, no other accommodations being available.

I still have horrible luck with girls.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks.

I don't like going to the mall. I'm not really like the other girls. I just like to go out on the golf course and play. Golf is fun and feels really good.

If a man works like a horse for his money, there are a lot of girls anxious to take him down the bridal path.

My purpose... to go on with my heart and soul, devoting all my energies to Girl Scouts, and heart and hand with them, we will make our lives and the lives of the future girls happy, healthy and holy.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

In my dreams, I could be a Princess, and that's what I was. Like most little girls, I believed nothing less than a Prince could make my dreams come true.