Twiggy

In 1988, she married the actor Leigh Lawson. Esther Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s. Her first marriage, to American actor, Michael Witney, ended with his sudden death. Her brother, Stanton Williams, also had a brief acting career during the 1920s before his death while still a teenager. Since then she has played a variety of roles on stage and screen, including Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, opposite Robert Powell, in a 1981 television production. Her third husband was actor Fernando Lamas. As she matured, she ditched Villeneuve and broadened her horizons, appearing as an actress and singer, notably in Ken Russell's 1971 film version of The Boyfriend. She was romantically linked with Jeff Chandler, and has been married four times.

Soon she was regarded as "the face" of swinging 1960s London, and gained her nickname from her stick-thin pubescent figure. Her love life was a source of media interest. Born Lesley Hornby in Neasden, a suburb of London, she became famous at the age of sixteen, under the influence of her boyfriend and manager, Justin de Villeneuve. In her autobiography, Williams details several other occasions in which she nearly drowned shooting her oxygen-defying stunts. Twiggy (born September 19, 1949) is a British actress, model and singer, now usually known by her married name of Twiggy Lawson. Her many hours spent submerged resulted in her rupturing her eardrums numerous times. She broke her neck filming a 50-foot dive off a tower during a climactic musical number for the 1952 release Million Dollar Mermaid which landed her in a body cast for six months (she subsequently recovered though she still suffers headaches as a result of the accident).

Many of her films, such as Million Dollar Mermaid and Jupiter's Darling, contained elaborately staged swimming scenes, obtained not without physical cost to the performer. Williams instead went to Hollywood, and quickly became a popular star of the 1940s and 1950s. She qualified to be in the United States swim team in the 1940 Olympics, but the games were canceled due to World War II. Esther Williams was born in Inglewood, California, and was enthusistic about swimming from her youth.

Esther Jane Williams (born 8 August 1922) is a United States swimmer and movie star. Williams, Esther, The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1999.