Esther Williams

Esther Williams retired from acting in the early 1960s. In December, 2004, Browder was announced as joining the cast of another sci-fi series, Stargate SG-1, for its 9th season. Her brother, Stanton Williams, also had a brief acting career during the 1920s before his death while still a teenager. His most recent appearance was in the 2004 movie, A Killer Within, co-starring C. Thomas Howell and Sean Young. Her third husband was actor Fernando Lamas. They returned to the United States in 2002 following the cancellation of Farscape. She was romantically linked with Jeff Chandler, and has been married four times. Buller played several guest roles on the show.

Her love life was a source of media interest. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Browder met his wife, fellow actor Francesca Buller, while studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. The couple moved with their two children to Australia during the production of Farscape (1999-2002), on which Browder starred as brash American astronaut John Crichton. In her autobiography, Williams details several other occasions in which she nearly drowned shooting her oxygen-defying stunts. Ben Browder, born December 11, 1962, is an American film and television actor, who garnered a few minor roles in feature films before his leading role on the sci-fi TV series Farscape. 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.