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.
Three events. Three gold medals. I was news, big news, in the sports world.
Clark Gable was the first to have called me a mermaid.
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.
With two little boys in diapers, I had to keep it simple if I were going to have a life at all.
Once I married Fernando, I became invisible.
Marriage to Fernando offered shelter and security, but the shackle was the price I'd pay.
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.
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.
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 was all in gold sequins for Million Dollar Mermaid, 50 feet in the air.
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.
Life magazine ran a page featuring me and three other girls that was clearly the precursor of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues.
Critics established a snobbery toward me.
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.
Victor Mature was a big man; he had a great swagger. I liked him and I knew we'd be good together on screen.
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.
