Esther Williams

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.

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.

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

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

I've always been very determined, ever since I was a little girl, to make my way.

My feeling for reality TV isn't ironic, guilty, or apologetic. Reality TV is one of the few remaining modes of popular entertainment in which characterization is permitted as plot.