Olympic Champions Turned Hollywood Icons

Old Hollywood is something we want to cover more at Moray’s Muse. Whilst not ancient history, it's juicy with a lot of parallels to how people viewed Gods. Whilst these hotties not only excelled at their sport, they ended up on the Mount Olympus of Hollywood too. Read about how these Olympic Champions turned Hollywood Icons dominated the arena but also the silver screen.

Photo Credit; Alamy. Williams was the ultimate mermaid

Esther Williams

Esther Williams is a Moray’s Muse icon. The mermaid of Hollywood had an unprecedented career and potentially putting artistic swimming on the map (potentially influencing the decision to put artistic swimming in the Olympics too). Born in 1921, in California, Williams grew up in a financially struggling family. Her early life was marked by economic difficulties, pushing her into work from a young age. Despite falling in love with swimming after a trip to Manhattan Beach, Williams in order to afford swimming lessons, took a job counting towels at a local pool. Not only this, she faced a homelife with loss and assault. Despite all odds, she joined Los Angeles Athletics Club, and by the age 16, Williams had won three US national championships.

Williams already facing huge difficulties in life  faced more heartbreak, whilst almost competing in the Olympics however missing out due to its cancellation with World War 2 on the horizon.Whilst a brief stint at I. Magnin’s, a glamorous department store, she appeared at Billy Rose’s Aquacade at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Being sought by Johnny Hyde, Marilyn Monroe’s agent, she then earnt $175 a week ($2,720 today) as Johnny Weismuller’s costar. This lead to an illustrious career with studio MGM (Metro Goldwyn Myer in which she made over 20 films with the company.

Pictured Weismuller and Williams.

Photo Credit; Unknown. Johnny Weismuller and Esther Williams performing

Johnny Weismuller

However, whilst Williams is known as one of the most famous athletes in the Golden Age of Hollywood, her former co- star Johnny Weissmuller was not only one of the most prestigious Olympic Athletes, but a major Hollywood heart throb. Weismuller was known for having one of the best swimming records of the 20th century. Born in the former Kingdom of Hungary, now Fridorf, now Romania, his parents Peter and Elizabeth took him on the S.S Rotterdam to Ellis Island, New York, seeking a more prosperous life in America. Settling in Chicago, Weissmuller learnt to swim in Lake Michigan. In 1921 he began his competitive swimming career. Weissmuller’s professional swimming career was stratospheric.  In total, Weissmuller won five Olympic gold medals , one bronze medal, 52 United States national championships and in his career set 67 records, however,  Weismullers star really started to sparkle when noticed by writer Cyril Hume, writing for a Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, who spotted Weissmuller diving and swimming laps at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Looking for an actor to play Tarzan and auditing many Olympic athletes they concluded that Weissman was the one. Released in 1932, Tarzan the Ape man was a success. Weissman was now not only known as a decorated Olympic athlete but one of Hollywood's first male sex symbols. The Tarzan films were a massive success for MGM, particularly counting that MGM were on hunt for decorated athletes such as Williams and Weismuller due to rival 20th Century Fox making a fortune by having a skating star feature. Her name was Sonja Henie. 

Sonja Henie

Photo Credit; Wikipedia. A Sonja Henie Promotion Photo

20th Century Foxes secret weapon;  Ice skater Sonja Henie broke records in Hollywood, the Olympics however her legacy has not aged well. Henie was born in 1912 in modern day Oslo to an athletic family; her father Wilhelm, a World Cycling Champion. A prodigy, at age 11 her first Olympic appearance in the Winter Games.  By 1927, she won her first World Figure Skating Championship at age fourteen, starting an unprecedented streak of ten consecutive titles. Henie gained her first Olympic gold medal in 1928, followed by additional golds in 1932 and 1936, making her one of the sport's youngest and most decorated champions. Retiring from skating, and gaining a professional acting career in 1936, Henie signed with Twentieth Century Fox. However despite this acclaim, Raymond Strait’s ‘Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows, the Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie’ puts Henie in an unflattering light and she is depicted as a Nazi sympathiser, greeting Hitler with a Nazi salute at the 1936 Winter Olympics. Whilst her career in the 1940s lead to sold out ice skating tours, continued series of bad business decisions lead Henie to drink, unable to keep up with touring and she passed away of cancer at age 57.

The Golden Age of Hollywood is one of intrigue and we hope to cover more stories about it in the future.