After making examinations of 10,000 girls, Annette Kellerman is the closest to physical perfection of any. [She] embodies all the physical attributes that most of us demand in the Perfect Woman.
Warwick Bioscope Chronicle (newsreel, 1912)
Comparing Kellerman to Venus De Milo
Kellerman displays her diving skills while others discuss her physique.
Kellerman popularised the one-piece bathing suit in her vaudeville shows. Before this, women were expected to stay covered with pantaloons and other cumbersome garments.
She discovered the freedom of men's cotton swimsuits during her endurance swims across the English Channel and down the Seine, Thames and Danube Rivers in 1905.
Silent film star
After success in long-distance swimming and vaudeville, Kellerman became a star of the silver screen in the US.
She starred in around 14 silent films from 1909 – 1924, many of them with fairytale and swimming storylines.
Neptune's Daughter (silent feature, 1914)
'Annette' - both mermaid and woman
Three short sequenes from Neptune's Daughter starring Kellerman as 'Annette' the mermaid who assumes a human form and rescues her lover the King from prison.
Photographs like this publicity still from Neptune's Daughter (1914) show Kellerman's prowess as a stunt diver.
The film included a 20-metre high dive with her hands and feet bound together.
Unfortunately Kellerman's most spectacular stunts on film have been lost.
The lost film
The three-hour grand epic A Daughter of the Gods (1916) was the crowning glory of Kellerman's film career.
The film itself is lost, however publicity photos like this one give hints of Kellerman's star power.
There were plenty of opportunities for Annette the action hero to shine in the million dollar movie, from a 30-metre dive to being thrown into a pool of crocodiles!
Nude on celluloid?
Kellerman is credited with being the first woman to appear nude on screen.
However she later maintained she wasn't nude at all and wore 'a very thin pair of tights'.
The still opposite is from A Daughter of the Gods (1916).
Million Dollar Mermaid
In 1952 relative newcomer Esther Williams starred in a film based on Kellerman's life called Million Dollar Mermaid.
The film included audacious synchronised swimming choreography by Busby Berkeley and was billed as the 'biggest, most exciting water show ever staged'.
Kellerman was one of the first Australians to receive the biopic treatment in Hollywood.
Million dollar mermaid (film trailer, 1952)
Her legacy lives on
Sumptuous technicolour and grandiose choreographed swimming and diving routines are visually stunning but do not convey the plot of the movie as one would expect of a trailer.
Kellerman's performance of the adagio (slow dance) underwater was a hallmark of her vaudeville shows and films.
Her stunning athleticism allowed her to hold poses underwater. She even trained herself to hold her breath underwater for three minutes and twenty seconds at a time.
She continued to master her unique style of water ballet throughout her career.
