https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/Colour%20TV%20Mega%20Menu%203%20TVs_1000x745%20px.jpg
Queen of the Aquatic World: Annette Kellerman
https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/08-2018/585888.jpg
Title:
Queen of the Aquatic World: Annette Kellerman
NFSA ID
585888
Year
1916
A publicity still of Annette Kellerman from the lost film A Daughter of the Gods (Herbert Brenon, USA, 1916). Kellerman is credited with being the first woman to appear nude in a film.
When she spoke with Joel Greenberg in 1974 for her oral history she insisted she wore a ‘very thin pair of tights’.
As you can see in this photograph a long wig was also strategically placed for modesty.
Notes by Beth Taylor
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.