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Tagged: swimming
Exhibition
The NFSA celebrates Australia's own Million Dollar Mermaid - silent movie star Annette Kellerman.
Collection
The list of Annette Kellerman's achievements is extraordinary: champion swimmer and diver, vaudeville performer, international silent film star, stunt performer and entrepreneur.
Born in Sydney in...
Article
Two of Australia’s greatest swimmers, Olympic champions Jon Henricks and Lorraine Thurlow (nee Crapp), recently donated a never-before-seen film to the NFSA.
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This Nine Network news story from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne reports on the women's 4 x 100 metres relay team smashing its own world record by more than a second. The team set the...
Video
Kellerman was 52 years old when her husband and manager Jimmie Sullivan filmed this rare footage of her performing the underwater adagio - a slow ballet dance.
It was filmed in the crystal clear...
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In this newsreel excerpt, Annette Kellerman is training her troupe of performers in Sydney for a 'musical marine fantasy' hospital benefit – complete with piano accordion accompaniment.
Almost 20...
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‘After making examinations of ten thousand girls, Annette Kellerman is the closest to physical perfection of any’ declared Dr Dudley Sargent, director of the Harvard University Gymnasium in 1912....
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Annette Kellerman was 70 years old when this silent home movie footage was filmed.
Her athleticism is very much in evidence - particularly as she strikes synchronised swimming poses in the ocean in...
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Films starring Annette Kellerman almost always found a way to showcase her skills as a diver, swimmer and underwater ballet artist. This scene showing her diving appeared in the silent feature...
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Born Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann on 6 July 1886 in Sydney, Kellerman (her stage name) was diagnosed with rickets as a young child. Rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency, resulting in the...