Esther Williams

By Joel Stein

Esther Williams, star of screen and swimming pool, has a best-selling autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid.

Q. Who's mad at you for the book?

A. Merv Griffin. He canceled the party he was going to throw for me. I could forgive Merv anything. When you get that round at that age, you suffer enough just getting dressed.

Q. How come all those old bathing suits are so dorky-looking?

A. How old are you?

Q. I'm 28.

A. God, all you're looking at is T. and A. What the woman has to worry about is containment. Thank God for latex. We used to have zippers in our bathing suits.

Q. My God, woman, was there a guy in Hollywood you didn't sleep with?

A. It wasn't so many guys. It sounds like more because they were so well endowed.

Q. On page 48, you use the phrases "remarkable genitalia," "extraordinary male attributes" and "beautifully equipped."

A. Was that Johnny Weissmuller? I have to give several speeches in the next few months, and I think I have to give proper tribute to Johnny.

Q. You gave him plenty of tribute. I'd like a woman to give me a tribute like that.

A. If you're going to play Tarzan, be Tarzan. And he was. He was a winner.

Q. Fernando Lamas said he drove to parties naked because he didn't want to crease his pants. You think he was really just looking for some attention from you?

A. He never stopped looking for attention. When my mother first met him, she said, "He has no underwear on." I said, "What are you doing looking there?" And she said, "You never outgrow looking, but you usually see some underwear."

Q. When you meet people, are they surprised you're still alive?

A. It used to be that way. Katharine Hepburn once said to me, "There's only one good thing about talk shows. People get to watch you rot."

--By Joel Stein