Biography

Australian-born swimming champion and actress, she played a significant role in the popularization of swimming as a sport, especially for women. Also known as "The Million Dollar Mermaid". Born Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman in Sydney, Australia, on July 6, 1886; died in Southport, Queensland, Australia, on the 6th November 1975; married James R. Sullivan (her manager), in 1912. She suffered from a form of Poliomyelitis that had left her partially crippled as a child. She had to wear an iron brace up to her hips. Her father pushed her to swim as a therapeutic means of overcoming this condition. Her legs were normal by the time she was 13 as a result. She began swimming competions while still a teenager and won the New South Wales swimming championships in 1902. She went to England in 1904 with her father and she won a 26-mile race on the Thames. With her brother as manager, came to U.S. and made first public appearance (1907); made first film, a kind of documentary, as early as 1909, and her last just before the end of the silent era; a champion swimmer, recognized health authority, and exponent of physical culture, was the first woman swimmer to achieve acclaim; is said to have devised the idea of formation swimming as an art, is credited with having introduced the single-piece swimsuit (even arrested for indecent exposure for wearing it) and did much to facilitate the entry of women into the aquatic sports by gradually making acceptable the kind of minimal swimwear necessary to allow freedom of movement and speed in the water; retired to her native Australia (1935). Awards: Holder of the world record for the two-, five- and ten-minute swimming championships. She was also the first woman to appear fully nude in a movie; "A Daughter of the Gods" (1916).