‘I’ve had a blast’: The infectious, madcap joy of Aussie sex symbol star Annette Kellerman

World’s highest-paid movie star, sex symbol, champion athlete and influencer decades ahead of her time – yet as a terribly handicapped child, Annette Kellerman could not even walk.

‘Encouraged women to get active 100 years before modern fitness influencers thought they came up with the idea’ ... Annette Kellerman was also one of the first women to wear a one-piece swimsuit.

The “Australian mermaid” Annette Kellerman was the highest paid movie star in the world at the dawn of feature films, with one of her silent epics featuring a cast of 20,000.

Yet the swimming champion, daredevil and fashion icon dubbed “The Perfect Woman” gave most of her money away to charities to help Australia survive World War Two, turned her back on mansions and limousines, and lived out her final days as a largely anonymous aged pensioner in a modest fibro cottage beside the waves of Queensland’s Gold Coast.

I’ve had a blast recently writing Annette’s biography, savouring every minute of her myriad madcap adventures that took her around the world and made her the idol of millions when lesser-known stars on the rise such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Al Jolson played second fiddle to her career.

Born into a family of entertainers in 1886, Annette squeezed every drop of joy from her 89 years and her story is a real celebration of the zest for life that we can all have.

‘An inspiring, uplifting, cheer-out-loud journey’ ... colourised portrait of Annette Kellerman, in her famous custom swimsuit designed to allow for serious athletic swimming.

From the moment she dipped her quivering toe into the cold waters of Sydney Harbour for her first swimming lesson as a seven-year-old, she began an inspiring, uplifting, cheer-out-loud journey that saw a handicapped girl (she had rickets, could not walk unaided and had to endure painful leg braces) who was afraid of the water become Australia’s first great female swimming champion, one of the biggest stars on the world stage in vaudeville, and then the screen’s best-paid movie actor.

She raced cars, rode horses at breakneck speed, dived from huge heights and was once thrown into a pool of crocodiles for a movie stunt.

She gave birth to water ballet shows and took them around the world, selling out the biggest theatres wherever she went.

‘She was enormous fun’ ... Annette Kellerman was not afraid of causing a stir, for example by appearing nude in 1916 film A Daughter of the Gods.

At one time she held every women’s world swimming record from 100 yards to 36 kilometres.

Global influencer ...Annette Kellerman.

More than anyone she popularised the one-piece swimsuit and became one of the first global fitness influencers. And along the way, unwittingly, she became a sex symbol in countries around the world.

For millions of women she changed the way they saw themselves and no doubt had a strong influence on them finally winning voting rights in America and Britain after years of struggle.

All the while she was enormous fun, encouraging women to get active almost 100 years before the modern fitness influencers thought they came up with the idea.

During WWII she staged aquatic spectaculars around Australia, including in the shadow of Sydney’s Luna Park, to raise money for charities such as the Red Cross and the Royal Flying Doctors.

A star in her prime ... Annette Kellerman with Norman French in silent film 'Venus of the South Seas'.

And a veteran performer ... age was no barrier to Annette Kellerman was still doing her thing. Here she is performing underwater in a Hollywood clip from the late 1940s, aged 60.

The producer who made The Wizard of Oz filmed her life story in a great Hollywood blockbuster of the 1950s but he took enormous licence with the facts.

Annette did, too, exaggerating stories about her life including one where she claimed she was arrested for wearing a one-piece bathing suit in a very conservative time in America and then berating the judge that she was standing up for women’s rights.

I think the true details of her life that I relate in my book are even more fascinating than the Hollywood version.

Hollywood heroine ... Esther Williams played Annette Kellerman in 1950s movie ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’.

One of the things that has really stuck with me since writing it, was just what a massive star she was in her heyday – for one of her pictures, A Daughter of the Gods, her film company basically took over the island of Jamaica for almost a year.

Hers was a breathtaking life, and yet through it all she remained a down-to-earth, loveable Aussie larrikin who was married to the love of her life for 60 years. And she was at her happiest being virtually anonymous and living in a shack on the Great Barrier Reef.

Madcap adventures ... Grantlee Kieza’s new book on Annette Kellerman.

Annette Kellerman: Australian Mermaidby Grantlee Kieza will be published by HarperCollins/ABC Books on April 2 and is available to preorder now.

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Originally published as ‘I’ve had a blast’: The infectious, madcap joy of Aussie sex symbol star Annette Kellerman