Barely a teenager, Elizabeth Taylor was already more beautiful and voluptuous than Miss America. When she arrived at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for our magazine shoot, I was bowled over. I couldn't believe she was only fourteen. She filled out a swimsuit better than I did. We did the pictures, including one shot of me teaching her to float. With that superstructure of hers, she floated just fine. What she couldn't do was sink.

There was a policy at Hughes against drinking at lunch, but the men ignored it

I ended up buying a restaurant. Already we had invested in a gas station and a metal products plant.

Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the exciting world outside of my own home.

Marriage to Fernando offered shelter and security, but the shackle was the price I'd pay.

I was 15, and the years of hard swimming had packed muscle on my frame and made me very strong. Not as strong as a football player, but strong enough to inflict heavy damage.

The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.