By the time I got home at night, my eyes were so chlorinated I saw rings around every light.

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.

I always felt that if I made a movie, it would be one movie; I didn't see how they could make 26 swimming movies.

We can't all win Olympic medals. Even I never won one.

I was all in gold sequins for Million Dollar Mermaid, 50 feet in the air

Even though I had a lucrative contract with MGM, I had a husband who was drinking and gambling our money away faster than I could make it.

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.