Can anyone be considered absolutely unique in a field as crowded as cinema? Definitely, if you’re Esther Williams who died this week at age 91. Swimming is how the Californian brunette with the athletic body and easy smile made her mark and found her way into the hearts and lockers of innumerable servicemen. No one will remember any of her movies made in the 1940s and 1950s but to a public old enough to have been around in her heyday, her name will evoke her spectacular aquatic skills in any number of light romantic comedies. In fact, the showmanship of her precision acrobatic swimming later boosted the Olympics synchronized swimming event, a sport of which she was the unofficial godmother.