After wowing Australia, England and Europe with her marathon swimming prowess, Annette Kellerman became famous for her vaudeville performances.

Born Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann on 6 July 1886 in Sydney, Kellerman (her stage name) was diagnosed with rickets as a young child. Rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency, resulting

This studio portrait of Annette Kellerman, taken around 1907, shows her wearing a revolutionary one-piece swimming costume.

'Ghastly!' Kellerman recalls how she disliked the perfect woman label given to her in the early 1900s.

‘After making examinations of ten thousand girls, Annette Kellerman is the closest to physical perfection of any’ declared Dr Dudley Sargent, director of the Harvard University Gymnasium in 1912.

This is an excerpt from a mute trailer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Million Dollar Mermaid (Mervyn LeRoy, USA, 1952).

Annette Kellerman says she never needed a stunt double in any of her films.

Kellerman was 52 years old when her husband and manager Jimmie Sullivan filmed this rare silent footage. She is performing the underwater adagio - a slow ballet dance.

Annette Kellerman is credited with being the first woman to appear nude in a film – in the grand epic A Daughter of the Gods (Herbert Brenon, USA, 1916).

Champion swimmer, silent movie star, underwater ballerina, entrepreneur, vaudeville entertainer and author.

Discover more about Annette Kellerman's incredible life in this compilation.