Esther Williams, the woman known as Hollywood's mermaid, has died aged 91. Famed for popularising synchronised swimming in gentle and naive comedies during the Forties and Fifties, she was able to breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly, all with a smile and seemingly endless lung capacity.

She's also famous for having swum with Tom and Jerry on film, and for having been the screen idol of everyone's favourite rite-of-passage heroine Sally J Friedman.

Click through our gallery for some of Williams's loveliest moments.