This vintage press photo (1936) features Eleanor Holm (1913-2004), an accomplished American swimmer and Olympian. She participated in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics. In 1932 she won a gold medal in the backstroke. She was selected to the 1936 Olympic team but was expelled from the team by Avery Brundage, President of the American Olympic Committee. On the way to the Olympics, Eleanor attended a drinking party aboard the ship that was taking her and her fellow athletes to Europe. Apparently she drank way too much. The team doctor found her in a near coma state. She also had been rude to a team chaperone. There were a number of charges; Eleanor did not deny them. Later in time, she stated that Brundage had a grudge against her because she had rejected him after he propositioned her. She ended up watching the swim events from the stands. Eleanor appears to have liked the limelight. In 1932, shortly after the Olympics, she had screen tests at a number of Hollywood’s major studios. That same year, she was named a WAMPAS baby star in the same class as Ginger Rogers. One of her first jobs with Warner Brothers involved barnstorming the country supporting both the movie “42nd Street” as well as the newly elected president, Franklin Roosevelt. In 1933 she married Art Jarrett (pictured in this photo), a singer and bandleader at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Holm appeared in four films playing herself and in one feature film, “Tarzan’s Revenge” (1938). Holm’s husband divorced her in 1938 1938. He stated he was humiliated by Holm’s expulsion from the Olympics as well as her having an affair. Holm married impresario Billy Rose in 1939. He had just divorced Fanny Brice. Also in 1939, Holm performed in Rose’s “Acquacade” at the World’s Fair. Holm’s marriage to Rose ended in 1954 in divorce. The divorce trial was sensational and was labelled “The War of the Roses”. Some months post divorce, Holm married again. Her new husband was an oil executive. SOLD
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