Holm, Eleanor (1913–2004)

US swimmer and entertainer. Aged 15 she competed in the 1928 Olympics (placed 5th in the 100-metre backstroke); in the 1932 Olympics she won the gold medal in the 100-metre backstroke. On the way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics she was dropped from the US team; instead covering the games for Hearst's International News Service (although her articles were largely ghost-written by other reporters). She turned professional in 1937, appeared in the film Tarzan's Revenge in 1938, and swam in Billy Rose's ‘Aquacade’, first at Cleveland's Great Lakes Exposition (1939) and then at the New York World's Fair (1940).

Born in Jamaica, Long Island, New York, she began swimming off Long Island at the age of 13. She appeared in a few minor film roles but stopped when she was asked to swim (which would have compromised her amateur status). She married the bandleader and singer Keith Jarrett and toured with him as a singer while training for the 1936 Olympics. On the ship to Europe she was reported to have been drinking champagne and staying up late and was dropped from the US team by Avery Brundage, head of the American Olympic Committee. On returning to the USA, she was an even bigger celebrity than before. Divorcing Jarrett, she married Billy Rose in 1939; they were divorced in 1954 and she married Tommy Whalen, a Texas entrepreneur, in 1974.