The Original Million Dollar Mermaid by Emily Gibson

Gibson and Firth note that Sargent proclaimed: Dudley Sargent declared that Kellerman’s svelte athlete’s body made her the perfect woman. Her arrest in America was quickly followed by an even bigger PR coup. “After I learned, I’d go swimming anywhere, anytime.” For Kellerman, the water meant freedom, far away from “a black earth full of people that push.” “Only a cripple can understand the intense joy I experienced,” she remembered. A sickly child, she had worn leg braces as the result of rickets and, on doctor’s orders, began to swim. Barbara Firth's biography of Kellerman, written with Emily Gibson and titled 'The Original Million Dollar Mermaid' was published by Allen & Unwin in 2005.Kellerman hailed from Sydney, where she was born in 1886. The collection's paper material, including photographs, was transferred to the State Library of New South Wales.

In the late 1990s the objects in the Annette Kellerman collection were transferred from the Dennis Wolanski Library and Archive of Performing Arts at the Sydney Opera House, to the Powerhouse Museum. Within weeks Kellerman had passed away, on 6 November 1975.

A furniture van was needed to transport the seven large cabin trunks that held the large collection. In September 1975 Barbara Firth spent five days on the Gold Coast with Annette Kellerman and took possession of the entire collection on behalf of the Opera House. Frank Barnes, the Opera House's general manager, agreed that the opportunity to acquire the collection should not be missed. Marcelle spoke to Barbara Firth, a member of the Ladies Committee of the Sydney Opera House Appeal Fund and an honorary coordinator of the performing arts archive. She asked her sister Marcelle to ring the Opera House to make an offer of donation.

Having learnt to swim at Cavill's Baths in Farm Cove, near where the Opera House now stands, she decided this was the appropriate repository for her collection. In 1975, while living in retirement on the Gold Coast, she saw a segment on ABC-TV's 'This Day Tonight' about the recently created performing arts archive at the Sydney Opera House. Notes Annette Kellerman kept a large collection of theatrical and aquatic memorabilia from her long career.

The Original Million Dollar Mermaid by Emily Gibson