Famous 1950s Water Comedian Led Full Life.

Would you believe one guy, starting in 1929, m was a film star ... a dancer, acrobat, comic, truck driver's helper, diving champion, bellhop, camp swim instructor, football and track competitor, carhop, lifeguard, water-show star, war hero, producer, world traveler, nightclub manager, civic center director, salesman, Santa Claus, elected official, fund-raiser, newspaper columnist, janitor, truck driver and Hall of Famer? Well, it's true. This is my life and these are my stories. I hope you enjoy them half as much as I enjoyed living them."

So opens Eddie Rose's autobiography, cherished by the friends who received its limited copies several years ago. Known as "The World's Greatest Water Comedian," Rose, 80, died Sept. 6 of congestive heart failure.

"He was probably the funniest man I ever knew," said friend Clive Dyson, an acrobatic diver who traveled with Rose in the lnternational water Follies of the 1950s. "He took me under his wing when I joined the show and he was my best friend."

Rose's act included going off a diving board in a baby carriage and dressing up as a clown and doing his trademark belly flop, according to the Orlando Sentinel. A high-school diving champion in New Jersey, Rose 'also worked with swimming greats Esther Williams, Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1981.

Rose said he fell in love with show business while bedridden with an injury during World War II. A tail gunner, Rose was shot down in Italy in 1944. His roonmate, a corporal from ...