Who was Esther Costello?

Answer 1

Esther Costello is a fictional character created by Nicholas Montsarrat who is better noted for Naval novels. She was , up to a point Helen Keller type in modern dress- in the story ( it was made into a controversial movie_ Esther was adventitiously ( as opposed to congenitally- Deaf and Blind as the result of an automobile accident which killed her parents. Naturally, she was up for adoption. An American divorcee ( and this was implied in the dialogue) and her paramour adopted Esther and made the grim rounds of therapists and doctors and so on ( real life (Mommie Dearest) Joan Crawford played the scheming, adoptive mom) The new family did not abuse their charge, but did have a commercial bent. over the course of the plot, she is ( Esther) abducted- possibly at a show or carnival- they were commericalizing , is involved in another auto accident- and miraculously regains her powers of sight and hearing- there was a hint she was sexualy assaulted- a real Taboo in the early fifties. The adoptive mother than commits suicide by, if I remember correctly, driving an automobile into the sea. a very sordid picture. I saw snatches of it on the old (early Shows) on TV in the seventies.