Saved from Drowning by Tarzan
Johnny Weismuller began swimming at a young
age after he contracted polio. Image: Public domain
Johann Peter Weißmüller was born in 1904 in Hungary. The following year, his father Peter and mother Elisabeth boarded the SS Rotterdam for a 12-day trek to America. The little family processed into the country through Ellis Island and settled in Pennsylvania. Three years later, they relocated to Chicago, this time with a second child in tow.
Polio has been essentially eradicated nowadays. Back then, however, it was an absolute scourge. An infectious viral neuromuscular disease, polio attacked children and often left them with horrific paralysis. Young Johann Weißmüller contracted the dread disease at age nine.
Then, as now, there wasn’t a great deal to be done for this. Johann’s doctor recommended the young man try swimming as a way to build up his atrophied muscles. His parents enrolled him in swimming lessons conducted in Lake Michigan. The kid took to water like a fish.
Johann, by now, went by the Americanized Johnny. His no-account Dad abandoned his family when the boy was in eighth grade. Johnny subsequently left school and went to work to keep his little family from starving. In his free time, he swam at the local YMCA.
In 1921, at age 17, Johnny embarked on a professional swimming career. He won the first four races he entered and set his first two world records that same year. In 1924, he took gold in the 100-meter freestyle in the Summer Olympics. He earned two more Gold Medals four years later at the Olympics in Amsterdam. In between setting records, Johnny worked as a lifeguard at various swimming pools.
Johnny Weismuller was known around the world as
Tarzan the Ape Man. Image: Public domain.
The Big Time
In 1929, Johnny Weißmüller changed his name to Johnny Weismuller and got a spot as an extra playing Adonis in the movie Glorifying the American Girl. His costume consisted solely of a big, oversized fig leaf. However, this role got him noticed. In 1932, this tall, fit guy with the weird accent got the lead in Tarzan the Ape Man.
When Weismuller got the role of Tarzan, he was already under contract as a model for BVD underwear. However, MGM wanted him so badly that they offered Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler to model underpants instead. The BVD people were rightfully thrilled with the trade.
Tarzan was Weismuller’s seminal role. He played the character through twelve full-length Tarzan movies. He also starred in a further sixteen Jungle Jim films as well as twenty-six episodes of the Jungle Jim television show.
Weismuller voiced the signature Tarzan yell. However, sound recordists took the original tape, tweaked it a little, and then played it in reverse. This ended up being the classic Tarzan scream with which we are all familiar.
Like most successful Hollywood actors, Johnny Weismuller had
insatiable appetites. Here he is shown with his second of five wives.
Public domain.
Trouble in Paradise
The life of a famous movie actor is simply not healthy. Weismuller took good care of himself but made some bad choices. He was married five times and fathered three children. He formally retired from acting in 1957.
In 1927, while Weismuller was training for the Chicago Marathon, he was present when the Favorite, a small day excursion boat, capsized near the Navy Pier in a squall. The little boat was about half a mile offshore when it foundered. There were eighty-one people onboard.
Without hesitation, Weismuller hit the water and made his way out to the wreck. With the assistance of other lifeguards, they successfully rescued fifty of the drowning victims. This was in addition to several others whom he had saved over the years, serving as a lifeguard.
Johnny Weismuller was one of the most famous actors
in Hollywood in his day. Image: Public domain.
Ruminations
Weismuller subscribed to the John Harvey Kellogg holistic lifestyle. This frankly weird, near-cultlike worldview claimed that the scientific management of diet, exercise, and enemas would ensure vigorous health and longevity. Considering how much health-related misery is fomented by our hideous diets nowadays, I suspect there was some merit to that. I’m not so sure about the enemas, however…
In 1974, Weismuller suffered a fairly severe hip and leg fracture. While recovering in the hospital from this injury, it was discovered that the lifelong athlete also had fairly advanced heart disease. Nowadays, cardiac stents, proper medical management, and coronary artery bypass grafting will add decades to a heart patient’s life. Back then, however, this diagnosis was essentially a death sentence.
Weissmuller suffered a series of strokes in 1977. By 1979, he was in long-term care at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. He eventually moved with his last wife to Acapulco, Mexico.
Weismuller eventually succumbed to pulmonary edema in 1984 and was buried in Acapulco. Prior to his death, Weismuller made a curious request. As his pallbearers lowered his coffin into the earth, they played a recording of his iconic Tarzan yell three times. He was also afforded a 21-gun salute that had been organized by President Ronald Reagan and Senator Ted Kennedy. It seemed a fitting tribute for Tarzan, the Ape Man.
