Johnny Weissmuller

For November I chose a man more noted for his athleticism than his acting abilities yet his portrayal of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan was for the time a box office bonanza for the studio so much so that they kept our star from appearing elsewhere so as to reinforce his brand all the more with the movie going public. They succeeded I think. His enduring legacy lives on with his official website johnnyweissmuller.com

Peter John was born June 2, 1904 in Timisoara, Romania. His parents immigrated and wound up sharing a house with John’s mother’s Elizabeth’s parents in Chicago. John grew up near Lincoln Park and his frequent visits to the zoo helped galvanize his love of animals and as part of a city program Johnny learned to ride horses even bareback. At the age of 8 he hit the water and began swimming lessons at Fullerton Beach on Lake Michigan wherein he entered and won all the races that the city sponsored. Joining the YMCA and lying about his age saying he was 12 while just 11 won all the races there until he was 14. He was all champion at running and high jump. His swimming was getting noticed and the coach at the Illinois Athletic Club or IAC had one of the best swim clubs in the Country.

While working as a bellhop at the Plaza Hotel he got a tryout with the legendary coach Bill Bachrach who already knew of Weissmuller’s prowess. Bill said: “He had the gawkiness of an adolescent puppy…but the stopwatch told it all.” He was now a member. Bill worked on John’s stroke and kick which perfected a stroke unlike any other swimmer of his day and Weissmuller’s crawl stroke had him “hydroplaning” which kept him higher in the water and increased his speed. It worked because in September of 1921 John set his first of 2 World Records at the A.A.U. Nationals in Brighton Beach, N.Y. in the 100m and 150yd events. In the summer of 1922 Johnny broke the 1-minute barrier in the 100m freestyle at 58.6 seconds. These records remained for decades. It stood to reason Bill would serve as mentor and father figure to Johnny throughout his life. 

As a harbinger to his action hero status on film Johnny became a real life hero in 1927. While he was training for the Chicago River marathon he and his brother spied the passenger boat Favorite had capsized and began to sink the boys sprung into action and pulled out over two dozen from the wreck and of those 11 survived and Johnny received the key to the city for bravery. Shaken but undaunted he won the marathon 2 days later. A footnote in 1933 he repeated his heroism while a volunteer lifeguard in Santa Monica, as he loved being in the water he saved the life of a 12-year-old boy. 

In 1923 before entering his first Olympics John had captured world records in distances from 50m to 500yds and had 9 World Records and 15 American, as his domination would now take to the global stage in the Olympics in Amsterdam in 1924. Here Weissmuller took home 3 Gold medallions in freestyle in the 400m and 800m and then in the 800m relay. He even took a bronze for the team sport of water polo. Interestingly John added even more to his charismatic persona when he did some diving routines, which thrilled the crowds numbering over 10,000, and became one of the world’s first superstar athletes before the term even existed. 

John would enter the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam be the standard bearer in the Opening Ceremony alongside General Douglas MacArthur a moment that made him extremely proud. Weissmuller won another two Gold medals and then retired from competitive swimming with 67 world records but Johnny had to earn a better living something he couldn’t do at that time as an amateur athlete.

In the summer of 1931 while swimming at the Hollywood Athletic Club with a host of onlookers, screenwriter Cyril Hume was also in the pool and he was working on a new project Tarzan the Ape Man. He asked John to come to MGM for a screen test but even before the test began the studio knew they had found their star. After the first movie was released in 1932 it was a huge critical and public success in the States and then Worldwide. It became one of the highest grossing films of the year. However Tarzan and His Mate released in 1934 deemed the best of the 42 Tarzan films ever made the Library of Congress selected it for preservation and the AFI* placed it on the list of the greatest love stories every told.  Following the first movie ads heralded John as the World’s Perfect Male citing his dimensions from height down to his ankle dimensions. It was no wonder that MGM would follow with 11 more Tarzan films.  John’s natural affinity with animals made the films even more realistic and he did most of his own stunts climbing trees and of course diving into the water. His iconic Tarzan yell was based on yodeling he had learned as a boy in the German community in Chicago. The teaming for 6 of the films with Maureen O’Sullivan was also pure magic as the two had great chemistry and rapport on film and remained friends throughout their lives. There was problem with the Hollywood censors in the Pre-Code era when Maureen O’Sullivan’s double nude swimming scene was edited out. John in part engineered the choreography. Restored in 1980 it was too bad audiences were precluded from seeing it as it was elegantly done even if it was 1934. 

The studio was overly protective of Weissmuller and refused to lend him out to any other studio but did let him participate at the Aquacade in the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. At the Fair Weissmuller was featured by Billy Rose (who made millions from it) diving and swimming in gold swim trunks still in fabulous shape at age 35 and John beat the current national champion in the 100yd freestyle in a practice race.

There seemed to be no end to Johnny’s athletic prowess as he was also an avid golfer and helped begin the Bing Crosby Pro-Am Classic and was very proud of his 5 holes-in-one over his golfing career.

 With the start of 1932 John would star as Tarzan 12 times almost all with Maureen O’Sullivan as his mate Jane. The genesis of the Tarzan movies came from the 1931 film Trader Horn. The studio had so much extra jungle footage they didn’t want to waste it and so the Tarzan films were born and little did they know just how successful they would become. Johnny’s complete filmography would encompass just 38 films and he never appeared as anything else than himself, Tarzan or Jungle Jim.  (An interesting factoid to note is that 8 different chimpanzees portrayed Cheetah over the span of the filming of the franchise.) The films garnered Johnny wealth enough to build a huge 8,700 square foot mansion and a 300-foot serpentine swimming pool enjoyed by later day star Mick Jagger. Johnny never hid the fact that it wasn’t his acting that made him famous and it was his athleticism and it probably endeared him to the public all the more and he would say, “I was an athlete. They know I wasn’t make-believe”. Tarzan’s creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’s never liked Hollywood’s take on Tarzan but he always maintained an appreciation for Weissmuller. Truth be told John was the embodiment of the Tarzan character in countenance, physique, limited lexical and dynamic athleticism. 

When John played Jungle Jim it later evolved into a television series in 1956, which lasted for 26 episodes, which I remember and it was quite entertaining at least from a child’s perspective. John played in one role as himself in 1946 alongside Buster Crabbe also a swimmer called Swamp Fire. Crabbe always jealous of John tried to best him in an underwater scene, which he later regretted. 

Did you know that at first John didn’t want to portray Tarzan? He already had a bathing suit and underwear contract with BVD and at first the company wouldn’t let him out of his contract but they eventually came to terms when the manufacturer started photographing stars Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford in swimsuits. John maintained his contract status with BVD for another 7 years. 

When 1948 opened John would release the loincloth but in the jungle he would stay but I don’t think he seemed to mind as his character had grown up when he would star in the role of Jungle Jim Bradley. His dialogue did too as John portrayed a hunter, guide and explorer.  The new franchise was based on a comic strip and it would spawn 13 more films and a television series. Another chimpanzee would accompany John but this one was named Tamba. Weissmuller typecast would only portray 5 different characters and when retirement came Johnny went home to Chicago and started what else a swimming pool company but it had little success. Later he would come out of retirement and some might see it as a step down but Johnny didn’t seem to mind at least outwardly as he became a greeter for the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

Johnny’s love life not nearly successful as his film career married 6 times the most famous being actress Lupe Velez the Mexican Spitfire and sired 3 children with wife Beryl Scott.

In 1974 John passed away from respiratory failure and at his request they played his Tarzan yell as his coffin was lowered into the earth.