Gods and Foolish Grandeur: Becoming Tarzan - youthful images of Johnny Weissmuller

I've never been particularly interested in Johnny Weissmuller or his career as Tarzan. Nor was I ever impressed, as others have been, by his physique; I thought he looked somehow a bit slack. But he was certainly considered an Adonis in his day, the very model of male perfection. So I was surprised, when I recently came across very early pictures of him, taken a decade before the Tarzan train started, and saw how scrawny he looked, how un-Olympian. His career as one of the most important swimmers of the twentieth century had already quite successfully begun, and he was already breaking records; he broke the world record in the 100-meter freestyle when he was only eighteen. So I found it very interesting to see how much he changed physically during the decade from eighteen to twenty-eight, when he was cast as Tarzan.

Wearing the Illinois Athletic Club insignia, 1922. (Three images.)

Johnny Weissmuller (2 June 1904, Szabadfalva/Freidorf, Austria-Hungary, now Timișoara, Romania – 20 January 1984, Acapulco, Mexico), Austro-Hungarian-born American competitive swimmer and actor. Born Johann Weißmüller, he was seven months old when his parents arrived at Ellis Island; the family settled first in Pennsylvania and then Chicago. At the age of nine, he contracted polio and, at the suggestion of his doctor, he took up swimming to help battle the disease. He continued swimming and eventually earned a spot on the YMCA swim team. He dropped out of high school to work various jobs including a stint as a lifeguard at a Lake Michigan beach. While working as an elevator operator and bellboy at the Illinois Athletic Club, he caught the eye of famous swim coach William Bachrach; in August 1921, Weissmuller won the national championships in the 50-yard and 220-yard distances, and the following year he broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record in the 100-meter freestyle.

Circa 1924. (Three images.)

At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris he went on to win gold medals in the 100- and 400-meter freestyle, and was a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4×200-meter relay. As a member of the U.S. water polo team, he also won a bronze medal. In 1928, at the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, he won two more gold medals, for the 100-meter freestyle, and as a member of the team in the 4×200-meter relay. In the summer of 1929, because of his now international celebrity, he was chosen to officially open the Piscine Molitor in Paris. That same year, he signed a contract with BVD to be the face - and figure - of the company, touring the country as their representative. He made cameo appearances in a few movie shorts, and in 1932 signed a seven year contract with MGM.

Shipboard, circa 1928.

At the Piscine Molitor, Paris, circa 1929.

Two portraits by George Hoyningen-Huene, taken at the Piscine Molitor, Paris, circa 1929-30.

"Tarzan the Ape Man" was a huge success, and Weissmuller made a total of six Tarzan films for the studio, before moving to RKO where he made another six, though with markedly reduced production values. After that, he moved to Columbia, where he made thirteen Jungle Jim features between 1948 and 1954. He then took Jungle Jim to television for twenty-seven episodes beginning in 1956. He was involved in numerous business ventures, but spent a lot of time golfing and at his home in Mexico. He only had small roles in three more films, and after several years of ill health, including a series of strokes, he died at his adopted home of Acapulco at the age of seventy-nine. At his request, a recording of his famous Tarzan yell was played as his coffin was lowered into the ground.