Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller (
June 2,
1904 –
January 20,
1984) was one of the world's best
swimmers in the
1920s, winning five
Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two National Championships and set sixty-seven
world records. After his swimming career, he played
Tarzan in twelve motion pictures. Other
actors also played Tarzan, but Weissmuller was the best-known. His distinctive, ululating
Tarzan yell is still often used in films.
He was registered as
János Weißmüller when he was born in
Freidorf,
Banat, at the time part of
Austria-Hungary (today a suburb of
Timişoara,
Romania), the son of
German-speaking parents, Petrus Weißmüller and Erzsébet Kersch, according to his Hungarian birth and (Roman Catholic) baptismal records. In fact, he was named Johann by his parents, but all legal records at the time used the Hungarian forms of personal names.
When Johnny was seven months old, the family
emigrated to the United States aboard the
S.S. Rotterdam. They left
Rotterdam on
January 14,
1905, and arrived in
New York twelve days later, with their names recorded in
English as Peter, Elizabeth and Johann Weissmuller. Peter had been born
1876-12-31.
After a brief stay in
Chicago,
Illinois, visiting relatives, they moved to the
coal mining town of
Windber,
Pennsylvania, where Peter Weissmuller worked as a miner. Another son, Peter Weissmuller, Jr., was born in Windber on
September 3,
1905. Peter Jr is listed on one census as born in Illinois.
After several years in Pennsylvania, they moved to Chicago. Johnny's father owned a
bar for a time and his mother became head cook at a famed restaurant. His father worked as a brewer for the United States brewery in Chicago. His parents were later divorced, as is shown by the divorce document filed in Chicago by Elizabeth Weissmuller, although a lot of sources state incorrectly that Weismuller's father died of
tuberculosis contracted from working in coal mines and left her a widow. Peter actually lived to old age and had another, large family of children. By 1930 he had married his second wife, Anna, with whom he had a son named Edward and a daughter Ruth, and a grandson named Peter. Elizabeth Weissmuller appears with her sons on the Cook County census claiming to be a widow.
From an early age, Johnny and his brother were aggressive swimmers. The beaches of
Lake Michigan became their favorite
summer recreation place. He then joined the Stanton Park pool, where he won all the junior swim meets. At the age of twelve he earned a spot on the
YMCA swim team.
When Weissmuller left school, he worked as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago and trained for the
Olympics with a swim coach at the Illinois Athletic Club, where he developed his revolutionary high-riding front crawl. He made his
amateur debut on
August 6,
1921, winning his first
AAU race in the 50-yard
freestyle.
Though he was foreign-born, Weissmuller gave his birthplace as Windber, Pennsylvania, and his birth date as that of his younger brother, Peter Weissmuller. This was to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the United States Olympic team, and was a critical issue in being issued an
American passport.
On
July 9,
1922, Weissmuller broke
Duke Kahanamoku's world record on the 100-meters freestyle, swimming it in 58.6 seconds. He won the title in that distance at the
1924 Summer Olympics, beating Kahanamoku on
February 24,
1924. He also won the 400-meters freestyle and the 4 x 200 meters relay. As a member of the American
water polo team, he also won a bronze medal. Four years later, at the
1928 Summer Olympics in
Amsterdam, he won another Olympic title.
In all, he won five Olympic gold medals, one bronze medal, won fifty-two
U.S. National Championships and set sixty-seven
world records. Johnny Weissmuller never lost a race and retired from his amateur swimming
career undefeated.
In
1929, Weissmuller signed a
contract with
BVD to be a
model and representative. He traveled throughout the country doing swim shows, handing out leaflets promoting that brand of
swimwear, giving his
autograph and going on
talk shows. In that same year, he made his first
motion picture appearance as an
Adonis wearing only a figleaf in a movie titled
Glorifying the American Girl and he appeared as himself in the first of several
Crystal Champions, a movie short featuring Weissmuller and other Olympic champions at
Silver Springs, Florida.
His career really began when he signed a seven year
contract with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and played the role of
Tarzan in
Tarzan the Ape Man (
1932). The movie was a huge success and the 6'3" Weissmuller became an overnight international sensation. Even the
author,
Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the character of Tarzan in his books, was pleased.
Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan movies for
MGM with actress
Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. The last three also included
Johnny Sheffield as Boy. Then, in
1942, Weissmuller went to
RKO and starred in six more Tarzan movies. Sheffield appeared as Boy in the first five features for that studio. Another co-star was blonde actress
Brenda Joyce, who played Jane in Weissmuller's last four Tarzan movies. In a total of twelve Tarzan movies, Weissmuller earned an estimated $2,000,000 and established himself as the best-known of all the actors who have ever portrayed Tarzan. Although not the first Tarzan in movies (that honour went to
Elmo Lincoln), he was the first to be associated with the now traditional ululating, yodeling Tarzan yell. (During an appearance on television's Mike Douglas Show in the 1970's, Weissmuller explained how the famous yell was created. Recordings of three vocalists were spliced together to get the effect--a soprano, an alto, and a hog caller!)
When he finally left that role, he immediately traded his loincloth costume for jungle fatigues and appeared fully clothed in the role of
Jungle Jim (
1948) for
Columbia. He made thirteen Jungle Jim movies between (
1948) and (
1954). Within the next year, he appeared in three more jungle movies playing himself.
In
1955, he began production of the
Jungle Jim television adventure series for
Screen Gems, a film subsidiary of
Columbia. The show ran for twenty-six episodes, which played over and over on network and syndicated TV for many years.
Weissmuller had five wives: band and club singer Bobbe Arnst (married
1931-divorced
1933); actress
Lupe Vélez (married
1933-divorced
1939); Beryl Scott (married
1939-divorced
1948); Allene Gates (married
1948-divorced
1962); and Maria Bauman (married
1963-his death
1984).
According to a movie site on the Internet, he also married and divorced Camilla Louiee, but that claim has been challenged. Weissmuller reportedly said that Louiee ran off and married another man instead of him.
With his third wife, Beryl, he had three children, Johnny Scott Weissmuller (or
Johnny Weissmuller, Jr., also an actor) (born
September 23,
1940, died
July 27,
2006), Wendy Anne Weissmuller (born
June 1,
1942) and Heidi Elizabeth Weissmuller (
July 31,
1944-
November 19,
1962).
In the late
1950s, Weissmuller moved back to
Chicago and started a swimming pool company. He also lent his name to other business ventures, but did not have a great deal of success. He retired in
1965 and moved to
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was Founding Chairman of the
International Swimming Hall of Fame. In
1970, he attended the
British Commonwealth Games in
Jamaica where he was presented to
Queen Elizabeth. He also made a cameo appearance with former co-star
Maureen O'Sullivan in
The Phynx (
1970).
Weissmuller lived in Florida until the end of
1973, then moved to
Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was a greeter at the MGM Grand Hotel for a time. In
1974, he broke a hip and leg. While hospitalized he learned that, in spite of his strength and lifelong daily regimen of swimming and exercise, he had a serious heart condition.
In
1976, he appeared for the last time in a
motion picture playing a movie crewman who is fired by a movie mogul, played by
Art Carney, in
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, and he also made his final public appearance in that year when he was inducted into the
Body Building Guild Hall of Fame.
Weissmuller suffered a series of strokes in
1977. For a time in
1979, he was a patient in the
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in
Woodland Hills, California. Later he and his last wife, Maria, moved to
Acapulco, Mexico, which was the location of his last Tarzan movie.
Johnny Weissmuller died on
January 20,
1984 of a pulmonary
edema at his retirement home in
Acapulco. He is buried in the Valley of The Light Cemetery there.
His former co-star and movie son,
Johnny Sheffield, said of him, "I can only say that working with Big John was one of the highlights of my life. He was a Star (with a capital "S") and he gave off a special light and some of that light got into me. Knowing and being with Johnny Weissmuller during my formative years had a lasting influence on my life."
Johnny Weissmuller has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard in
Hollywood.
Glorifying the American Girl (
1929) (Paramount) ... Adonis
Crystal Champions (
1929) (Paramount) ... Himself
Tarzan the Ape Man (
1932) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan and His Mate (
1934) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan Escapes (
1936) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan Finds a Son! (
1939) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan's Secret Treasure (
1941) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan's New York Adventure (
1942) (MGM) ... Tarzan
Tarzan Triumphs (
1943) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Tarzan's Desert Mystery (
1943) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Stage Door Canteen (
1943) (United Artists) ... Himself
Tarzan and the Amazons (
1945) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Swamp Fire (
1946) (Paramount) ... Johnny Duval
Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (
1946) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Tarzan and the Huntress (
1947) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Tarzan and the Mermaids (
1948) (RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
Jungle Jim (
1948) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
The Lost Tribe (
1949) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Mark of the Gorilla (
1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Captive Girl (
1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Pypmy Island (
1950) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Fury of the Congo (
1951) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Jungle Manhunt (
1951) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (
1952) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Voodoo Tiger (
1952) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Savage Mutiny (
1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Valley of Head Hunters (
1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Killer Ape (
1953) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Jungle Man-Eaters (
1954) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
Cannibal Attack (
1954) (Columbia) ... Himself
Jungle Moon Men (
1955) (Columbia) ... Himself
Devil Goddess (
1955) (Columbia) ... Himself
The Phynx (
1970) (
Warner Bros.) ... Cameo
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (
1976) (Paramount) ... Crewman
*Johnny Weismuller Jr.,
Tarzan My Father, Toronto: ECW Press 2002
*
The Official Johnny Weissmuller Web Site*
IMDb entry for Johnny Weissmuller*
Johnny Weissmuller 1904-1984 (Fan site with biography, background information and photos)*
LOUIS S. NIXDORFF, 1928 OLYMPIC GAMES COLLECTION, 1926-1978 - Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
