Tarzan Films Intro

TARZAN IN FILM - 1918 to 1999

Twenty different adult actors have portrayed Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous savage hero in fifty films over an eighty-eight year span. Technically, the very first actor to play the ape-man on screen was 10-year-old Gordon Griffith who played a young Tarzan in the first jungle-man film, Tarzan of the Apes (1918). Not surpisingly, the majority of these actors were about six foot, three inches tall and weighed about 220 pounds (100 kg). Most of them came from non-acting backgrounds and about half of them were sportsmen. They are frequently ridiculed for the triviality of their chosen profession but these large-chested men-of-few-words have contributed something invaluable to the human spirit - transports of the imagination and a sometimes heart-pounding sense of wonder.

Click on the images below to explore the topics:

SOURCES
• Photo of Johnny Weissmuller from the front cover of AMC (American Movie Classics) Magazine, Jun 97
• Smaller images of (top) Gene Pollar, Glen Morris & Eleanor Holm and Lex Barker & Vanessa Brown are all from AMC (American Movie Classics) Magazine, Jun 97
• Smaller images of (bottom) Frank Merrill, Mike Henry, Ron Ely and Miles O'Keefe are all from AMC (American Movie Classics) Magazine, Jun 97
• Photos on The Silents image (top left to bottom right) - Elmo Lincoln, Gene Pollar, Frank Merrill and P Dempsey Tabler - are all from of A Pictorial History of the Tarzan Movies by Ray Lee and Vernell Coriell, Golden State News Inc, 1966
• Photo of Johnny Weissmuller on The Black & Whites image (top left) was donated by Geoff St Andrews. Many thanks Geoff!
• Other photos on The Black & Whites image (top right to bottom left) - Herman Brix, Glen Morris and Lex Barker - are all from of A Pictorial History of the Tarzan Movies by Ray Lee and Vernell Coriell, Golden State News Inc, 1966
• Photos on The Colour Films image (top left to bottom right) - Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney, Christopher Lambert and Joe Lara - were all pilfered from eBay auction items
LYNX
• See numerous clips from Tarzan films at Mathieu Neyens' Tarzan en Jane site from Belgium

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