Weissmuller was an interesting sportsman, who became an actor, and who is best known for being Tarzan on the big screen than for his sports career.
Janos (Johann) Peter Weissmuller (June 2, 1904-January 20, 1984) was an American competitive swimmer, Olympian, and actor. He was known for playing Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932 version) and its five sequels.
Weissmuller was also known for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century.
Weissmuller set numerous world records alongside winning 5 gold medals in the Olympics.
He won the 100 m freestyle and the 4x200m relay team event in 1924 at the Paris Games and again in 1928 at the Amsterdam Games. Gold was also brought home by Weissmuller in the 400 m freestyle, as well as a bronze medal in the water polo competition in Paris.
More information: Johnny Weissmuller
Johann Peter Weißmüller was born on June 2, 1904 in Freidorf, in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, now part of Romania. Three days later, he was baptized into the Catholic faith by the Hungarian version of his German name, as János.
Early the next year on January 26, 1905, he embarked on a twelve-day trip on the S.S. Rotterdam to Ellis Island alongside his father, Peter Weissmuller and mother, Elizabeth. Soon they arrived in Windber, Pennsylvania to live with family. Johnny's brother Peter was born the following September.
Three years later, they relocated to Chicago to be with his mother's parents. His parents rented a single level in a shared house where he lived during his childhood. Fullerton Beach on Lake Michigan is where Johnny's love for swimming took off, having his first swimming lessons there. He excelled immediately and began entering and winning every race he could. Johnny's father deserted the whole family when Johnny was only in the eighth grade. He left school to begin working in order to support his mother and younger brother.
When Weissmuller was 11 he lied to join the YMCA which had a 12-year-old minimum rule to join. He won every swimming race he entered, and also excelled at running and high jumping. It wouldn't be long before he was on one of the best swim teams in the country, the Illinois Athletic Club.
Johnny had an opportunity to try-out for the famous swimming coach Bill Bachrach. Impressed with what he saw, he took Weissmuller under his wing. He also was a strong father figure and mentor for Johnny.
On August 6, 1921 Weissmuller began his competitive swimming career. He entered four Amateur Athletic Union races and won them all. Johnny set his first 2 world records at the A.A.U. Nationals on September 27, 1921 in the 100 m and 150yd events.
More information: Europeana
On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record in the 100-metre freestyle, swimming it in 58.6 seconds. He won the title for that distance at the 1924 Summer Olympics, beating Kahanamoku for the gold medal. He also won the 400-metre freestyle and was a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4×200-metre relay.
Four years later, at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, he won another two gold medals. It was during this period that Weissmuller became an enthusiast for John Harvey Kellogg's holistic lifestyle views on nutrition, enemas and exercise. He came to Kellogg's Battle Creek, Michigan sanatorium to dedicate its new 120-foot swimming pool, and break one of his own previous swimming records after adopting the vegetarian diet prescribed by Kellogg.
In 1927, Weissmuller set a new world record of 51.0 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, which stood for 17 years. He improved it to 48.5 seconds at Billy Rose World's Fair Aquacade in 1940, aged 36, but this result was discounted, as he was competing as a professional.
As a member of the U.S. men's national water polo team, he won a bronze medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics. He also competed in the 1928 Olympics, where the U.S. team finished in seventh place.
In all, Weissmuller won five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal, 52 United States national championships, and set 67 world records.
He was the first man to swim the 100-metre freestyle under one minute and the 440-yard freestyle under five minutes. He never lost a race and retired with an unbeaten amateur record.
In 1950, he was selected by the Associated Press as the greatest swimmer of the first half of the 20th century.
Weissmuller's first film was the non-speaking role of Adam in a movie called Glorifying the American Girl. His scene for the filming was Johnny wearing only a fig leaf while hoisting actress Mary Eaton on his shoulders. He was then noticed by writer Cyril Hume, which lead to his big break of playing Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932).
When asked to play Tarzan, Weissmuller was already under contract to model BVD underwear. MGM agreed to have actresses such as Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler be featured in BVD ads so that Johnny could be released from his BVD contract.
The author of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was pleased with Weissmuller, although he so hated the studio's depiction of a Tarzan who barely spoke English that he created his own concurrent Tarzan series filmed on location in Central American jungles and starring Herman Brix as a suitably articulate version of the character.
More information: Olympics
Weissmuller was considered the definitive Tarzan while bringing to life and international acclaim, his famous Tarzan yell. The call was created by sound recordist Douglas Shearer. Shearer recorded Johnny's normal yell, but manipulated it and played it in reverse.
Johnny went on to play the lead in the film Jungle Jim. He premiered in sixteen Jungle Jim movies over eight years, going on to film 26 episodes of the Jungle Jim TV series.
Weissmuller retired from acting in 1957.
In 1974, Weissmuller broke both his hip and leg, marking the beginning of years of declining health. 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 1977, Weissmuller suffered a series of strokes.
In 1979, he entered the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California for several weeks before moving with his last wife, Maria, to Acapulco, Mexico, the location of his last Tarzan film.
On January 20, 1984, Weissmuller died from pulmonary edema at the age of 79. He was buried just outside Acapulco, Valle de La Luz at the Valley of the Light Cemetery. As his coffin was lowered into the ground, a recording of the Tarzan yell he invented was played three times, at his request. He was honoured with a 21-gun salute, befitting a head of state, which was arranged by Senator Ted Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan.
More information: The Guardian
Swimming gave me my start,
but my pal Tarzan did the real work.
He set me up nicely.
Johnny Weissmuller
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