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Johnny Weissmuller (June 2, 1904 – January
20, 1984) was an Austria|Austrian-born United
States|American swimming|swimmer and actor. He was
one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s,
winning five Olympic Games|Olympic gold medals and
one bronze medal. He won fifty-two USA|US National
Championships and set sixty-seven World
record|world records. After his swimming career,
he played Tarzan in twelve motion pictures.  Other
actors also played Tarzan, but Weissmuller was the
best-known.

==Early life==
He was born János Weißmüller in Freidorf,
Austro-Hungary (present-day
Timisoara|Timişoara, Romania) to German
language speaking Austria|Austrian parents, Petrus
Weißmüller and Erzsebet Kersch, as is shown on
his birth and (Roman Catholic) baptismal records.

When Johnny was seven months old, the family
emigration|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
language|English as Peter, Elizabeth and Johann
Weissmuller.

After a brief stay in Chicago, Illinois|Chicago,
Illinois, visiting relatives, they moved to the
coal mining town of Windber, Pennsylvania|Windber,
Pennsylvania, where Peter Weissmuller worked as a
miner. Another son, Peter Weissmuller, Jr., was
born in Windber on September 3, 1905. 

After several years in Pennsylvania, they moved to
Chicago. Johnny's father owned a Bar
(establishment)|bar for a time and his mother
became head cook at a famed restaurant. 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. It has been said that he
actually lived to old age and had another, large
family of children.

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.

==Swimming career==
When Weissmuller left school, he worked as a
bellhop and elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel
in Chicago and trained for the Olympic
Games|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
Amateur Athletic Union|AAU race in the 50-yard
Freestyle swimming|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 United
States|American passport.

On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke Duke
Kahanamoku|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 two more Olympic
titles.

In all, he won five Olympic gold medals, one
bronze medal, won fifty-two United States|U.S.
National Championships and set sixty-seven World
record|world records. Johnny Weissmuller never
lost a race and retired from his amateur swimming
career undefeated.

==Motion picture career==
In 1929, Weissmuller signed a contract with BVD to
be a Model (person)|model and representative. He
traveled throughout the country doing swim shows,
handing out leaflets promoting that brand of
Swimsuit|swimwear, giving his autograph and going
on Talk show|talk shows. In that same year, he
made his first film|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 in
film|1932). The movie was a huge success and
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
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM with actress Maureen
O'Sullivan as Jane. The last three also included
Johnny Sheffield as Boy. Then, in 1942 in
film|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 the 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.

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 in film|1948) for Columbia
Pictures|Columbia. He made thirteen Jungle Jim
movies between (1948 in film|1948) and (1954 in
film|1954). Within the next year, he appeared in
three more jungle movies playing himself.

In 1955 in television|1955, he began production of
the Jungle Jim television adventure series for
Screen Gems, a film subsidiary of Columbia
Pictures|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),
Wendy Anne Weissmuller (born June 1, 1942) and
Heidi Elizabeth Weissmuller (July 31,
1944-November 19, 1962).

==Later life==
In the late 1950s, Weissmuller moved back to
Chicago, Illinois|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 Elizabeth II of the United
Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth. He also made a cameo
appearance with former co-star Maureen O'Sullivan
in The Phynx (1970 in film|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 in film|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, California|Hollywood.

==Filmography==
*Glorifying the American Girl (1929 in film|1929)
(Paramount) ... Adonis
*Crystal Champions (1929 in film|1929) (Paramount)
... Himself
*Tarzan the Ape Man (1932 in film|1932) (MGM) ...
Tarzan
*Tarzan and His Mate (1934 in film|1934) (MGM) ...
Tarzan
*Tarzan Escapes (1936 in film|1936) (MGM) ...
Tarzan
*Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939 in film|1939) (MGM) ...
Tarzan
*Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941 in film|1941)
(MGM) ... Tarzan
*Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942 in film|1942)
(MGM) ... Tarzan
*Tarzan Triumphs (1943 in film|1943) (RKO Pathé)
... Tarzan
*Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943 in film|1943) (RKO
Pathé) ... Tarzan
*Stage Door Canteen (1943 in film|1943) (United
Artists) ... Himself
*Tarzan and the Amazons (1945 in film|1945) (RKO
Pathé) ... Tarzan
*Swamp Fire (1946 in film|1946) (Paramount) ...
Johnny Duval
*Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946 in film|1946)
(RKO Pathé) ... Tarzan
*Tarzan and the Huntress (1947 in film|1947) (RKO
Pathé) ... Tarzan
*Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948 in film|1948) (RKO
Pathé) ... Tarzan
*Jungle Jim (1948 in film|1948) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*The Lost Tribe (1949 in film|1949) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Mark of the Gorilla (1950 in film|1950)
(Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
*Captive Girl (1950 in film|1950) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Pypmy Island (1950 in film|1950) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Fury of the Congo (1951 in film|1951) (Columbia)
... Jungle Jim
*Jungle Manhunt (1951 in film|1951) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952 in
film|1952) (Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
*Voodoo Tiger (1952 in film|1952) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Savage Mutiny (1953 in film|1953) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Valley of Head Hunters (1953 in film|1953)
(Columbia) ... Jungle Jim
*Killer Ape (1953 in film|1953) (Columbia) ...
Jungle Jim
*Jungle Man-Eaters (1954 in film|1954) (Columbia)
... Jungle Jim
*Cannibal Attack (1954 in film|1954) (Columbia)
... Himself
*Jungle Moon Men (1955 in film|1955) (Columbia)
... Himself
*Devil Goddess (1955 in film|1955) (Columbia) ...
Himself
*The Phynx (1970 in film|1970) (Warner Bros.) ...
Cameo
*Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976 in
film|1976) (Paramount) ... Crewman

==Literature==
*Johnny Weismuller Jr., Tarzan My Father, Toronto:
ECW Press 2002

==External links==
*http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919321/ IMDb entry
for Johnny Weissmuller
*http://www.mergetel.com/~geostan/index.html
Johnny Weissmuller 1904-1984 (Fan site with
biography, background information and photos)