Johnny Weissmuller

(now Freidorf, Timisoara, Timis County, Romania)

William Bachrach, Coach | show-medals = yes

Johnny Weissmuller ( ; born Johann Peter Weißmüller, ; June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was a Hungarian-born German American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He has one of the best competitive-swimming records of the 20th century. He set world records alongside winning five gold medals in the Olympics. He won the 100m freestyle and the 4 × 200 m relay team event in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris and the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Weissmuller also won gold in the 400m freestyle, as well as a bronze medal in the water polo competition in Paris.

Following his retirement from swimming, Weissmuller played Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan in twelve feature films from 1932 to 1948; six were produced by MGM, and six additional films by RKO. Weissmuller went on to star in sixteen Jungle Jim movies over an eight-year period, then filmed 26 additional half-hour episodes of the Jungle Jim TV series.

Early life

Johann Peter Weißmüller was born on June 2, 1904, in Szabadfalva, in the Kingdom of Hungary into an ethnically Banat Swabian family. An ancestor had immigrated from Baden, Holy Roman Empire . Three days later he was baptized into the Catholic faith by the Hungarian version of his German name, as János. Early the next year, January 26, 1905, his father, Peter Weißmüller, and mother, Elisabeth Weißmüller (née Kersch), took him on a twelve-day trip on the S.S. Rotterdam to Ellis Island. 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. At age nine, Weissmüller contracted polio. His doctor recommended swimming to help his recovery from the disease.{{cite web |access-date=15 September 2012 |archive-date=13 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613130029/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2008-08-17/news/0808160072_1_johnny-weissmuller |url-status=live

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. He eventually swam for one of the nation's best teams, the Illinois Athletic Club.

Swimming career

Weissmuller tried out for swimming coach Bill Bachrach, then associated with the Illinois Athletic Club. Impressed with what he saw, Bachrach took Weissmuller under his wing, and served as a strong father figure and mentor for Johnny. On August 6, 1921, Weissmuller swam on of first meets, entering and winning four Amateur Athletic Union races. He set his first two world records at the A.A.U. Nationals on September 27, 1921, in the 100m and 150yd events.

On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record in the 100-meter freestyle, swimming it in 58.6 seconds.

Olympics

He won the title for the 100-meter freestyle at the 1924 Summer Olympics, beating Kahanamoku for the gold medal. He also won the 400-meter freestyle and was a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4×200-meter 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 went 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, In 1950, he was selected by the Associated Press as the greatest swimmer of the first half of the 20th century.

During the 1930s, before he acted as Tarzan, Weissmuller was a swimming instructor at the Miami Biltmore Hotel. He broke a world record at the Biltmore pool.

Film career

Weissmuller's first film was the non-speaking role of Adonis in the movie Glorifying the American Girl. He appeared wearing only a fig leaf while hoisting actress Mary Eaton on his shoulders. He was noticed by the writer Cyril Hume, which led to his big break playing Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man in 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 featured in BVD ads so that he 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 Tarzan as an individual who barely spoke English that he created his own concurrent Tarzan series starring Herman Brix as a suitably articulate version of the character (as is true to the original books).

Weissmuller is considered the definitive Tarzan. He originated the famous Tarzan yell, which was created by sound recordist Douglas Shearer. Shearer recorded Weissmuller's normal yell, but manipulated it and played it in reverse.

Weissmuller went on to play the lead in the film Jungle Jim. He appeared 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.

Personal life

Weissmuller was married five times: to band and club singer Bobbe Arnst (married 1931, divorced 1933); to actress Lupe Vélez (married 1933, divorced 1939); to Beryl Scott (married 1939, divorced 1948); to Allene Gates (married 1948, divorced 1962); and to Maria Gertrude Baumann (born 1921, died 2004; they were married from 1963 until his death in 1984).

With his third wife, Beryl, Weissmuller had three children: Johnny Weissmuller, Jr. (1940–2006), Wendy Anne Weissmuller (born 1942), and Heidi Elizabeth Weissmuller (1944–1962), who was killed in a car crash. He also had a stepdaughter with Baumann, Lisa Weissmuller-Gallagher.

Weissmuller saved many people's lives throughout his own life. One very notable instance was in 1927 during training for the Chicago Marathon, when Weissmuller saved 11 people from drowning after a boat accident. On July 28, 1927, 16 children, 10 women, and 1 man drowned when the Favorite, a small excursion boat cruising from Lincoln Park to Municipal Pier (Navy Pier), capsized half a mile off North Avenue in a sudden, heavy squall. When the boat tipped over, 75 women and children and 6 men sank with the boat, but rescuers saved over 50 of them. Weissmuller was one of the Chicago lifeguards who saved many.

Later life

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 movie.

On January 20, 1984, Weissmuller died of 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 honored with a 21-gun salute, befitting a head of state, which was arranged by Senator Ted Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan.

Legacy

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Johnny Weissmuller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He is on the album cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

His former co-star and movie son Johnny Sheffield wrote 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."

In 1973, Weissmuller was awarded the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.

The Piscine Molitor in Paris was built as a tribute to Weissmuller and his swimming prowess.

Edgar Rice Burroughs himself paid tribute to Weissmuller's powerful screen persona in the last Tarzan novel that he completed

Weissmuller was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965 after becoming its founding chairman.

Filmography

Published works

• Autobiography, excerpts of which were published in The Saturday Evening Post.

References

Notes

Citations

References

1. [http://www.espn.com/oly/summer08/fanguide/athlete?athlete=14927 Johnny Weissmuller]. espn.com
2. "Johnny Weissmuller". Olympedia.
3. (March 9, 2021). "Johnny Weissmuller - Olympic Swimming, Water Polo {{!}} USA".
4. "Johnny Weissmuller (USA)". [[International Swimming Hall of Fame]].
5. "Johnny Weissmuller".
6. (18 November 2014). "Romania's ethnic Germans get their day in the spotlight". [[Deutsche Welle]].
7. (19 July 2019). "When Tarzan struck gold at the Games: the legend of Johnny Weissmuller". Olympics.com.
8. "Biography - The Official Licensing Website of Johnny Weissmuller".
9. Safire, William. (2007). "The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind". Macmillan.
10. Christopher, Paul J.. (2006). "Greatest Sports Heroes of All Times: North American Edition". Encouragement Press.
11. "Johnny Weissmuller".
12. Kirsch, George B.. (2000). "Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States". Greenwood Publishing Group.
13. [https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/we/johnny-weissmuller-1.html Johnny Weissmuller profile] {{Webarchive. link. (December 29, 2008 , sports-reference.com; accessed November 12, 2015.)
14. Schaefer, Richard A. (2005). "LEGACY: Daring to Care: the heritage of Loma Linda".
15. "Johnny Weissmuller (USA)". [[International Swimming Hall of Fame]].
16. Simonton, Dean Keith. (1994). "Greatness: Who Makes History and Why". [[Guilford Press]].
17. Levere, Jane L.. (2014-05-20). "Miami Area Hotel Brings Its Past to Forefront". The New York Times.
18. TODAY, Susan B. Barnes, Special for USA. "Resort photo tour: Old Florida splendor at the Biltmore Hotel".
19. Thurwachter, Mary. "Dip into history and summer savings at Coral Gables' Biltmore".
20. "Tarzan, the Ape Man".
21. "Wayback Machine: Herman Brix, Tacoma Tarzan".
22. (March 10, 2021). "Lisa Weissmuller, Daughter Of Johnny, Dies In Los Angeles At 66".
23. (June 1, 2017). "The Effortless and Legendary Life of Johnny Weissmuller Part 4: Real Life Hero Saves 11 Lives".
24. Fury, David. (1994). "Kings of the Jungle: An Illustrated Reference to "Tarzan" on Screen and Television". [[McFarland & Company]].
25. Sisson, Richard. (2007). "The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia". [[Indiana University Press]].
26. Weissmuller, Johnny Jr.. (2002). "Tarzan, My Father". ECW Press.
27. (April 15, 2012). "Eastman House award recipients · George Eastman House".
28. (January 8, 2012). "MAMBO: TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY WEISSMULLER".
29. Burroughs, Edgar Rice. ''Tarzan and "the Foreign Legion"'', Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., 1947.