The swimmer who became Tarzan: The story of Johnny Weissmuller

The look in the eyes says it all. A bowl of concentration, with an insatiable thirst for success and a tinge of fierce glare made this hunk of a man a deadly opponent for his rivals. Johnny Weissmuller was not just another swimmer, he was a true champion. His art of free style swimming was one to observe with bated breath and awe. The arms moved around swiftly, steadily and in such a periodic fashion that you could not know how fast he was traveling if you didn’t see the distance traveled in relation to time!

“Nothing is impossible for a willing heart” goes a cliched saying, and it really was so with this genius of a man. He did all that one person may not achieve even in several lifetimes. His life was a story of miracles, a fairy tale which all can cherish. Defeating opponents was his passion, winning medals was like a piece of a cake for him. Behold the story of Johnny Weissmuller, one of the great swimmers and most colourful characters in history.

The birth of a legend!

Born in Freidorf, Weissmuller’s parents were Hungarian nationals, who came to America when he just a toddler at 3. Later on, to participate in the Olympics, he publicized that he was born in Windber, PA. He studied till the eighth standard and was trained the Illinois Athletic Club in Chicago.

Weissmuller’s was a sick childhood, for his sickness plagued him for a long time. His doctor advised him to practice swimming as a last resort as a cure. Then he morphed into a 6′ 3″, 190-pound champion athlete – who won five Olympic gold medals, 67 world and 52 national titles. He possessed every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile. The undefeated winner of the Olympics had an undefeated run in freestyle racing too, winning every free style race he entered during the period.

Swimming Career:

Many tales exist as to how Weissmuller met William Bahrach, the legendary swimming coach of the Illinois Athletic Club, in the first place, for this was the meeting which changed his life. If ever an account is the most reliable account, it is perhaps the one published in The New York Times, one year after it happened.

“A little more than a year ago, a member entered the Michigan Avenue home of the Illinois Athletic Club with a slender 16 year old youth who had ambitions to become affiliated with the Chicago Organization which was famous for its record-breaking swimming teams. The boy knew that he could swim. He had read about the tricolor swimmers, Perry McGillivray, Norman Ross, Hebner, Vosburgh and others and he wanted to cast his lot with them. The member, however, was skeptical of the youngster’s chances of gaining a place against the galaxy of stars already in the I.A.C. fold. But after listening to the boy’s appeal for more than a month, he finally promised to introduce him to coach Bachrach, the tricolor trainer of water men.

Finally, one day, the boy’s persistence was rewarded and he was taken over to the I.A.C. pool and brought before coach Bachrach. `Here’s a fellow who thinks he can swim,’ was the member’s half-hearted explanation for taking up the coach’s valuable time with an unknown youngster.

Slipping into the pool, the boy traveled through the water with a crude stroke but one that showed unusual power. Immediately Bachrach knew that he had what is known in the sporting parlance as a `find.’ “

Then, Bachrach trained him and soon Weissmuller became the greatest swimmer, famous for his “six-beat-double-Trudgen crawl stroke”.

Bill Libby described the stroke in an article in the SAGA Magazine (January 1965):

“He swam with his back arched and his head, shoulders and chest thrust out of the water. He shook his head loosely from side to side, inhaling and exhaling on both sides. He cocked his elbows high, drove his arms down into the water hard and behind him hard. While he kicked six beats to every cycle of his arms, he considered kicking of consequence only to maintain balance, stay high in the water and reduce drag.”

His records and wins – A Brief View:

1.Gold, 1924, Paris, 100m freestyle – He completed the race in only 59 seconds.

2. Gold,1924 Paris, 400m Freestyle- He completed it in just over 5 minutes, beating the previous record by a whopping 22 seconds!

3. Gold, 1924 Paris, 4*200 m Freestyle – The third of the event!!!

4. Gold, 1928 Amsterdam, 100 m Freestyle

5. Gold, 1928 Amsterdam, 4*200 m Freestyle

6. Bronze, Men’s water polo, Paris, 1924.

Weissmuller, the actor

While he was a highly accomplished swimmer, Weissmuller also got a chance to work as a model for BVD, thus making his big break into the acting industry. In the same year that signed as a model, his first motion picture titled ‘Glorifying the American Girl’ was released. Then one day, MGM’s Cyril Hume, who was then working on the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), saw Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel. The screenwriter was so impressed by what he saw that he suggested him for the part of Tarzan. Thus his swimming skills made him bag the lead role in a movie; a movie that was going to kickstart the famous series of Tarzan, and Weissmuller played the lead character!

It wasn’t easy to get him for the role though. Being already under a contract with BVD to model suits and underwear, he wasn’t allowed to work with MGM. MGM though, persisted and got their man.

Labelled as “the only man in Hollywood who’s natural in the flesh and can act without clothes” Weissmuller’s success journey in life took another turn. His first movie under the 7 year contract with MGM, Tarzan the Ape man, (1932) turned out to be a super- sensation and the studio then rolled out more films of Tarzan, one after another. Weissmuller starred in a total of twelve Tarzan films, and earned an estimated $2,000,000. He established himself as ‘THE’ Tarzan, and his famous traditional yodelling Tarzan yell is remembered even today.

Weissmuller, a man of grit

Right through his life, Weissmuller had many close calls, yet each time he managed to come out victorious and emerge on the winning side.

He was introduced to a chimp in his first Tarzan film in 1931. The chimp was ferocious and the trainer told Weissmuller to show no fear or the animal might attack him. Calm and composed, he went silently towards the chimp, dressed in his loincloth and hunting knife. The animal looked at him with glaring eyes, growled at him with its teeth wide open. It was preparing to lunge itself to attack him. Weissmuller calmly took out his knife, and put it in front of the Chimp’s nose. He was seeing that the chimp saw and smelled it. He then quickly slammed the animal on the side of the head with the knife’s handle. Then he put the knife back in its sheath. The animal was startled by the proceedings and then again glared at him but soon changed its expression to a widening grin. Then wonder of wonders – it jumped and hugged Weissmuller! From that day on, it followed Weismuller wherever he went.

Then there was this instance when Weissmuller was with his friends playing golf, got surrounded by soldiers in Cuba during the time of the Cuban Revolution. The soldiers had intent of taking them hostages and perhaps even murdering them. With his quick presence of mind, Weismuller made the famous Tarzan yell. The soldiers recognized him instantly and were so delighted to meet him that they saw that the group was escorted back to a safe area.

The End

Every fairytale has an end. This one’s end started from 1974, when Weissmuller broke both his hip and leg. At the hospital, to his horror, he learnt that inspite of him being the fittest of all and have a grueling exercise regimen, he had a serious heart condition. Yet he never gave up. In 1977 he suffered a series of strokes but yet in 1979 he entered Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woddland Hills, California. But January 20, 1984, saw the last of Weissmuller as he died from pulmonary edema, aged 79.

He never forgot his Tarzan character and it was imbibed in him. At his request, the recording of his Tarzan yell was played even when his coffin was lowered into the ground, marking the end of an era which was as unlike from the real world as chalk is from cheese…