50 Fun Facts About Johnny Weissmuller

How many Olympic gold medals did Weissmuller win in total?

He added 52 US national titles and 67 world records and retired unbeaten.

At which two Olympic Games did Weissmuller win his swimming golds?

He won the 100 m freestyle and the 4 x 200 m relay at both Games, plus the 400 m freestyle in Paris.

Weissmuller's Olympic bronze medal came in which team sport?

He won it in Paris in 1924 as a member of the US national team.

Weissmuller was born in 1904 in Szabadfalva, then part of which kingdom?

His Banat Swabian family took him through Ellis Island in January 1905, when he was seven months old, and settled first in Windber, Pennsylvania.

Which disease, contracted at age nine, led a doctor to recommend that young Weissmuller take up swimming?

His first lessons were at Fullerton Beach on Lake Michigan in Chicago.

Weissmuller lied about his age at 11 to join which organisation and start racing?

The minimum age was 12; he won every race he entered.

Which Chicago coach, nicknamed 'the beloved tyrant', trained Weissmuller at the Illinois Athletic Club?

He also coached the US Olympic swimming teams in 1924 and 1928.

Whose 100-metre freestyle world record did Weissmuller break in July 1922, swimming 58.6 seconds?

Two years later he beat the Hawaiian for Olympic gold in the same event.

Weissmuller was the first man to swim 100 metres freestyle in under what time?

He was also the first under 5:00 for 440 yards.

Who took silver behind Weissmuller in the 1924 100 m freestyle, with his brother taking bronze?

The Hawaiian surfing pioneer had won the event in 1912 and 1920.

Weissmuller's 1927 world record of 51.0 seconds for the 100-yard freestyle stood for how many years?

He swam 48.5 in 1940 aged 36, but as a professional it did not count.

Which Battle Creek health guru's vegetarian diet did Weissmuller adopt?

He broke one of his own records after adopting the regime of nutrition, enemas and exercise.

In 1927 Weissmuller, working as a Chicago lifeguard, saved how many people after a boat accident?

He was training for the Chicago Marathon swim at the time.

Weissmuller's first screen role was as which mythological figure in Glorifying the American Girl (1929)?

He wore nothing but a fig leaf in the Ziegfeld Follies revue sequence.

When MGM wanted him for Tarzan, Weissmuller was under contract to model what?

MGM freed him by lending Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler to the company's advertisements.

Which screenwriter spotted Weissmuller and set up his big break as Tarzan?

MGM had been searching for its ape man when they came across the decorated Olympian.

Who played Jane opposite Weissmuller in six Tarzan films from 1932 to 1942?

The Irish-born actress was later the mother of Mia Farrow.

What was Jane's surname in the Weissmuller films, as opposed to Porter in the novels?

In Tarzan the Ape Man her father James Parker is hunting for the elephants' graveyard and its ivory.

Why were the elephants in Weissmuller's Tarzan films fitted with fake ears and tusks?

Indian elephants have much smaller ears than their African cousins.

According to MGM's sound department, which recordist created the Tarzan yell by manipulating Weissmuller's voice?

Weissmuller himself always insisted the yodel was entirely his own, learned at German beer halls and picnics.

What trick is used in the recorded Tarzan yell at its midpoint?

MGM once fibbed that it blended a hyena's howl, a camel's bleat, a violin pluck and a soprano's high C.

Which comedienne would perform the Tarzan yell on request during her TV show's weekly Q&A?

She once taught it to opera singer Beverly Sills.

What is the name of the chimpanzee sidekick in Weissmuller's Tarzan films?

The original animal, Jiggs, appeared in the first two films and died of pneumonia in 1938.

The 1934 sequel to Tarzan the Ape Man scandalised censors with what scene?

O'Sullivan's swimming double was Josephine McKim, who had competed at the 1928 Olympics with Weissmuller.

Which of Weissmuller's ape-man films was added to the US National Film Registry in 2003?

It was directed by MGM's art director Cedric Gibbons.

A week-long sequence cut from Tarzan Escapes (1936) after test screenings showed Tarzan fighting what?

Audiences found the scenes too intense.

Why was Boy adopted rather than born to Tarzan and Jane in Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939)?

The baby survives a plane crash and turns out to be heir to the Greystoke fortune.

Which child actor, chosen by Weissmuller from over 300 hopefuls, played Boy in eight Tarzan films?

He later starred as Bomba the Jungle Boy in a dozen films of his own.

In Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942), why do Tarzan and Jane travel to Manhattan?

It was the sixth and last MGM film and O'Sullivan's final outing as Jane.

Tarzan Triumphs (1943), the first RKO entry, pits Tarzan against whom?

The MGM-contracted Jane actress could not appear because the series had moved to RKO.

Which actress played Jane in Weissmuller's last four Tarzan films?

She carried on into the first Lex Barker film, Tarzan's Magic Fountain.

Where was Weissmuller's final Tarzan film, Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948), shot?

Storms wrecked the sets, producer Sol Lesser had a heart attack, and a stunt diver was killed by the surf.

Why did Weissmuller give up the Tarzan role after 1948?

Producer Sol Lesser auditioned more than 200 actors before picking Lex Barker.

After Tarzan, Weissmuller played which safari-suited comic-strip hero for Columbia?

He made sixteen films over eight years and then 26 half-hour TV episodes.

After Columbia lost the comic-strip licence, the star's last three safari films renamed his character to what?

He played an idealised version of himself, as cowboy stars Roy Rogers and Gene Autry did.

Which fellow Olympic swimmer and screen Tarzan played Weissmuller's rival in Swamp Fire (1946)?

The 1932 400 m gold medallist later starred as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

In 1940 another swimmer-turned-Tarzan replaced Weissmuller as star of which World's Fair water show?

Weissmuller swam a professional 48.5 seconds for 100 yards there aged 36.

Weissmuller made a cameo in Stage Door Canteen (1943) doing what?

The wartime film was packed with celebrity walk-ons at the New York servicemen's club.

Weissmuller's fifth and final wife, married to him from 1963 until his death, was who?

The earlier four included a band singer, a Mexican film star and the mother of his three children.

Weissmuller's stormy 1933-39 marriage was to which actress known as 'The Mexican Spitfire'?

Their physical fights were regularly reported; he served as a pallbearer at her funeral in 1944.

In which city did Weissmuller marry his second wife, the Mexican Spitfire, in October 1933?

She filed for divorce three times, charging cruelty, before it finally went through.

Where did Weissmuller work as a swimming instructor during the 1930s before Tarzan?

He broke a world record in the hotel's pool.

Weissmuller became the founding chairman and president of which Fort Lauderdale institution in 1965?

In 1970 he represented it at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica and was introduced to the Queen.

Weissmuller died in January 1984 in Acapulco of what condition?

He was 79 and had been in declining health since breaking his hip and leg in 1974.

What was played three times, at his own request, as Weissmuller's coffin was lowered into the ground?

Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan arranged military honours for the ceremony.

Which honour befitting a head of state did Weissmuller receive at his funeral?

Senator Ted Kennedy and President Reagan arranged it.

Which 1945 Weissmuller film introduced a new Jane and featured a lost city of women called Palmyria?

It was his ninth outing in the role, with Maria Ouspenskaya co-starring.

Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) has a screenplay co-written by which creator of The Saint?

It was his last credited screenplay for a Hollywood film.

The US swimming team coached by Bachrach at Paris 1924 won how many of the eleven gold medals?

The Americans took 19 of the 33 medals on offer.

What was Weissmuller's birth name?

He was baptised János three days after his birth.