59 Fun Facts About Tarzan

Which future James Bond actor played one of the villains in the 1959 film Tarzan's Greatest Adventure?

Sean Connery was wanted back for the next Tarzan film even though his character dies, but he was already committed to a spy picture, Dr. No.

In the language of the great apes, what does the name 'Tarzan' mean?

White skin is what the apes named him, but the villagers he raided after one of their hunters killed his ape mother believed he was an evil spirit.

Which Tarzan actor was married to the Hollywood star Lana Turner in the 1950s?

Lex Barker's career stalled after Tarzan, then revived in Europe, where he became a star playing the hero Old Shatterhand in westerns.

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

Cheeta was also the name of a Palm Springs chimp long billed as the films' star, though the author asked to write his biography found reasons to doubt he was in them.

Who voices Tarzan in Disney's 1999 animated film?

Tony Goldwyn won the part by grasping that Tarzan sees himself as an animal, his directors said, while Brendan Fraser tested twice and made George of the Jungle instead.

Which actress voices Jane in Disney's Tarzan?

Minnie Driver made Jane 'a lot more British' the moment she came on, one director said, and some of the film's funniest dialogue is her improvising.

Who voices Tarzan's adoptive mother in Disney's animated Tarzan?

Glenn Close also sings in the film: her character soothes the baby Tarzan with a lullaby, and her recording of it is on the soundtrack album.

Rosie O'Donnell voices which character in Disney's Tarzan?

Terk's voice, Rosie O'Donnell, also sings with the cast on the jungle jam 'Trashin' the Camp', which the soundtrack album offers in a second version with 'N Sync.

Who wrote and performed the songs for Disney's Tarzan?

Phil Collins sang them almost as a narrator, because the filmmakers never wanted a loinclothed Tarzan to break into song himself.

Which song from Disney's Tarzan won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

You'll Be in My Heart began as a lullaby its songwriter wrote for his young daughter, before it became the song Tarzan's ape mother sings to him.

Burroughs's Tarzan is raised by the fictional Mangani apes, but which animals raise him in Disney's film?

Gorillas were watched in the wild first: the filmmakers' research trip took them to Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, home of mountain gorillas.

Who plays Tarzan in the 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan?

Alexander Skarsgård was director David Yates's choice, partly because a Swede who made his career in America seemed not quite to belong to either world.

Who plays Jane in The Legend of Tarzan (2016)?

Margot Robbie won the part, though 2013 reports said director David Yates had wanted Jessica Chastain to play Jane.

Which Rudyard Kipling character is often cited as an influence on Tarzan?

Mowgli's creator saw the link himself: Rudyard Kipling wrote that he read Tarzan of the Apes, whose author had 'jazzed' the motif of the Jungle Books.

In the novels, Jane Porter comes from which American city?

Baltimore is her home in the novels, but the 1932 film Tarzan the Ape Man renamed her Jane Parker and made her English instead of American.

Tarzan first appeared in October 1912 in which pulp magazine?

The All-Story had already serialized Burroughs's first story, a Mars adventure, and its success led him to take up writing full-time.

In Tarzan of the Apes, which ape king kills Tarzan's father?

Kerchak dies when he finally attacks the grown Tarzan, who kills him with his father's hunting knife and becomes king of the apes.

What is Tarzan's birth name in the novels?

John Clayton is itself a disguise: the narrator says he gave the principal characters fictitious names, so Tarzan's real name may be something else.

Tarzan and Jane's son takes which ape name?

Korak was the ape Akut's choice of name, because Akut could not say the boy's given name, Jack; in the apes' language it means Killer.

In Tarzan the Terrible, Tarzan rides which surviving dinosaur?

A triceratops, Tarzan says, having once seen its skeleton in a museum in London, though the living beast is not an exact match.

Who starred as the adult Tarzan in the first Tarzan film, 1918's Tarzan of the Apes?

Elmo Lincoln came back to Tarzan films decades later, not as the star but in bit parts in 1942 and 1949, beside two of his successors.

After his twelve Tarzan films, Johnny Weissmuller starred as which adventurer in a Columbia film series?

Jungle Jim came from a newspaper comic strip, and the series' last three films dropped the name, so Weissmuller played a character called Johnny Weissmuller.

Which actress played Jane opposite Weissmuller from 1932 to 1942?

Maureen O'Sullivan had been dropped by Fox after six films, but MGM made her Jane, a role she went on to play in six Tarzan films.

Which comedian often performed the Tarzan yell on request for the studio audience of her TV show?

Carol Burnett taught herself the yell at nine, and audiences asked for it so often at her show's opening Q&A that it became her trademark.

Which actor played Tarzan in the NBC television series that ran from 1966 to 1968?

Ron Ely did almost all his own stunts, and by the time the series ended he had suffered broken shoulders among many other injuries.

Who played Tarzan in the 1984 film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes?

Christopher Lambert got the part partly because he was barely known: director Hugh Hudson wanted unknowns as Tarzan and Jane so audiences would accept them as innocents.

In Disney's Tarzan, what is the name of the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents?

Sabor is a lioness in Burroughs's books, but Disney made her a leopard, and the grown Tarzan kills her when she ambushes his ape family.

Who plays the Belgian villain Captain Léon Rom in The Legend of Tarzan (2016)?

Christoph Waltz played a real officer: historian Adam Hochschild calls Rom one prototype for Conrad's Mr. Kurtz, though other scholars have rejected the link.

Which comic-book hero did his co-creator describe as 'in the vein of Tarzan'?

Superman had been a villain in Siegel and Shuster's 1933 story 'The Reign of the Superman', before Siegel recast him as a hero.

In Tarzan of the Apes, why does Tarzan hide his title?

He wants to spare Jane: she is to marry the cousin holding his title, so even after a cable says fingerprints prove his claim, Tarzan tells that cousin his mother was an ape.

Which French naval officer teaches Tarzan to speak in the first novel?

Paul D’Arnot taught him to speak French, not English, though Tarzan had already taught himself to read and write English from his dead parents' books.

What is the lost Atlantean colony that Tarzan repeatedly raids for treasure called?

Opar is where Tarzan heads after a company failure costs him everything, though Jane says she would rather live in poverty always than have him risk its dangers.

Which ancient legend did Edgar Rice Burroughs say started his thoughts about Tarzan?

Romulus and Remus shared the credit, Burroughs recalled, with a story he had read long before of a sailor shipwrecked on the coast of Africa.

Johnny Weissmuller said his Tarzan yell grew out of which boyhood pastime?

Yodeling at picnics as a boy gave him the sound, he said, though MGM spread a tale that engineers had blended his voice with a hyena, a camel and a violin.

When MGM wanted Johnny Weissmuller for Tarzan, which clothing brand held him under contract?

BVD released the swimming champion only after MGM agreed to let stars such as Greta Garbo appear in BVD's ads.

Which other Olympic gold-medal swimmer played Tarzan in the 1933 serial Tarzan the Fearless?

Buster Crabbe played Tarzan only in this serial, but went on to star as the space heroes Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in serials of their own.

Which Seinfeld actor voices the neurotic elephant Tantor in Disney's Tarzan?

As a calf Tantor frets that the water isn't sanitary, yet Wayne Knight's grown elephant heads for the ship in the finale to free the captured Tarzan.

Before it became Tarzan's Treehouse in 1999, Disneyland's giant tree was themed to which film?

Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse had stood there since 1962, but Tarzan's version didn't last: Disneyland closed it in 2021 and dropped the Tarzan theme.

Which Disney film took Tarzan's record as the most expensive hand-drawn animated film?

Treasure Planet cost $140 million but took in only about $110 million worldwide, making it one of Disney's costliest flops.

In The Legend of Tarzan (2016), Samuel L. Jackson plays which real historical figure?

George Washington Williams really toured King Leopold's Congo in 1890, then wrote an open letter to the king exposing the abuses he had seen.

Producer Jerry Weintraub wanted which Olympic swimmer to play Tarzan in the 2016 film?

Michael Phelps looked like the new Johnny Weissmuller to the producer, until two minutes into Phelps hosting Saturday Night Live, when he shouted to turn it off.

Disney's Tarzan musical closed on Broadway after barely a year, but ran for a decade in which country?

Germany kept it going from 2008, moving it from Hamburg to Stuttgart to Oberhausen, where its producer says it broke the house attendance records.

Who composed the instrumental score for Disney's Tarzan?

Mark Mancina also arranged the film's songs and wove their melodies into his score, so that song and score run together.

A chameleon species named Calumma tarzan is endemic to which island?

Madagascar's town of Tarzanville lent it the name, which its discoverers hoped would win protection for the last patch of forest where it lives.

Which name did Burroughs consider for his ape-man before settling on 'Tarzan'?

Zantar was one early try, as was Tublat Zan, and Tublat later became the name of Kala's mate, who always hated the young Tarzan.

Which artist illustrated the first Tarzan newspaper comic strip in 1929?

Hal Foster tired of drawing scripts he had no say in, so he created a strip of his own, Prince Valiant, and left Tarzan in 1937.

Which US state's swamps stood in for the African jungle in the first Tarzan film, 1918's Tarzan of the Apes?

Louisiana is where Stellan Windrow filmed Tarzan's treetop stunts near Morgan City before he left for World War I, and they stayed in the film after he was replaced.

On the 1932 Tarzan radio serial, which relative of Edgar Rice Burroughs voiced Jane?

His daughter Joan played Jane opposite her husband, James Pierce, as Tarzan, and the couple's gravestones in Indiana read Tarzan and Jane.

Who wrote the book for the Broadway musical Tarzan?

David Henry Hwang had won a Tony for M. Butterfly, but his Tarzan closed after 14 months, sooner than Disney had hoped.

The 1935 serial The New Adventures of Tarzan filmed around the highland town of Chichicastenango in which country?

Guatemala hosted the four-month shoot, which nearly never sailed: a bank refused the producer credit until Burroughs co-signed the loan.

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

Hungary was his birthplace, but to get a passport for the 1924 Olympics he claimed Windber, Pennsylvania, where his younger brother Peter was born.

In Tarzan of the Apes, what leaves Tarzan's parents stranded on the African coast?

A crew mutiny aboard the Fuwalda stranded them, but its ringleader, Black Michael, spared the couple and put them ashore because Tarzan's father had once taken his side.

When Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing fiction, he was a struggling wholesaler of what?

Pencil sharpeners left him with low wages and spare time, and reading pulp magazines convinced him he could write stories just as rotten as theirs.

Which two directors made Disney's 1999 Tarzan?

Kevin Lima and Chris Buck broke Disney's musical formula: Lima thought a half-naked man breaking into song on a branch would be ridiculous, so Tarzan never sings.

What was the name of the pioneering software Disney used for Tarzan's 3D backgrounds?

Deep Canvas was built so the camera could chase Tarzan through the trees: artists painted the jungle in 3D, and the software kept every brushstroke in place as the view moved.

Which 1999 animated film out-grossed Disney's Tarzan worldwide?

Toy Story 2 almost skipped theaters: Disney first planned it as a direct-to-video sequel, then upgraded it when its story reels looked promising.

Glen Keane's animation of Tarzan sliding along tree branches was modeled on which athletes?

Skateboarders like his teenage son inspired Keane, who wondered what drives such daredevils and gave Tarzan their love of the adrenaline rush.

Which actor voiced the villainous hunter in Disney's Tarzan?

Brian Blessed also gave the hero his famous yell: the lead actor struggled with it, so the villain's voice supplied Tarzan's cry.

Which actor played Tarzan in the 1935 serial The New Adventures of Tarzan?

Herman Brix is said to have been MGM's leading candidate for Tarzan until he broke his shoulder filming a football movie, and Johnny Weissmuller got the part.