Tag: Edgar Rice Burroughs

February 6, 1889: Me Elmo, You Jane

Posted on by Richard Daybell

A man swings through the trees of Africa, wearing nothing but a loincloth and doesn’t get pinched.  Well maybe by a completely naked chimpanzee.  That beefy fellow in the loincloth can only be Tarzan of the Apes.  Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced audiences to his character Tarzan in a 1912 pulp magazine followed two years later by the novel Tarzan of the Apes. Tarzan became so popular that Burroughs followed up with sequels into the 1940s — a good two dozen.

Tarzan was a natural for the movies as well, and fans only had to wait until 1918 to leer at their skimpily attired hero, his skimpily attired mate, and the aforementioned naked chimpanzee. The first movie Tarzan was Elmo Lincoln, born on February 6, 1889.  As onlookers gathered around his crib listening to his cooing and admiring the little tyke in his little diaper, they little realized that they were looking at the future mighty man of the jungle, already in his loincloth and ready to swing. (Well, maybe not entirely ready: Elmo was afraid of heights and required a stand-in to do his swinging for him.  Chances are pretty good he was afraid of lions and tigers as well.)

Elmo may have been born to play Tarzan, but he got to the role by a circuitous route through a dozen other films, some notable (Birth of a Nation, Intolerance) but not for his appearance. Tarzan of the Apes took theaters by storm. It was the most faithful to its source of all the film adaptations: Lord and Lady Greystoke are bound for Africa, when their ship is taken over by mutineers. A sailor saves them from being murdered, but they are marooned on the tropical coast, where they die. Their infant son is adopted by Kala, an ape, who raises him as her own. Little Tarzan grows up never noticing that he is not as hairy as his siblings. Hairy or not, he becomes king of the apes. The sailor returns to Africa, discovers the ape man and reports this to his family in England. An expedition under the leadership of a Professor Porter sets out to find Tarzan. In the meantime, Kala has been killed by a native, and is avenged by Tarzan — now an adult and played by Elmo Lincoln. This naturally sets off a feud with the natives who kidnap Porter’s daughter Jane. Tarzan rescues Jane, nature steps in, and there go the loincloths.

Tarzan of the Apes covered only the first part of the novel. The remainder became The Romance of Tarzan, released that same year. Lincoln starred in that film and in a 1921 serial The Adventures of Tarzan. Elmo starred in nine other movies before leaving Hollywood at the end of the silent movie era. Tarzan the Ape Man was remade in 1932 starring Johnny Weissmuller, who went on to star in eleven other Tarzan films.

A Man in a Toga

No loincloth for Ramón Novarro, but he did manage to set the screen smoldering in a toga in Ben Hur. Born Jose Ramón Gil Samaniego in Mexico on February 6, 1899, he began his career in silent films and became a top box office draw during the 1920s and 1930s. Billed as the Latin Lover, he became the heir apparent to Rudolph Valentino. His career in movies, stage and television spanned five decades. He was murdered in 1968 by two young men who believed he had a stash of cash in his home.

 

SEPTEMBER 1, 1422: WHO’S GOING TO BURP THE KING?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

On September 1, 1422, young Henry VI crawled (or perhaps toddled) onto the throne of England, succeeding his father Henry V. Little Henry was nine months old, a rather tender age to be an English monarch and, a few months later, King of France as well. A regency council ran the kingdoms until Henry hit 16 and was considered old enough to rule.

Kinging two countries isn’t a piece of cake. First off, its a killer commute, usually undertaken only by one country to invade the other. The French were not overjoyed at being ruled by an Englishman.  And one of them, Joan of Arc, was making a real nuisance of herself. Eventually Henry lost France and fell into a deep funk followed by an “inertia.” To use a more scientific description, he went wacko. (Observant readers will notice the inescapable connection between this incident and the Pat Boone hit song: When I lost France, I almost lost my mind.)

When Henry recovered 18 months later, he was surprised to discover he had a toddler of his own and that the toddler was named Edward, not Henry. Oh, and the War of the Roses was getting underway, during which Henry would lose the throne, regain it, lose it again, and end up murdered.

Henry VI remains the youngest king to ascend to the British throne and the only monarch to be both King of England and King of France.

TARZAN WOULDN’T LOSE FRANCE

Tarzan_of_the_Apes_1918Born on September 1, 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs enjoyed a successful career as a pencil sharpener salesman. An honest occupation, but what do you do when you’re on the road, stuck in some cheesy motel with a bunch of sharp pencils? You either see how many you can fit into your ears or you write. Burroughs wrote. Prodigiously. In 1912, his most famous creation swung through a jungle near you in Tarzan of the Apes. And he kept on swinging through the decades, in two dozen books, including a few released after Burroughs’ death in 1953.

Tarzan was born with the rather ho-hum name, John Clayton. It was the apes who gave him the name we know him by. In their language (yes, they speak) tar means white, and zan means skin: Tarzan, clever, what? And Tarzan didn’t just swing around the jungle, as a short list of Tarzan adventures will demonstrate: Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, Tarzan and the Huns, Tarzan and the Foreign Legion, Back to the Stone Age, and Tarzan Rescues the Moon.

Tarzan became the star of radio, television, comics, stage, video and computer games, action figures and over 200 movies. Elmo Lincoln was the first of a whole gaggle of Tarzans which included Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe, and Lex Barker.  Burroughs didn’t like any of them.  And he didn’t like Enid Markey, the original Jane.  In fact, he disliked her performance so much that he killed Jane off in his next story.

tar4

Me Tarzan, you Jane.

This famous quote did not appear in either the original books or any of the movies.  Johnny Weissmuller uttered the words as a joke in an interview.

Me Paul, you Huey

If only I’d known it was available

Pencil it in to your copy wherever it seems appropriate.  Don’t have a copy?  Fix that here.