Johnny Weissmuller

He was born in Freidorf (a district of Timisoara, Romania since 1950). His parents, Elisabetha (Kersch) and Petrus Weißmüller, were Banat Swabians (ethnic Germans), and citizens of Austria-Hungary. The family arrived in the United States on January 26, 1905 when Johnny was 7 months old.

Johnny Weissmuller has one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century: He was one of the world's fastest swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals for swimming and one bronze medal for water polo at the Olympic Games in 1924 (Paris) and 1928 (Amsterdam). He won fifty-two U.S. National Championships, set more than fifty world records, both in freestyle and backstroke, and was purportedly undefeated in official competition for the entirety of his competitive career.

After school, he worked as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago and trained for the Olympics with a swim coach at the Illinois Athletic Club, where he developed his revolutionary high-riding front crawl. He made his amateur debut on August 6, 1921, winning his first AAU race in the 50-yard freestyle.

Won 5 Olympic Gold Medals 1924-1928 for swimming. Broke the record in each race. From 1921-1929 he won every free style race he entered.

Johnny Weissmuller was born as Peter Johann Weißmüller in Freidorf, today a district of the city of Timisoara in Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Weissmuller would later claim to have been born in Windber, Pennsylvania, probably to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the US Olympic team. Weissmüller was one of two boys born to Petrus Weissmuller, a miner, and his wife Elisabeth Kersch, who were both Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe. A sickly child, he took up swimming on the advice of a doctor. He grew to be a 6' 3", 190-pound champion athlete - undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals, 67 world and 52 national titles, holder of every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile. In his first picture, Glorifying the American Girl (1929), he appeared as an Adonis clad only in a fig leaf. After great success with a jungle movie, MGM head Louis B. Mayer, via Irving Thalberg, optioned two of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories.

When Weissmuller was introduced to the first Cheetah in his Tarzan films in 1931 (he worked with 8 chimpanzees altogether), the chimp's trainer told him to show no fear or the animal would attack him. As Weissmuller, dressed in his Tarzan loincloth and hunting knife, walked up to the animal, it bared its teeth, growled at him and lunged as if to attack him. Weissmuller took the knife out of the sheath and held it in front of the chimp's nose, to make sure he saw and smelled it. He then slammed the animal on the side of the head with the knife handle. He put the knife back in its sheath and held out his hand to the chimp. It glared at him, bared his teeth again, then changed its mind, grinned at Weissmuller and jumped up and hugged him. Weissmuller never had any further problems with the chimp--although other cast and crew members did--and it followed him around like a puppy dog during all the pictures they worked together.

Cyril Hume, working on the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), noticed Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel and suggested him for the part of Tarzan. Weissmuller was under contract to BVD to model underwear and swimsuits; MGM got him released by agreeing to pose many of its female stars in BVD swimsuits. The studio billed him as "the only man in Hollywood who's natural in the flesh and can act without clothes". The film was an immediate box-office and critical hit. Seeing that he was wildly popular with girls, the studio told him to divorce his wife and paid her $10,000 to agree to it.

After 1942, however, MGM had used up its options; it dropped the Tarzan series and Weissmuller, too. He then moved to RKO and made six more Tarzans.

In the late 1950s after retiring from acting, Weissmuller moved back to Chicago and started a swimming pool company. He also lent his name to other business ventures, but did not have a great deal of success. He retired in 1965 and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was Founding Chairman of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

His daughter, Heidi, died in a car crash on November 19, 1962. She had been driving south along the Pacific Coast Highway, on the way to return her husband, and a friend to the naval base in San Diego where they were stationed. A few miles north of Laguna Beach, she fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. Heidi and her unborn child died. Her husband and his friend survived. According to his son, Weissmuller never got over the loss of his daughter and unborn grandchild.

In 1970, he attended the British Commonwealth Games in Jamaica where he was presented to Queen Elizabeth.

During his appearance on German television show "Das aktuelle Sportstudio", a monkey removed his wife Maria's wig and threw it on the floor (1971).

Moved to Las Vegas from Florida in 1973 where he was a greeter at the MGM Grand Hotel for a time.

In 1974, he broke a hip and leg. While hospitalized he learned that, in spite of his strength and lifelong daily regimen of swimming and exercise, he had a serious heart condition.

Inducted into the Body Building Guild Hall of Fame in 1976.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 858-859. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

Inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, 1983 (charter member).

He was the first speaking Tarzan and he died in January 1984, the month after the last surviving silent Tarzan, James Pierce, died.

Natives of the village Zitiste near the town of Zrenjanin, Banat region in Serbia (near border with Romania) started a campaign to build a monument in honor of him, claiming that he was born there.(spring 2007).