109 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.

Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs witnessed which wartime attack and then became a war correspondent in his sixties?

Pearl Harbor was bombed while Burroughs was in Honolulu. Despite his age he won permission to report, becoming one of the oldest American war correspondents of the Second World War.

In a 1942 film, Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan escapes arrest by diving from which famous New York landmark?

Brooklyn Bridge is where the ape-man makes a 200-foot dive into the East River in Tarzan's New York Adventure. The plunge was really a dummy dropped from a studio tower into a tank.

Which famous primatologist described the Tarzan stories as a major influence on her childhood?

Jane Goodall absorbed the ape-man's love of the wild as a girl. She went on to spend more than six decades studying the social lives of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.

Which filmmaker was first cast as the elephant Tantor in Disney's Tarzan before leaving to star in Antz?

Woody Allen was persuaded by Jeffrey Katzenberg to quit the Disney film and join DreamWorks' rival insect comedy, so the nervous elephant had to be recast.

The ranch that Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs bought in 1919 grew into a neighborhood of which city?

Los Angeles absorbed the land as the neighborhood of Tarzana. Burroughs named his ranch after his hero, then subdivided it and sold the plots for housing.

In the 1943 film Tarzan Triumphs, Johnny Weissmuller's ape-man is finally roused to fight which wartime invaders?

Nazi paratroopers seize a lost city called Palandrya as a base. Tarzan refuses to get involved at first, then routs them with the help of a stampede of elephants.

Which actress produced and starred as Jane in 1981's Tarzan, the Ape Man, directed by her own husband?

Bo Derek was hugely popular after the comedy 10. The project's working title, Me, Jane, showed that the film was built around her character and not the ape-man.

Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs also wrote of John Carter, a hero whose adventures unfold on which world?

Mars, which Burroughs's stories call Barsoom, was the setting of his very first published tale. Under the Moons of Mars ran in 1912, months before the ape-man made his debut.

In the Johnny Weissmuller films, what plain name do Tarzan and Jane give the baby they adopt?

Boy was found as a baby and adopted, never born to Jane, because the requirements of Hollywood's Production Code ruled out the couple having a child of their own.

Gordon Scott, the Tarzan of the late 1950s, was spotted by a talent agent while working which Las Vegas hotel job?

Lifeguard was his job at the Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in 1953. His muscular frame quickly got him signed as the screen's next ape-man.

Disney's Tarzan (1999) is usually seen as the final film of which celebrated era of the studio's animation?

The Renaissance began with The Little Mermaid in 1989 and took in ten films, among them Aladdin and Mulan, before the ape-man's adventure brought it to an end.

Johnny Weissmuller's coffin was lowered to a recording of his Tarzan yell in which Mexican resort city?

Acapulco was where he spent his final years, having shot his last Tarzan film there. At his own request, the famous yell was played three times at the graveside.

Which director of the last four Harry Potter films took charge of 2016's The Legend of Tarzan?

David Yates was hired in 2012 and personally chose his leading man. He shot the adventure almost entirely in England, with only aerial backgrounds filmed in Africa.

Which actress made her film debut as Jane in 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, only to have her voice dubbed?

Andie MacDowell had a southern American accent that the director disliked for his Jane, so another actress re-recorded her every line in post-production.

In Disney's Tarzan, which star of The Madness of King George voices Jane's father, Professor Porter?

Nigel Hawthorne had voiced a Disney character once before, in The Black Cauldron. The eccentric professor was one of his two final acting roles before he died in 2001.

In Tarzan of the Apes, how does the young hero teach himself to read English without ever hearing it?

Primers left in a cabin, basic illustrated ones, let him decode printed English over many years. Having never heard the language, he could read it long before he could speak a word.

In the ape language that Edgar Rice Burroughs invented for Tarzan, Numa is the word for which animal?

Lion is the meaning of Numa in Mangani, a tongue Burroughs built largely from grunts and growls. Tantor, the name of Disney's elephant, is simply its word for elephant.

Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in which Midwestern city, later home to his book publisher McClurg?

Chicago was also where he worked at his father's battery factory. He spent a spell as a cowboy in Idaho and only began writing fiction around the age of 36.

After six Tarzan films at MGM, Johnny Weissmuller's jungle series moved in 1943 to which rival Hollywood studio?

RKO Pictures became the series' home when producer Sol Lesser took it over, and Weissmuller made six more films there. The move cost the films their Jane, who was under contract to MGM.

The star of 1938's Tarzan's Revenge had won an Olympic gold medal in Berlin two years earlier in which event?

Decathlon gold in 1936 came with new world and Olympic records, and it made Morris the fourth Olympic athlete to play the ape-man. He appeared in only the one Tarzan film.

Mike Henry, star of three 1960s Tarzan films, had earlier played professionally in which American sport?

Football was his first career: he was an NFL linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, then asked for a transfer to the Rams in California so that he could pursue acting.

Which US state has a small farming community named Tarzan, christened after Edgar Rice Burroughs's hero in the 1920s?

Texas gained the community when resident Tant Lindsay applied for a post office. He liked reading the ape-man's adventures, so his wife told him to add the name to his list of suggestions.

In a 1929 crossover novel, Tarzan travels by airship to which inner world from another Edgar Rice Burroughs series?

Pellucidar lies at the Earth's core and is reached through an opening at the pole. Tarzan joins an expedition there to rescue that series' hero, David Innes, from pirates.

The 1960s NBC series Tarzan shot its first five episodes in which South American country before moving to Mexico?

Brazil hosted the first five episodes before the production relocated. This small-screen ape-man had no Jane; his regular companion was a young orphan named Jai.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016) sends its hero back to the Congo Free State, the private colony of which Belgian king?

Leopold II has run up massive debts exploiting the Congo in the film, so he sends an envoy to secure a legendary hoard of diamonds, with the ape-man himself as the price.

Who played a modern-day Tarzan living in New York City in The WB's 2003 series, cancelled after eight episodes?

Travis Fimmel starred opposite a Jane reimagined as a police detective. The series lasted less than two months on air.

In Tarzan of the Apes, which of his dead father's possessions lets the young hero kill a huge attacking ape?

A knife is all he has when the beast attacks him on his way back from studying his books. He kills it, but he is terribly wounded in the struggle.

Lead animator Glen Keane drew the hero of Disney's Tarzan while based with a studio team in which European capital?

Paris housed the team that animated the ape-man, while Jane was drawn in Burbank. The French unit studied the movements of different animals to work out how he should move.

Disney's Tarzan musical opened on Broadway in 2006 at which theatre, later the long-running home of Hamilton?

The Richard Rodgers staged the show with no out-of-town tryout, the only Disney Theatrical production to skip one. Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop history musical moved in nine years later.

Which animation studio made the 1976 CBS Saturday-morning cartoon Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, using rotoscoped movement?

Filmation later paired the ape-man with Batman, the Lone Ranger and Zorro in shared adventure hours, which kept its version of him on CBS until 1982.

Which artist drew the Tarzan Sunday newspaper page for twelve years from 1937 and later wrote anatomy books for artists?

Burne Hogarth also started a Manhattan art academy that grew into the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. In 1956 it was renamed the School of Visual Arts.

Which publisher took over the Tarzan comic book in 1972, launching it with acclaimed artwork by Joe Kubert?

DC Comics bought the rights after the previous publisher refused to expand its Burroughs line. Kubert's version sold poorly abroad, where readers preferred reprints of Russ Manning's ape-man.

At the end of Tarzan of the Apes, the hero rescues Jane from a fire in which US state?

Wisconsin is where he tracks her down, in the north of the state. Jane and her party had sailed home from Africa believing that the ape-man was dead.

Disney's video sequel Tarzan & Jane is framed around the couple's preparations for which occasion?

Their anniversary, the first, sends Jane hunting for a suitable present. The film is really three then-unaired episodes of the television series, told as flashbacks.

In The Return of Tarzan, which African tribe adopts the ape-man and then elects him as its chief?

Waziri warriors choose him after he drives off the ivory poachers who killed their old chieftain. They also know of a lost city hidden in the jungle, the origin of their golden ornaments.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016) was shot in England, apart from aerial backgrounds filmed over which African country?

Gabon supplied six weeks of helicopter footage, filmed without any of the cast. The actors themselves stayed in England for the whole shoot.

Which Starship Troopers lead went on to play the ape-man in 1998's Tarzan and the Lost City?

Casper Van Dien was cast on the strength of that sci-fi hit. The Warner Bros. adventure turned out to be his only outing in the loincloth.

In Disney's Tarzan II, the slow-witted ape Uto likes to throw creatures off a cliff to find out what?

Whether they can fly is his only question. Uto is one of two spoiled, hulking brothers who capture the runaway Tarzan, then flee in terror when the monster's echo sounds again.

Which veteran stand-up comedian voices Zugor, the grumpy old hermit ape, in Disney's Tarzan II?

George Carlin plays a recluse who keeps other animals away from his food by pretending to be a monster. Tarzan uncovers the secret and uses it to make the old ape take him in.

In Disney's Tarzan II, the runaway young Tarzan ends up in which rocky place, feared as a monster's home?

Dark Mountain is where he ends up after a leopard chases him through the jungle. Even the big cat turns tail when the monster's echoing call rolls across the rocks.

Which actress, famous as Mrs. Costanza on Seinfeld, voices the fearsome Mama Gunda in Disney's Tarzan II?

Estelle Harris plays the short, loud and short-tempered mother of two hulking bullies. Disney audiences also know her as the voice of Mrs. Potato Head.

Which Hellboy star voices Kago, the hot-headed older brother who bullies young Tarzan, in Disney's Tarzan II?

Ron Perlman's Kago is an aggressive bully with a running gag: he gets the hiccups whenever his slow-witted younger sibling pokes him.

The child actor who voices young Tarzan in Tarzan II was also the original voice of which Dora the Explorer character?

Boots the Monkey was his role for the first four seasons of the series, so the child who voiced a cartoon monkey went on to play a human raised by apes.

In Disney's Tarzan II, how does the old ape Zugor fake the booming voice of a monster?

Shouts through hollow trees do the trick: the trunks work as loudspeakers that amplify his voice, scaring other creatures away from his territory and his food.

At the start of Disney's Tarzan II, why does young Tarzan run away from his ape family?

He thinks they're better off without him after an accident at a canyon leaves his mother believing he is dead, and he overhears the others call it a fitting end.

Which Everybody Loves Raymond star voices Uto, the slow-witted younger brother, in Disney's Tarzan II?

Brad Garrett's Uto is cowardly and immature, the hulking sidekick to an older sibling and one of two spoiled sons of a domineering mother.

Which actor voices the ape family's stern silverback leader in both Disney's Tarzan and Tarzan II?

Lance Henriksen came back for the 2005 film, in which the leader's dismay at the chaos caused by a human child helps push the young hero into running away.

Which director followed his debut feature Chariots of Fire with 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan?

Hugh Hudson took over a project that its screenwriter had hoped to direct himself, until money troubles on the film he was directing first led the writer to sell his interest.

Who voiced the ape-man in the 2013 animated film Tarzan, in which the hero survives a helicopter crash?

Kellan Lutz played a Tarzan orphaned by the crash, who teams up with Jane to protect an energy-rich meteor from the boss of his late father's company.

Under which pen name did Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs publish his first fiction, to protect his reputation?

Norman Bean was the byline on his debut serial in a pulp magazine in 1912. Burroughs was aiming his work at the pulps and preferred to keep his real name clear of them.