An Aging Tarzan and Beyond
So in my last post about Tarzan, Tarzan (1959), we left the Ape Man still in the capable hands of muscleman Gordon Scott. Scott would make one more movie equally as exciting as “Greatest Adventure,” called “Tarzan the Magnificent” (1960) Sadly, Scott decided he didn’t want to be typecast as the Ape Man so he left the franchise to make Italian Sword and Sandal flicks (I believe he is now listed in “Bad Career Moves” at Number 8). Sadly because Scott had finally hit his stride portraying the jungle lord and we’re left with a small legacy of only five films, the first three of which are of the style of the Weissmuller “Me Tarzan, you Jane,” type dialog.
The next actor to portray Tarzan was Jock Mahoney. Mahoney was a stunt man and actor and had auditioned for the part of Tarzan when Weissmuller left the series. He lost out to Lex Barker. Mahoney would next appear in a Tarzan movie as a villain, battling Gordon Scott in “Tarzan the Magnificent.” Producer Sy Weintraub liked his look and signed him on to be the fourth Tarzan in the franchise.
Mahoney did only two Tarzan movies, “Tarzan Goes to India” (1962), and “Tarzan’s Three Challenges” (1963) Both were rather forgettable and notable only because they started a trend to take Tarzan out of his home jungles of Africa and put him into jungles around the world, in these instances India and then Thailand.
My father took me to see “Tarzan’s Three Challenges” in the theater. I was an early Tarzan fan, as most young boys were, introduced to him by all the weekend matinee showings on television. But Mahoney was a shock to even my six-year-old sensibilities. He was old! At 44, Mahoney was the oldest actor to play the Ape Man and it showed. How was I supposed to believe someone older than even my father could swing through the jungles and fight muscular villains? I couldn’t.
Health problems brought on by filming in Thailand (dysentery and Dengue fever), as well as his age led to Weintraub to go with a younger actor.
That actor was Mike Henry, former NFL linebacker. Henry had the physical look of Gordon Scott, bringing muscularity back to the Ape Man. Despite the fact that Henry was being groomed to be the long term Tarzan, even being considered in the upcoming series, he only lasted three movies, “Tarzan and the Valley of Gold” (1966), “Tarzan and the Great River” (1967), and “Tarzan and the Jungle Boy” (1968).
The main reason for that was, Henry brought a lawsuit against Weintraub for “maltreatment, abuse, and working conditions detrimental to my health and welfare.” While filming, one of the chimps bit him on the chin which required 20 stitches. He also suffered food poisoning and infections while on location in Mexico and Brazil.
He wasn’t a bad Tarzan, of the five in this series, he held his own, but one doesn’t go about suing people inside Hollywood and expect it not to be detrimental to your career. After Tarzan, he was relegated to supporting roles on television and is best known now as Jackie Gleason’s simple-minded son Junior in “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977) and later as the equally simple-minded Lt. Col. Donald Penobscot, the fiance of Hot Lips on the television series M*A*S*H.
Sure, I guess one can’t blame Henry for suing, if he was in fact mistreated instead of just being subjected to the things most actors on location are subjected to, but I still do if only because he left us stuck with Ron Ely in the television series of Tarzan, which by rights could have been Henry’s.
So where who will the Tarzan movie franchise turn to next? I don’t know. Turner Classic Movies still has one more of the Mike Henry movies to show, “Tarzan and the Jungle Boy.” After that airs this coming weekend, we’ll see.
