Tarzan’s chimp Cheetah dies at 80
Cheetah, star of the Tarzan movies of the 1930s, turns out to have been a simple soul who liked nothing better than to pass the time with a spot of finger-painting or a football game on the telly.
Details of the hairy headliner’s twilight years emerged as his death at the remarkable age of 80 was announced by his carers at his Florida retirement home yesterday.
The cheeky chimpanzee not only outlived his Tarzan co-stars, Johnny Weissmuller and Ms O’Sullivan, but also just about every other chimp of his generation as apes of his variety rarely make it past the age of 45, even with matinee idol pampering.
He began his screen career in 1932 when a mere youngster, but he quickly established himself as a formidable match for his human stars, often out-acting the monosyllabic Weissmuller and using his gifted comic timing to easily steal scenes from the beguiling Ms O’Sullivan.
Indeed, the latter once said Cheetah had stood out among all her leading men though, unfortunately for her, not because of his charm.
“Cheetah bit me whenever he could,” she revealed of her co-star’s at times precocious behaviour. His carers at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbour, Florida, agree.
“When he didn’t like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them,” a sanctuary volunteer said.
Cheetah was not the only chimp to appear in the Tarzan movies, a dozen of which were made with Weissmuller in the title role in the 1930s and 1940s, but he was the most enduring.
