The unchaining of Weissmuller set in motion what proved to be the most-illustrious career of any swimmer at the time, as Weissmuller went on to set more than 50 world records and win more than 50 national championships. More impressive, his excellence spanned several distances and was not confined to just the freestyle stroke.
Rather than focus on the shortest distances contested at the time, Weissmuller set world records — at one point or another — in the , , and distances. For good measure, he was also a stellar backstroker, even setting a world record in that stroke.
Further setting Weissmuller apart was the fact that he was far ahead of his time. His global standards endured for years, most notably his marks in the freestyle and freestyle.
In the free, Weissmuller was the first man to break the one-minute barrier and held the world record from In the free, he stood as the world-record holder from , shaving 11 seconds off the global standard between the first and last time he set the record.
It was in Olympic competition, however, where Weissmuller excelled greatest and forever made himself a household name. In order to attain that Olympic glory, Weissmuller first had to pull off one of the greatest bits of deception in sports history. Weissmuller was actually born — according to official records — on June 2, in the small town of Friedorf, part of Romania. Although he moved to the United States with his parents seven months later, he was not an American citizen.
This fact became an issue leading up to the Paris Games because Weissmuller needed official documentation of his citizenship in order to secure an American passport which would enable his travel to the Olympics. For this reason, Weissmuller put into motion a major ruse, one which proved to be successful. While his father once insisted Weissmuller was born in Chicago, it was later changed to state Weissmuller was born in Windber, a small town in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Using this familial connection to his advantage, Weissmuller got hold of baptismal records from St. It seemed nobody now wanted to raise questions about his citizenship. Weissmuller ran with the deceit for years, even celebrating a day in his honor in Windber in , years after his Olympic exploits. This is the biggest thrill I ever had in my life and this includes the events when I won the Olympic titles in and and was presented medals by the queen of the Netherlands.
Throughout his life, Weissmuller assured his secret was well-protected. He never told his family of his true birthplace, including his five wives and only son, Johnny Jr. After his swimming career, he became the sixth actor to portray Tarzan in films, a role he played in twelve motion pictures. Dozens of other actors have also played Tarzan, but Weissmuller is by far the best known.
The passenger manifest of the S. The family is listed as Germans, last residence. They were going to join their brother-in-law Johann Ott of Windber, Pennsylvania. After the Olympics, he became a professional swimmer, and performed at exhibitions all over the United States.
In , when he was 36, he broke his own yard freestyle record, swimming the distance in Bill Bachrach's insistence on good form was apparent in his style; as Pat Besford wrote in Encyclopedia of Swimming, "His high-riding stroke, with its pull-and-push arm stroke, independent head turning action for breathing and deep flutter leg-kick, was revolutionary and had a tremendous influence on the development of the crawl throughout the world.
Weissmuller's second career as an actor began in , and might not have begun at all if Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios MGM had not had a very successful jungle movie, Trader Horn. The studio had a great deal of extra jungle footage, and not wanting to waste it, decided to use it to make a film based on the book Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, about a man who had been abandoned in the jungle during his infancy and then raised by apes.
Van Dyke said, "What I want is a man who is young, strong, well-built, reasonably attractive, but not necessarily handsome, and a competent actor. The most important thing is that he have a good physique.
And I can't find him. Tarzan screenwriter Cyril Hume was staying at the same hotel as Weissmuller. When he saw the champiion swimmer in the hotel pool, he knew he'd found the man the studio wanted. According to Essoe, Van Dyke later praised Weissmuller's ability to be comfortable wearing almost nothing. He said, "Most actors without clothes are undressed rather than naked and are too self-conscious to act naturally.
At first, Weissmuller wasn't interested in the movie part, and in fact he had signed an exclusive contract with BVD, a manufacturer of swimsuits and underwear, as a spokesman for their products. MGM, undaunted, sent over a team of lawyers to try and convince the executives at BVD to come to an agreement.
Eventually, the two sides made a deal. The producer of the film, who didn't follow sports, had no idea that Weissmuller was a well-known Olympic champion and at first, wanted to change his name. According to Besford, he said, "Johnny Weissmuller, that's too long, it won't go on the posters, we'll have to change it," until someone told him who Weissmuller was. Although Edgar Rice Burrough's original Tarzan was a "noble savage" who was a cultured gentleman who spoke several languages, the film Tarzan is an animal-man who can barely speak.
Tarzan, the Ape Man was well-made for its time, starred the beautiful Irish actress Maureen O'Sullivan, and featured scanty costumes, romance between Weissmuller and O'Sullivan, little dialogue, and a lot of jungle action. It was an immediate success with both the public and critics, who praised its sweeping action, entertaining story, and its actors.
Essoe quoted critic Thornton Delehanty, who wrote that Weissmuller was "the complete realization of this son-of-the-jungle role. With his flowing hair, his magnificently proportioned body, his catlike walk, and his virtuosity in the water, you could hardly ask anything more in the way of perfection.
Throughout the Tarzan series, Weissmuller swam in at least one scene-usually more-showing off his famous form and speed, and often wrestled crocodiles or other watery menaces. Fortunately, the role did not demand much acting ability; in the Encyclopedia of Hollywood, Scott Siegel and Barbara Siegel wrote, "Weissmuller was a wooden actor with a halting speech pattern that worked just fine for the monosyllabic role of the ape man created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Of his role as Tarzan, he once said, according to Hickok, "It was up my alley.
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