Hardly a Christmas goes by that some star of stage and screen doesn’t pass away. And this year is no exception, as we mourn the loss of a star who could reportedly hit you with a handful of his own faeces from up yo 30 feet. Yes, the chimpanzee who reportedly played Cheetah in the 1930s TARZAN movies is dead, having died from kidney failure on 19th December at Florida’s Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. He was reckoned to have been 80-years old.
However, the chimp is one of many claimed to have portrayed Cheetah, who featured alongside Johnny Weissmuller (him Tarzan) and Maureen O’Sullivan (her Jane) in a number of films. Several chimp owners have claimed theirs as the genuine article over the years, and it’s most likely that the part was played by a number of animals across the films.The character was invented solely for the Weissmuller films, and is absent from the original Edgar Rice Burroughs stories.
According to the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary this particular chimpanzee was donated in 1960 by Weissmuller’s estate in 1960, when the institution went by the less-endearing name of ‘Chimp Farm’. If ‘Cheetah’ was indeed 80-years old, he’s had a damn good innings, as chimps rarely live past 50, even in captivity.
The Cheetah controversy has made headlines before: Washington Post writer RD Rosen exposed a fake when asked to write a Cheetah biography, a incident that provoked the spoof book ‘Me Cheetah: The Autobiography’ by James Lever.
The chimp who is considered to have featured most reguarly as Cheetah was Jiggs, who died in 1938. He is buried in the LA Pet Memorial Park.
Source: 10 News, The Guardian
