As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the Lord of the Apes...
After Buster Crabbe filled a loincloth beautifully and Johnny Weissmuller & Maureen O'Sullivan gave us the deservedly definitive Golden Age Tarzan and Jane, the franchise had to recast or close shop. O'Sullivan left first and by the late 40s Weissmuller was feeling too old for the role and also called it quits. The producer Sol Lesser wasn't about to let the profitable franchise go, though, and led a search for a replacement. The winner was Lex Barker, a then little known blue blood actor from New York who had been disowned by his family for choosing an acting career (!) and he took up the loincloth in 1949 for Tarzan's Magic Fountain.
I opted to watch Barker's third go at the character in Tarzan's Peril (sometimes called Tarzan and the Jungle Queen...
After Buster Crabbe filled a loincloth beautifully and Johnny Weissmuller & Maureen O'Sullivan gave us the deservedly definitive Golden Age Tarzan and Jane, the franchise had to recast or close shop. O'Sullivan left first and by the late 40s Weissmuller was feeling too old for the role and also called it quits. The producer Sol Lesser wasn't about to let the profitable franchise go, though, and led a search for a replacement. The winner was Lex Barker, a then little known blue blood actor from New York who had been disowned by his family for choosing an acting career (!) and he took up the loincloth in 1949 for Tarzan's Magic Fountain.
I opted to watch Barker's third go at the character in Tarzan's Peril (sometimes called Tarzan and the Jungle Queen...
- 5/30/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Tarzan Actress Joyce Dies
Tarzan actress Brenda Joyce has died of pneumonia at the age of 92.
Joyce, born Betty Leabo, succeeded Maureen O'Sullivan as the seventh actress to play the apeman's mate Jane in the jungle films.
She died on 4 July at a nursing home in New York, after a decade-long battle with dementia.
Joyce appeared in five Tarzan movies in the 1940s, including Tarzan and the Amazons, opposite Johnny Weissmuller, and Tarzan's Magic Fountain, with Lex Barker.
Joyce, born Betty Leabo, succeeded Maureen O'Sullivan as the seventh actress to play the apeman's mate Jane in the jungle films.
She died on 4 July at a nursing home in New York, after a decade-long battle with dementia.
Joyce appeared in five Tarzan movies in the 1940s, including Tarzan and the Amazons, opposite Johnny Weissmuller, and Tarzan's Magic Fountain, with Lex Barker.
- 7/23/2009
- WENN
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