The Suspicious Death of “Cheetah”

I read yesterday that Cheetah, Tarzan’s simian sidekick died at the age of eighty. An eighty year old chimp? Highly suspect. Here’s a quote from The New York Times attributed to Dr. Steve Ross from the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes in Chicago:

“To live into your seventies is really pushing the limits of chimp biology. Eighty is tough to swallow.”

That makes Cheetah just seven years younger than my mother.

A whole barrel of monkeys played Cheetah over the years, at least a dozen. The first Tarzan movie was the 1918 production starring Elmo Lincoln. I’m not sure if Cheetah was in that version and I’ll have to check it out. Tarzan hit the big time beginning in 1932 when Johnny Weissmuller swayed on the vines and wrestled with crocodiles (with Cheetah running along the shore, acting up). Are there any definitive records proving that this particular incarnation of Cheetah signed a contract to act in the 1932 production? Is his agent still alive to verify this?

Maybe it’s all a big conspiracy and better left alone. Beyond all that, the Tarzan movies were cool, especially the later ones where Tarzan had a beer gut and Tarzan and Jane’s treehouse looked like a studio apartment. In any event, RIP Cheetah, no matter which one you were.

To learn more, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan#Film

and here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cheetah-death-fake-tarzan-chimpanzee-276510