Maureen O'Sullivan was an Irish actress who played Jane in the Tarzan series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She starred in dozens of feature films across a span of more than half a century and performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Fredric March, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, the Marx Bros. and Woody Allen. In 2020, she was listed at number eight on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Cheeta is a chimpanzee character that appeared in numerous Hollywood Tarzan films of the 1930s–1960s, as well as the 1966–1968 television series, as the ape sidekick of the title character, Tarzan. Cheeta has usually been characterized as male, but sometimes as female, and has been portrayed by chimpanzees of both sexes.
Johnny Sheffield was an American child actor who, between 1939 and 1947, portrayed Boy in the Tarzan film series and, between 1949 and 1955, played Bomba the Jungle Boy.
Tarzan and the Leopard Woman is a 1946 American action film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and portrayed by Johnny Weissmuller. Directed by Kurt Neumann, film sees Tarzan encounter a tribe of leopard-worshippers. It was shot in the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Its plot has nothing in common with Burroughs' 1935 novel Tarzan and the Leopard Men.
Tarzan, the Ape Man is a 1981 American adventure film directed by John Derek and starring Bo Derek, Miles O'Keeffe, Richard Harris, and John Phillip Law. The screenplay by Tom Rowe and Gary Goddard is loosely based on the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but from the point of view of Jane Parker.
Tarzan the Ape Man is a 1932 pre-Code American action adventure film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous jungle hero Tarzan and starring Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith and Maureen O'Sullivan. It was Weissmuller's first of 12 Tarzan films. O'Sullivan played Jane in six features between 1932 and 1942. The film is loosely based on Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, with the dialogue written by Ivor Novello. The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released two remakes of Tarzan, the Ape Man in 1959 and in 1981, but each was a different adaptation of Rice Burroughs' novel. It is also the first appearance of Tarzan's famous yell.
The Tarzan yell or Tarzan's jungle call is the distinctive, ululating yell of the character Tarzan as portrayed by actor Johnny Weissmuller in the films based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs starting with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The yell was a creation of the movies based on what Burroughs described in his books as simply "the victory cry of the bull ape."
Tarzan and His Mate is a 1934 American pre-Code action adventure film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Directed by Cedric Gibbons, it was the second in the Tarzan film series and starred Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.
Tarzan Escapes is a 1936 Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the third in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Tarzan series to feature Johnny Weissmuller as the "King of the Apes". Previous films were Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), with Jane's bikini-like attire and the famous skinny-dipping sequence. Weissmuller and O'Sullivan starred together in three more Tarzan films, Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942).
Jane Porter is a fictional character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly film. Jane, an American from Baltimore, Maryland, is the daughter of professor Archimedes Q. Porter. She becomes the love interest and later the wife of Tarzan, and subsequently the mother of their son Korak. She develops over the course of the series from a conventional damsel in distress, who must be rescued from various perils, to an educated, competent and capable adventuress in her own right, fully capable of defending herself and surviving on her own in the jungles of Africa.
Tarzan and the Mermaids is a 1948 American adventure film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Directed by Robert Florey, it was the last of twelve Tarzan films to star Johnny Weissmuller in the title role, with the following sixteen films in the series featuring alternating actors between main and supporting, while maintaining a single continuity. It was also the first Tarzan film since 1939 not to feature the character Boy, adopted son of Tarzan and Jane.
Tarzan Finds a Son! is a 1939 Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the fourth in the MGM Tarzan series to feature Johnny Weissmuller as the "King of the Apes" and the fourth of six films in which he stars with Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane; following this pairing was Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942).
Tarzan's Desert Mystery is a 1943 American Tarzan film directed by Wilhelm Thiele and starring Johnny Weissmuller and Nancy Kelly.
Tarzan, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-four sequels by Burroughs and numerous more by other authors. The character proved immensely popular and quickly made the jump to other media, first and most notably to comics and film.
Tarzan's Secret Treasure is a 1941 Tarzan film directed by Richard Thorpe. Based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, it is the fifth in the MGM Tarzan series to star Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. Original prints of the film were processed in sepiatone.
Tarzan Triumphs is a 1943 adventure film in which Tarzan fights the Nazis. Johnny Weissmuller had portrayed the Edgar Rice Burroughs character in six films with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but this was his first with the producer Sol Lesser at RKO Pictures. Lesser had previously produced Tarzan the Fearless and Tarzan's Revenge. Weissmuller was reunited with two of his three co-stars from several of the earlier films, Johnny Sheffield and Cheeta, but Maureen O'Sullivan was unable to reprise her role as Jane because the franchise switched from MGM to RKO, and O'Sullivan was an MGM contract player. Instead, Frances Gifford played the princess of the lost city of Palandrya, which is conquered by Germans.
Tarzan and the Lost Safari is a 1957 action adventure film featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous jungle hero Tarzan and starring Gordon Scott, Robert Beatty, Yolande Donlan and Betta St. John. Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, it was the first Tarzan film released in color, Eastman Color. The ninteenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man and the first produced by MGM since 1942, it was filmed in Nairobi, British East Africa. The character of Jane does not appear in this motion picture. Released April 12, 1957, it was followed by Tarzan and the Trappers in 1958.
Tarzan the Fearless is a 12 chapter American Pre-Code film serial starring Buster Crabbe in his only appearance as Tarzan. It was also released as a 61-minute feature film which consisted of the first four chapters edited together, and which was intended to be followed on a weekly basis by the last eight chapters in individual episode format, but which was often exhibited instead as a stand-alone feature film. Actress Jacqueline Wells co-starred; she later changed her name to Julie Bishop. The serial was produced by Sol Lesser, written by Basil Dickey, George Plympton and Walter Anthony, and directed by Robert F. Hill. The film was released in both formats on August 11, 1933.
Tarzan and the Amazons a 1945 American adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller in his ninth outing as Tarzan. Brenda Joyce plays Jane, in the first of her five appearances in the role, and Johnny Sheffield makes his sixth appearance as Boy. Henry Stephenson and Maria Ouspenskaya co-star.
Tarzan and the Huntress is a 1947 American adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller in his eleventh outing as Tarzan. Brenda Joyce makes the third of five appearances as Jane and Johnny Sheffield marks his eighth and final appearance as Boy. Patricia Morison and Barton MacLane co-star. The film was produced by Sol Lesser and Kurt Neumann, written by Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh and directed by Kurt Neumann. It was released on April 5, 1947.
