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Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian (now Romania) actor from the 1920s to the 1970s, born this day in 1904. While he is of course best remembered for playing Tarzan starting in 1932 (in "Tarzan the Ape Man", followed by "Tarzan and His Mate", and many others!), he also later starred as Jungle Jim from 1948 to 1955, and then played the same character in 26 episodes of a TV series, when he was over fifty years old! But long before his movie exploits he was the 1924 Olympic swimming champion, and he set a number of world records, and he never lost a single race! In 1940, at the age of 36, he broke his own world record in the 100-yard freestyle, which he had set 13 years earlier, and which stood for another 4 years before finally being broken after 17 years! Weissmuller had an active private life, marrying five times, including a tumultuous one to actress Lupe Velez. In 1974, he broke both his hip and leg and while hospitalized, he discovered that despite being in wonderful physical health all his life, he had a serious heart condition. In 1977, he suffered a series of strokes and in 1979 he moved with his last wife, Maria, to Acapulco, Mexico, the location of his last Tarzan movie. He passed away in 1984 at the age of 79 and as his coffin was lowered into the ground, a recording of the Tarzan yell he invented was played three times, at his request!

Important Added Info: Note that this photograph was taken by George Hurrell. Note that this is one of a special set of 25 "color-glos" 11" x 14" portrait stills created by MGM in 1941 (see below for what "color-glos" means). They took wonderful portraits by top Hollywood photographers of their top stars (some had been taken prior to 1941, and were re-used at this time) and they put them into this special set of portraits, each of which has a facsimile autograph that is within the printing of the still (the still has not been personally autographed). THESE ARE THE NICEST SUCH PORTRAITS I HAVE EVER SEEN! I have seen a tiny number of these over the past decades, but I was never aware that there was an entire set of them, until a consignor surfaced with this set, which was mailed to a theater in an MGM envelope. We don't know the exact date of these stills, but it seems extremely likely that they are from 1941, both based on the stars pictured, and their ages, and also because Greta Garbo was included, and she made her final movie in 1941. We are auctioning each of the 25 in its own individual auction. This is a likely once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire any or all of these wonderful portraits. Note that on a few of them, we were able to identify the photographer who took the image, and on those we put that information at the start of this text. But we are certain that all of them are from "name" Hollywood photographers, and we ask anyone who knows who took the unidentified ones to please share that information with us! More about "color glos" stills: they are printed on a photo type of paper and have a glossier front, with more vivid colors. This is something the studios experimented with in the late 1930s and early 1940s, for both 8x10 stills and 11x14 stills, and it was primarily used with the very best movies, including Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Citizen Kane..

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