In 1999 a movie-length cartoon, Tarzan, came to the big screen with actor Tony Goldwyn as our favorite swinging ape man.Perhaps the production company, Filmation, (or whoever owns the rights to their material) can't come up with a suitable financial deal with the Burroughs estate? Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD, but one episode, "Tarzan and the Colossus of Zome," is featured on the DVD Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1. Voice actor Robert Ridgely played Tarzan in all 36 episodes. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle aired Saturday mornings beginning in September, 1976.Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) Tarzan of the Apes (1918), The Romance of Tarzan (1918), and The Son of Tarzan (1920) It was Pierce's first and last role as the famed ape man.
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While it was popular with audiences, the movie was panned by critics. Pierce earned $75 a week while working on the film, which was released in 1927. Right there at the party he offered Pierce the lead role in Tarzan and the Golden Lion. Also, Edgar Burroughs thought Pierce was the perfect shape and size to play Tarzan. The couple fell in love and married in 1928. At the party he met Burroughs' daughter Joan. Pierce's career and life took a major turn when he was invited to a party given by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He continued to coach football, at Glendale High School, and some of the student players on his team would eventually take up acting, men like John Wayne and Robert Livingston. Pierce moved to California and in 1924 he got his first movie role, in the film Leatherstocking. After graduating in 1921, he moved to Arizona where he coached football and worked as an actor on the side. James Pierce was a football player at Indiana University. Tarzan in Manhattan (TV movie) and Tarzan the Epic Adventures Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes "He was a little kid with the skills of a superhuman.Tarzan the Ape Man and 11 other Tarzan films When we were surviving together in the jungle, everything that would take me hours to achieve, he could do it in seconds. "He had spent all his life living in the jungle and then came to live in the "civilised world" where he started eating processed foods and sometimes even drinking alcohol."ĭescribing his friend, Cerezo said: "He was the most fascinating person I ever met and extremely sweet at the same time. I was always concerned that he and his body wouldn't be able to handle such a drastic change. "But I didn't like seeing him living in civilisation. "He was a beautiful human being, to forget him will be impossible, I will miss him every day. His friend Alvaro Cerezo, an explorer who returned to the jungle with Lang to live there for a week together, believes "modern life" probably had fatal consequences.Ĭerezo said: "I'm so sad to see him go, but for me, his passing is also a liberation because I know he was suffering in the last months. Lang has now succumbed to liver cancer and passed away on September 6, 2021. When questioned if he knew what a female was, he said that his father had never explained that to him. They reportedly thought the war was still going on until they were brought back to civilisation in 2013 when Lang's father became sick.Īfter they left their isolated life in the jungle, Lang lived with his father in a small Vietnamese village for eight years.įor 41 years, Lang didn't know that females existed. Lang lived with his father for decades in the forest of what is now known as the Tra Bong District before they were found by locals collecting firewood. As for clothing, they wore clothes made from tree barks. The family ate monkeys, snakes, lizards and any other creature they could get their hands on while living in the jungle. Lang, his brother Tri, and his father Ho spent most of their lives deep in the Vietnam jungle because his dad had a "profound phobia of returning as he did not believe that the Vietnam War was over". Ho Van Lang's family fled civilisation when a US bomb killed their father Ho Van Thanh's wife during the Vietnam War in 1972. Ho Van Lang died of liver cancer 8 years after he was reintergrated into the civilised world, and his friend said modern life was damaging to him. A man tagged real-life Tarzan who spent over 40 years living in the jungle isolated from other people has died at the age of 52.