Johnny Weissmuller: Polio Therapy, Five Olympic Golds, Then Tarzan

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Johnny Weissmuller was born Johann Peter Weissmuller in 1904 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in a region now in Romania, to a Banat Swabian family. Before he was a year old his parents crossed the Atlantic on the SS Rotterdam, passed through Ellis Island in early 1905 and settled in Chicago. At nine he was diagnosed with polio, and a doctor prescribed swimming rather than bed rest, sending him into Lake Michigan at Fullerton Beach. His father abandoned the family and Johnny left school in the eighth grade to work. He lied about his age to join a YMCA pool at 11, then trained under coach Bill Bachrach at the Illinois Athletic Club, refining a high-riding American crawl with a six-beat kick. On July 9, 1922 he swam the 100 meter freestyle in 58.6 seconds, breaking Duke Kahanamoku's record and the one-minute barrier.

At the 1924 Paris Olympics he won gold in the 100 and 400 meter freestyle and the 4x200 meter relay plus a water polo bronze, then took two more golds in Amsterdam in 1928. He set 67 world records, won 52 national titles and never lost a race. After modeling for BVD, he was cast by MGM in Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 and went on to star in 12 Tarzan films and 16 Jungle Jim films before retiring in 1957. He married five times, including to Lupe Vélez, and lost his daughter Heidi in a 1962 car crash. A 1974 fall revealed heart failure, strokes followed, and he died in Acapulco on January 20, 1984, at 79.

• In 1927 he pulled 11 people from Lake Michigan after the excursion boat The Favorite capsized in a squall.
• He visited John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, opened its new pool and broke one of his own records there.
• MGM freed him from his BVD contract by offering stars such as Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler for BVD swimsuit ads.
• Sound recordist Douglas Shearer built the Tarzan yell by altering pitch, splicing takes and reversing segments of his voice.
• The yell played three times as his coffin was lowered, and a 21-gun salute was arranged by Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy.