Ron Ely, TV’s ‘Tarzan’ in the 1960s, dies at 86

Ron Ely, the tall, muscular actor who played the title character on the 1960s NBC series Tarzandied at the age of 86.

Ely’s daughter, Kirsten Casale Ely, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her father died Sept. 29 at his home in Los Alamos, Calif., an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County.

While Ron Ely was not as well known as Johnny Weismuller, the Olympic swimmer who played Tarzan In films of the 1930s and 1940s, Ely helped form the image of the shirtless, loincloth-wearing character, further immortalized by Disney.

“He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader,” Kirsten Ely said in an Instagram post. “He created a powerful wave of positive influence wherever he went. The impact he had on others is something I’ve never seen in anyone else – there was something truly magical about him.

In 2019, he tragically returned to the news when his 62-year-old wife, Valerie Lundeen Ely, was stabbed to death at their home in Santa Barbara, California, by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, who was later shot and killed . and killed by the police. Ron Ely, who was home at the time of the attack, disputed the prosecutor’s report that his son’s shooting was justified.

“If he didn’t have a gun or if he didn’t have a gun, what was the reason he shot him?” Ely attorney John Burris said in 2020. “They may well have thought he was involved in some other activity involving the mother. But that’s no reason to shoot and kill him. There must be a legal basis to do so.

In the early 1980s, Ely was host of the Miss America pageant and there met Valerie, Miss Florida. They married in 1984. The couple had three children, and Ely retired from acting to focus on his family in 2001.

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“Later in life I had a young family. I decided to stop playing and work at home as an author, that way I could be with the kids throughout school and be able to attend their sports games and such,” said he told London’s Daily Express in 2013, expressing interest in the weather. to re-enter the acting profession. He would return briefly in the 2014 TV movie Amish waiting.

Tarzan of Ely did not speak with the monosyllabic grunts often associated with the character, originally created by novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs. Rather, he was an educated bachelor who had grown tired of civilization and returned to the African jungle where he grew up.

Ely has said in interviews that he performed his own stunts in the series, working directly and precariously with the tigers, chimpanzees and other wild animals who were Tarzan’s friends and servants.

“They first tried to recruit a former American football player called Mike Henry, but he didn’t like chimpanzees and from the moment he arrived on set, things went south,” Ely told London’s Daily Express in 2013.

A chimpanzee attacked Henry and injured his jaw while filming the series’ pilot, and Ely was cast in his place at the last moment.

“I met them on a Monday and when they offered me the role, I was like, ‘I don’t want to get into this bear trap.’ You do Tarzan and you’re scarred for life,” Ely told the Daily Express. “Was I ever right! But my agent convinced me it was a quality show and it was going to work. So , on Friday I was on a plane to Brazil to shoot the first episode.

Ely also played the title character in the 1975 action film. Doc Savage: The Man of Bronzebut otherwise had mostly small roles in television and film, including in the 1958 musical comedy. South Pacific.

He also wrote two detective novels featuring a detective named Jake Sands, in 1994. Night shadows and the 1995s East Beach.

Born in Hereford, Texas, and raised in Amarillo, he married his high school sweetheart in 1959, but divorced two years later.

Along with Kirsten Casale Ely, he is survived by his daughter Kaitland Ely Sweet.

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