Ron Ely, the star of the 1960s NBC series “Tarzan,” who popularized the image of the shirtless loin-cloth-wearing character known today, has died at age 86, his daughter, Kirsten Casale Ely, reported.
Ely told the Associated Press on Wednesday that her father died Sept. 29 at his home in Los Alamos, California, an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County.
According to past interviews, he did his own stunts on the show, working directly and precariously with the tigers, chimpanzees and other wild animals that were Tarzan’s friends and servants, which was reportedly one of the determining factors that got him on the program.
While Johnny Weismuller, the Olympic swimmer who played Tarzan in movies in the 1930s and 1940s, may be more commonly associated with the character, Ely helped spread the image of Tarzan that has long been marketed by Disney. Ely didn’t speak in the monosyllabic grunts often associated with the character, originally created by novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs. Rather, he was presented as an educated bachelor who had returned to African jungle where he was raised after growing tired of civilization.
In the early 1980s, Ely was host of the Miss America pageant, where he met his former wife and Miss Florida, Valerie Lundeen Ely.
In 2019, Valarie, who was then 62, was stabbed to death at their Santa Barbara, California, home by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, who was subsequently shot and killed by police. Ron Ely, who was home during the stabbing, later challenged the prosecutor’s report that his son’s shooting was justified.
“If he didn’t have a gun or he didn’t have a weapon, what was the basis of shooting him?” Ely’s attorney John Burris said in 2020. “They may have very well thought he was involved in some other activity involving the mom. But that’s not a basis to shoot and kill him. You have to have a lawful basis to do that.”
Ely also played the title character in the 1975 action film “Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze,” and had other smaller roles in TV and films, including the 1958 movie musical “South Pacific.” He also wrote a pair of mystery novels featuring a detective named Jake Sands, 1994’s “Night Shadows” and 1995’s “East Beach.”
“He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader,” Kristen 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 that I have never witnessed in any other person – there was something truly magical about him.”
