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Johnny Weissmuller: Twice the Hero
Looks at the life of the swimming champion who became an actor, starring in twelve Tarzan adventure movies.
- GenresNonfiction
753 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2000
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20 people want to read
About the author
David Fury
6 books2 followersFury was a co-executive producer and writer for the first season of the TV show "Lost." He is also well known for his work on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel", "24," "Fringe" and "Hannibal." Fury is married to fellow screenwriter Elin Hampton (producer of Mad About You), and has three children.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 8, 2023
‘Twice the Hero’ is an understatement, which I discovered as I read the life story of one of my childhood heroes and my all-time favourite Tarzan.
I didn’t know much at all about Johnny Weissmuller’s swimming career, other than he’d won multiple Olympic gold medals. He’s considered by many as the greatest swimmer of all time. He set many world records and even more American ones. Most impressive of all, he never lost a race, retiring undefeated when he was twenty-four.
One day, during his swimming years, he was training alongside his brother Peter, who was in a boat. They were in the right place at the right time, as a large boat (can’t recall the correct term for this large vessel) capsized, plunging a great many people into the deep waters. Johnny risked his own life to repeatedly dive below to save as many people as possible, some of whom were children, and brought them to the boat, sometime with a person under each arm. Luckily, Peter knew CPR, so while Johnny went back under, with oil stinging his eyes, Peter worked on resuscitating the victims. Incredibly, they saved eleven people.
In later years, on separate occasions, Johnny saved two other people from drowning – a boy in the sea and an male extra in one of the Tarzan films – so Mr Weissmuller was the epitome of a hero, many times over.
Heroics aside, I was interested to learn of Johnny’s pre-fame years, how he made it into swimming, and most of all I enjoyed reading about his acting careeer.
I’m not a fan of swimming as a sport, so some elements bored me a little, such as listing fastest times and the unnecessary name checking of people who were incidental in Johnny’s life.
The author’s style leads to several elements in this otherwise great biography being unnecessary, mainly using flowery language, using two or more words when one will do, stating the obvious, and repeating info. For example:
‘A seventeen-year-old teenager’
‘the young age of twenty-years-old’
‘in the month of October’
‘in this period of time’
‘the sport of golf’
‘50 yards, 100, 220, 300, 500 (yards)’
Although the above is annoying, it’s not so bad that it affects the enjoyment of this book.
One big plus point is the inclusion of an introduction by another of my favourite classic actors, namely Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in several Weissmuller Tarzan films, and went on to star in the title role of several Bomba the Jungle Boy films.
Johnny Sheffield writes in a conversational and highly engaging tone, revealing some of his personal memories, which are great to read. To sum up his contribution in Tarzan speak, ‘Boy write good.’
Ultimately, Johnny Weissmuller was a great guy in real life. This comes through strong throughout this biography.
The author is a big fan, and his bias is blatant. Sometimes bias can spoil a biography, but I feel it’s a positive thing in this case.
I didn’t know much at all about Johnny Weissmuller’s swimming career, other than he’d won multiple Olympic gold medals. He’s considered by many as the greatest swimmer of all time. He set many world records and even more American ones. Most impressive of all, he never lost a race, retiring undefeated when he was twenty-four.
One day, during his swimming years, he was training alongside his brother Peter, who was in a boat. They were in the right place at the right time, as a large boat (can’t recall the correct term for this large vessel) capsized, plunging a great many people into the deep waters. Johnny risked his own life to repeatedly dive below to save as many people as possible, some of whom were children, and brought them to the boat, sometime with a person under each arm. Luckily, Peter knew CPR, so while Johnny went back under, with oil stinging his eyes, Peter worked on resuscitating the victims. Incredibly, they saved eleven people.
In later years, on separate occasions, Johnny saved two other people from drowning – a boy in the sea and an male extra in one of the Tarzan films – so Mr Weissmuller was the epitome of a hero, many times over.
Heroics aside, I was interested to learn of Johnny’s pre-fame years, how he made it into swimming, and most of all I enjoyed reading about his acting careeer.
I’m not a fan of swimming as a sport, so some elements bored me a little, such as listing fastest times and the unnecessary name checking of people who were incidental in Johnny’s life.
The author’s style leads to several elements in this otherwise great biography being unnecessary, mainly using flowery language, using two or more words when one will do, stating the obvious, and repeating info. For example:
‘A seventeen-year-old teenager’
‘the young age of twenty-years-old’
‘in the month of October’
‘in this period of time’
‘the sport of golf’
‘50 yards, 100, 220, 300, 500 (yards)’
Although the above is annoying, it’s not so bad that it affects the enjoyment of this book.
One big plus point is the inclusion of an introduction by another of my favourite classic actors, namely Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in several Weissmuller Tarzan films, and went on to star in the title role of several Bomba the Jungle Boy films.
Johnny Sheffield writes in a conversational and highly engaging tone, revealing some of his personal memories, which are great to read. To sum up his contribution in Tarzan speak, ‘Boy write good.’
Ultimately, Johnny Weissmuller was a great guy in real life. This comes through strong throughout this biography.
The author is a big fan, and his bias is blatant. Sometimes bias can spoil a biography, but I feel it’s a positive thing in this case.
November 17, 2015
Although the writing style here might seem a bit too rah-rah at times, it is a thorough and thoroughly engaging biography. I was a childhood admirer, from watching weekend broadcasts as a youngster in the 1950s, almost meeting him in Peoria, IL, in the mid-1960s, and all the way to hearing about his sad passing in the mid-1980s, so I was interested in reading about his whole life, in the spotlight as well as his behind-the-scenes life events. For Johnny, his adult life from his late teens onward was almost all "in the spotlight," and it all makes for good reading. The many, many swimming tournaments are recalled in as much detail as a newspaper story at the time, but his films and the Jungle Jim episodes are given just as much close coverage. Many times while reading, I thought about re-watching a film or a Jungle Jim episode. Overall, this book is a very enjoyable read.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews