Ron Ely, the dashing and rugged native of Texas who brought to life the Lord of the Jungle in the inaugural television series of Tarzan, has passed away, as confirmed by his daughter Kirsten to Fox News Digital. He was 86 years old. According to The New York Times, Ely breathed his last on September 29 at the abode of one of his daughters, nestled near Santa Barbara.
Ely also had the honor of hosting the Miss America pageant for two consecutive years, 1980 and 1981, stepping into the shoes of the long-serving emcee Bert Parks. Around the same period, he presided over a syndicated game show titled Face the Music.
Ely, standing tall at 6 feet 4 inches with piercing blue eyes, shared the screen with Clint Walker in The Night of the Grizzly and with Ursula Andress in Once Before I Die, both films released in 1966. It was then that he was roped in to wear the loincloth for a new NBC series executive-produced by Sy Weintraub.
Ely was offered the role of Tarzan after Mike Henry, a former NFL linebacker who had portrayed the Edgar Rice Burroughs creation in three 1960s films, abruptly resigned after being bitten in the jaw by a chimpanzee. (Henry later sued over unsafe working conditions.) "I met with the producers on a Monday, and when they offered me the role, I thought, 'Absolutely not! Stepping into that bear trap would brand me for life.' How right I was!" he recounted in a 2013 interview. "But my agent persuaded me that it was a high-quality show destined for success. So, on the following Friday, I was on a plane to Brazil to shoot the first episode."
The show, which also filmed in Central America and Mexico, premiered in September 1966. Ely, clad in minimal attire, had to execute his own stunts during the two-season, 57-episode run. (Finding a stunt double who resembled him was challenging, given his attire, he joked.)
Ely was not disheartened when the series concluded in March 1968. "Frankly, I don't think I could have done more," he admitted. "I was mentally and physically exhausted. I would have needed at least a few months to recuperate. My body was a mess. I suffered from numerous muscle pulls, tears, and injuries to my shoulders, wrists, and bones. Every part of me was hurting."
Ely portrayed another iconic hero when he starred in the Warner Bros. film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), produced and co-written by George Pal. He harbored high hopes for the film but a change in studio management doomed its chances of success, he lamented.
Ronald Pierce Ely was born on June 21, 1938, in Hereford, Texas. He graduated from Amarillo High School in 1956 and subsequently attended the University of Texas at Austin for a year before heading to California. "I felt out of place in college. I felt like I was going in circles," he confessed. "Actually, a fraternity brother asked me if I ever considered going to Los Angeles to act. I told him, 'Yes, I've thought about it.' So, we talked about it, and I ended up driving to San Jose and hitchhiking back to L.A."
He made his cinematic debut as a pilot in the 1958 film adaptation of South Pacific and subsequently signed a contract with 20th Century Fox. A year later, he attempted to kiss Betty Anderson (played by Elinor Donahue) on an episode of Father Knows Best, portrayed the older brother of Dwayne Hickman's character in the pilot for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and appeared alongside Barbara Eden in the syndicated TV version of How to Marry a Millionaire.
He then starred in The Aquanauts, a 1960-61 CBS adventure series about deep-sea divers salvaging sunken wrecks off the Southern California coast. After Tarzan, he ventured into several films in Europe, portrayed Mike Nelson (originally played by Lloyd Bridges) in a 1987 syndicated revival of Sea Hunt, and worked on other TV shows like The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Wonder Woman, L.A. Law, and Sheena.
In the 1990s, he portrayed a retired Superman in Superboy and a big-game hunter in the syndicated Tarzan the Hunted. He also authored two novels featuring private eye Jake Sands. "My father was someone people called a hero," his daughter Kirsten said. "He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man, and leader. He created a powerful
