Weissmueller, Peter Jonas b.June 2, 1904; Freidorf (Banat),Austria- Hungary d. (?) 1984;Acapulco, Mexico

Outstanding swimmer in the 1920s and early 1930s (better known under his nick­name “Johnny”). During his lifetime he won a total of five Olympic Gold medals, in both the 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games, and he officially broke fifty-two national American and twenty-eight world records.

Janos Weissmuller’s family belonged to the group of Donauschwaben (Danube Swabians), who came to the United States after the turn of the twentieth century. They first settled in Pennsylvania, before moving to the Chicago area a few years later. Johnny left school at the age of twelve. He and his one-year-younger brother had to work to support their fam­ily. Through swimming Johnny managed to escape from the harsh street life. As a twelve-year-old he started his career on the Chicago YMCA swimming team, pre­tending to be fourteen years old to be al­lowed to participate. Later he competed for the Illinois Athletic Club in Chicago. On May 22, 1922, he achieved his first world record: swimming the 200-meter in 2:15.5 minutes and thus beating the three-time Olympic gold medalist Nor­man Ross. One of the high points in Weissmueller’s swimming career was his participation at the Olympic Games in 1924 in Paris, where he won three gold medals. With a time of 59.0 seconds he was the first athlete ever to swim the 100- meter in under one minute at the Olympic Games.

There was, however, the problem with his citizenship. Although his parents and his brother had obtained U.S. citizenship, they had forgotten to naturalize Johnny. To be allowed to represent the United States at the Olympic Games, Weissmueller used his brother’s birth certificate to prove that he was an American. From this time on, the family always pretended that Johnny was born in Windber, Pennsylvania (the birth­place of his brother).

After the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam and two more gold medals, Weissmueller ended his athletic career. In 1930 he published the book Swimming the American Crawl and had various jobs be­fore he took up film acting. In 1932 the former swimmer could be seen for the first time as Tarzan in movie theaters. Within sixteen years he played in twelve Tarzan movies, and acted in another sixteen films as the star of the Jungle Jim Series. With his well-trained body and innocent looks, he was considered to be the ideal person to play the role of Tarzan. Although since then many other actors have played this role, Weissmueller is still considered the person who best symbolizes the hero of the jungle. After his film career was over, the star lost most of his money. He earned his living mainly through advertisements and for some time as a greeter at Las Vegas’s Caesar’s Palace. Here he fractured his hip in 1974, which was the beginning of his many health problems.

In 1950 Johnny Weissmueller was voted the greatest swimmer of the first half of the century by sport journalists (Ryan 2000, 488). In 1965 he was made a charter member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and in 1983 elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. The five-time married former athletic and Hollywood

Champion swimmer and actor Johnny Weissmueller preparing to dive, 1927. (Bettmann/Corbis)

star and father of three children suffered a cerebral stroke in 1977. He was hospital­ized at the Motion Picture and Television Home for Actors in Los Angeles. In 1979 Johnny’s wife and friends had him moved to Acapulco, Mexico, where he spent his last years.

Annette Hofmann

See also Hollywood

References and Further Reading

Chronik des Sport. Berlin: Sportverlag, 2000.

Glass, Christian, ed. Johnny Weissmuller. Ausstellung zum 100. Geburtstag. Donauschwabisches Zentralmuseum, Ulm. Begleitheft, 2004.

Kamper, E., and H. Soucek. Olympische Heroen. Erkrath: Spiridon Verlag, 1991.

Ryan, Dennis. “Weissmueller, Peter John.” In Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sport. George B. Kirsch, Othello Harris, and Claire E. Nolte. Greenwood Westport, London, 2000.