David Fury

‘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.… (more)