—Burroughs Bibliophiles Reviewed by David Adams (June 12, 2000)
Being in the generation of kids who grew up in the 1940's, Johnny Weissmuller
was always the real Tarzan for me. We saw all of his movies at the Saturday matinees, then went home to practice our Tarzan yells
and swing from ropes hung up in the neighborhood trees. It was a national phenomenon. Reading David Fury's excellent, definitive book
on Johnny Weissmuller made another thing clear to me. More than anything else in our young lives, we wanted to swim, swim, swim. Johnny
Weissmuller was the Tarzan of the water. He seemed to always be dripping wet, a tall, bronzed god come up from some jungle pool bidding
us to enter this aqueous, primordial womb, sealing all of our youthful desires in a Baptism that would make us one with him, our hero
from the watery depths.
David Fury's book has the power to awaken long-forgotten memories. I can't stop talking
about this book with everyone I meet. It seems I find a way of slipping it into the conversation because it is so much on my mind.
Weissmuller s swimming records are impressive; more than this, they are simply astounding. I ve become convinced that he was the greatest
swimmer who ever lived. Between 1921 and 1929 — when he "retired" from competition at the age of 24 — Weissmuller set some 67 world
records. Yet, as imposing as this sounds, it does not tell half the story. Fury inundates us with the facts and figures, almost making
us dizzy with the details, but his account is a human one, putting us in the stands at the many races, making us gasp for air with
this unprecedented hero.
We cheer Johnny on to victory after victory. (He was an unbeaten athlete throughout his
entire career.) We come to realize that this man came to the role of Tarzan in the movies to enlarge the legend of ERB's greatest
creation in a way no other man could have possibly done. The reason Weissmuller s Tarzan was the quintessential Tarzan of course hinged
upon his swimming ability. One of the the triumphs of Fury's book is the fact that we come to see clearly that his personal stature
expanded a fictional legend into a real one. We cannot imagine Tarzan without Weissmuller. He truly set the mark by which all other
Tarzans pale in the shadow of this great, heroic American.
Fury's skill as a biographer improves with every book
he writes. The depth of detail and understanding displayed in this Weissmuller book is overwhelming. Fury leaves no stone unturned.
By the time you are finished reading "Twice a Hero" you feel you have lived next to this man from childhood to the grave, and that
is the goal every biographer wishes to attain. Old fans of Big John come to love him more—new fans become impressed enough to become
believers in the legend.
Johnny moved into his Tarzan role as smoothly as he cleaved the water. He hydroplaned
over the critics despite his lack of training as an actor because he was a natural for the role. His cat-like grace of movement made
everyone else seem stiff and formal, which acting still largely was in the 1930 s. He could stand almost naked with comfort amongst
a group of people in clothing because as a swimmer he had done this most of his life. He had the relaxed attitude of a champion because
he was an unbeaten champion in real life, and the look in his eyes (a thing that cannot be faked) was that of a man who was completely
aware of his own powers.
Many of us have been over this water before in Fury s "Kings of the Jungle," but this
biography allows him the room for an expansion of details that makes each movie come alive again in a personal way. Now we can see
Johnny s movie career with the added perspective of his many marriages and other triumphs and failures in his life. For me, the swimming
chapters were the real eye-openers, but as in Weissmuller's career they always serve to inform and explain his success as the greatest
movie Tarzan. In a way, as a child of the 1940 s, I feel I am a part of that extended family of Weissmuller, O Sullivan, and Sheffield
because I grew up with them picture by picture. (Johnny Sheffield wrote the Foreword to this book.) Due in part to this Tarzan family,
I too can declare with Sheffield, "I was BLESSED with an extraordinary and wonderful childhood."