Cheetah, real star of the Tarzan movies, is dead at 80.

[Doktor]

There were the occasional tantrums, of course, but, old trouper that he was, he liked to put smiles on people’s faces right up until the end.

Cheetah was every inch the Hollywood star – though just how many inches depended on whether he was walking on two legs or four at the time.

Now, Cheetah, who played Tarzan’s chimp companion in the classic black and white Johnny Weissmuller films of the 1930s, has peeled his last banana. The primate sanctuary in Florida where he lived has announced that he has died of kidney failure.

The sanctuary says he was aged ‘roughly 80’, which would make him the world’s oldest chimp by some margin as they don’t usually live beyond 60 in captivity. Animal lovers and film buffs are united in mourning an icon that last year was hailed by Entertainment Weekly magazine as No 1 in its Top Ten Monkeys at the Movies.

‘It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member,’ the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbour announced on its website.

According to spokesman Debbie Cobb, Cheetah – aka Mike – had been there more than half a century and spent his twilight years indulging his passions for finger painting and football. He listened to ‘non-denominational’ Christian music and entertaining visitors.

Adorable when young, male chimps generally become very aggressive in adulthood. Not so the primate who, in the 1934 film Tarzan and His Mate, nursed his man-friend back to health after he was critically wounded; or who five years later, rescued a baby from a crashed plane in Tarzan Finds A Son.
Cheetah lived at the sanctuary since 1960.

More here.

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Since there were a lot of obituaries this year, I am really touched by this one.

Edit - Johnny Weissmuller died at 80 as well. Weird coincidence.

[USSWisconsin]

RIP, My sisters and I enjoyed his movies when we were kids. It sounds like he had an interesting life.