Maureen O’Sullivan

Maureen O’Sullivan, queen of the jungle, died on June 22nd 1998, aged 87

For true devotees, “Tarzan and His Mate”, made in 1934, is the one to see, and see again. This is the “Hamlet”, the Fifth Symphony of the genre. A critic wrote of the film’s “sweet paganism” as expressed by Maureen O’Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller as Jane and Tarzan. Jane’s outfit is determinedly pagan, and Tarzan paganly appears to undress her as the couple dive into a jungle pool, where the girl swims in the nude. An increasingly puritanical Hollywood deleted the seven-minute sequence, fearing that suburban America might believe it approved of such goings-on. (It has since been restored in the video version.) In subsequent Tarzan films Miss O’Sullivan would wear more and more clothing. “In those days,” she recalled, “they took these things seriously.”

So, in a sense, this was the end of innocence. A cloud had appeared over Paradise. Or so it would seem from the many thousands of words that have been written about the Tarzan films and the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875−1950) from which they are derived. Tarzan is the noble savage, the simple lifer whose habitat seems so much more desirable than the urban jungle. Some have seen him as an early environmentalist. According to Gore Vidal, Tarzan created a generation of American men who “tried to master the victory cry of the great ape”, which, as every Tarzan expert knows, is a jungle-piercing “Ungawa”. In one day, a collector of useless information noted, 15 children in Kansas City were taken to hospital after falling from trees imitating Tarzan.

“Tarzan and His Mate” is one of those modest films produced in the Hollywood factory that have curiously refused to go away. “King Kong”, made in 1933, is another. They have something in common. Maureen O’Sullivan and Fay Wray, the heroine of “King Kong”, are at the mercy of wild creatures, but tame them with their womanly ways. It is a classic tale, the damsel in distress. Its classicism, though, did not impress Miss O’Sullivan. She was in some 60 films and was understandably cross that people mostly remembered her in the six she had made as Tarzan’s mate. But in later life she expressed a fondness for them. The Tarzan films are said to be the most lucrative and longest-running series ever made. “It’s nice to be immortal,” she said, not entirely jokingly.

When Miss O’Sullivan first came to Hollywood the publicists said she was born in a thatched cottage in Ireland and spoke Gaelic. In her biography she says her father was a British army officer and she went to a finishing school in France. One of the problems of writing about showbiz people is finding the real person behind the make-up. At least Miss O’Sullivan’s biography is amusing, and takes a pleasantly sceptical view of Hollywood. The studio she first worked for told her she was a failure. Miss O’Sullivan blamed the studio for putting her in musicals although she could not sing. “I realised that what really counted in Hollywood was looks rather than talent,” she said. If you were pretty, photogenic and did what the director told you to, you were made. She had some alluring photos taken, was given a film test and became Tarzan’s Jane.

The alluring Miss O’Sullivan nicely matched the Jane of the Burroughs books. Tarzan took her into his arms “and smothered her upturned panting lips with kisses”. Johnny Weissmuller, though, was hardly the Tarzan of the books, described as an English lord fluent in six languages. The scriptwriters gave him a more limited vocabulary, usually remembered as “Me Tarzan, you Jane” (although there is some argument among Tarzan experts over whether he ever used these words). Weissmuller, though, was good at wrestling alligators and a marvellous swimmer (a former Olympics champion). Miss O’Sullivan’sswimming was a gentle breaststroke, so a double did the nude scene.

Burroughs turned up at the studio one day to see what sort of a mess it was making of his masterpieces, but was polite to the couple. “He said we were perfect,” Miss O’Sullivan recalled. Many would agree, among them Stalin, who would put on a show of Tarzan films for favoured visitors. They were more fun than “Battleship Potemkin”.

It would be unfair to Maureen O’Sullivan not to say more about a career that stretched over 50 years. But what? Most of her pictures were second features; or if they were first features she had small parts. Some critics remember her fondly in “The Big Clock”, a much-praised thriller directed by her husband, John Farrow, in 1948. This is a cue to say that they had seven children, one of them Mia Farrow. Mother of Mia? “That’s me,” Miss O’Sullivan would say. Girlfriend of Tarzan? “That’s me, too.” It is a fame not to be sniffed at. Many other Tarzan films have been made besides the O’Sullivan six. None though has a Jane like hers, as Burroughs describes her, “lithe and young, her eyes wide with mingled horror and admiration for the primeval man who had fought for her and won her”. n