Peter Johann Weißmüller, later known as Johnny Weissmuller, was born in Freidorf, a district of Timisoara, Romania, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
As a sickly child, he was advised by a doctor to take up swimming, which would later become a defining characteristic of his athletic career.
Weissmuller grew to become a 6' 3", 190-pound champion athlete, undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals, 67 world titles, 52 national titles, and holder of every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile.
In his early acting career, he appeared in the film Glorifying the American Girl (1929),where he played an Adonis clad only in a fig leaf.
After achieving great success with a jungle movie, MGM head Louis B. Mayer optioned two of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories, leading to the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932).
Cyril Hume, working on the adaptation, noticed Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel and suggested him for the part of Tarzan.
Weissmuller was under contract to BVD to model underwear and swimsuits, and MGM got him released by agreeing to pose many of its female stars in BVD swimsuits.
The studio billed him as "the only man in Hollywood who's natural in the flesh and can act without clothes".
The film Tarzan the Ape Man was an immediate box-office and critical hit, and seeing his popularity with girls, the studio told him to divorce his wife and paid her $10,000 to agree to it.
After 1942, however, MGM had used up its options and dropped the Tarzan series and Weissmuller, too.
He then moved to RKO and made six more Tarzans, before making 13 Jungle Jim (1948) programmers for Columbia.
Weissmuller retired from movies to run a private business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
