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Master of Imaginative Fantasy Adventure
Creator of Tarzan and "Grandfather of American Science Fiction"
Presents
Volume 1442
Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Press
A Life's Journey Through the Newspapers of the World
1875-1950
A Collection of newspaper clippings from 
Chicago to Tarzana  ~ around the world ~ and back to Encino/Tarzana 

From the Dale Broadhurst Collection
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Los Angeles Times III: 1931-1950.
Author of Tarzan 
Buys Beach Home
Los Angeles Times 
August 9, 1931

Tarzana, Aug. 8 (Exclusive) - Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan stories and daily contributor of the Tarzan picture in The Times, has bought a beach home at Malibu. 

The Burroughs home at Tarzan will be maintained only for the winter and early spring months. In the beach home is a specially fitted study where the author will continue to turn out his popular stories. 

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Tarzan's Dad 
Takes to Air
Los Angeles Times ~ February 3, 1934

Edgar Rice Burroughs, novelist and author of "Tarzan" and other stories, is learning to fly at Clover Field, Santa Monica. The author is 58 years of age, but is learning as easily as a youngster, according to Jim Granger, his tutor.

The novelist began flying for an odd reason. One of his wo sons, Hulbert, 24, had been permitted to take to the air. Mrs. Burroughs opposed his idea, but he continued to press his parents for their permission for several years.

"I decided that Hulbert would not be happy until we consented," said Burroughs yesterday. "So, to convince his mother and myself that flying is safe, I made up my mind that I would try it myself, and now I am convinced."

Burroughs made fast progress in a training plane and now has ten hours in the air and will solo in three hours more.
Burroughs has purchased a Security Airster, manufactured by the Security Aircraft Corporation in Downey.

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SON OF TARZAN SCULPTOR
Young Burroughs Models Wild Animals
Los Angeles Times ~ June 3, 1934

CLAREMONT. June 2 -- Modeling animals for museums is the unusual life vocation chosen by John Burroughs, senior at Pomona College, son of Edgar Rice Burroughs, famous author of the Tarzan stories.

YOung Burroughs will graduate from Pomona College this month, and as his senior honor project has created a model of a saber-tooth tiger which is now on display in Rembrandt Hall. Following commencement exercises the model will probably be exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum, as the curator has requested permission for its display.

Burroughs has been studying painting under Prof. Thomas Beggs and sculpture under Prof. Cyril Jurecka of Pomona College art department. His life ambition is to illustrate animal stories and to produce models of animals for museums. His model of the saber-tooth tiger has been produced after months of research and study, including a course in comparative anatomy, discussion of the muscles of a domestic cat, a study of the Brea  pit specimens and many visits to zoos and lion farms.

The background for his model is made of molded rocks and painted desert scenes.

Burroughs also is prominent in college dramatics, and recently was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, national honorary scholastic fraternity.

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Los Angeles Times ~ August 22, 1937
Click for full size image
or read the story at:
ERBzine 0071
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Edgar Rice Burroughs Drops Tarzan For Hawaii Vacation
Author and Wife Go To Sea
Los Angeles Times ~ August 21, 1938
Leaving Tarzan behind and in the jungles, Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of that fictional hero, sailed with Mrs. Burroughs yesterday for an extended stay in Honolulu.

On board the Matson flagship Lurline just before sailing, Burroughs confessed he'd like to cast Tarzan in an Hawaii or other varied setting, but that his public wouldn't stand for it. "They don't want him different," declared the author of seventy novels and novelettes, who turns out two new ones each year. 

The next novel, "Tarzan and the Forbidden City" will be off the presses September 15. Burroughs said his Tarzan stories now are being published in fifty-seven languages and dialects.
.

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Famed Author Sued -- Edgar Rice Burroughs, 
author, shown here with his wife, the former 
film actress Florence Gilbert, was sued by her 
for divorce yesterday.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Faces Divorce Suit
Los Angeles Times ~ July 24, 1941
Edgar Rice Burroughs, author, yesterday was sued for a divorce by his wife, Mrs. Florence Gilbert Burroughs, former motion-picture actress.

The plaintiff asks for marital freedom on the ground of mental cruelty but her complaint, filed in Superior Court, does not set forth any specific allegations, being worded within statutory limitations.

They were married at Las Vegas April 4, 1934, and Mrs. Burroughs, who was known professionally as Florence Gilbert, gives March 18, last, as the date of their separation.

PROPERTY TRANSFER

Burroughs is said to be in Honolulu working on motion-picture script and stories.

Through Attorney Ellis I Hirshfeld, Mrs. Burroughs alleges that there is community property of a value not known to her but which, she says is held by Burroughs, Inc.

Furthermore, she charges, she has been advised that Burroughs has conveyed one-half of the stock in this corporation to his former wife and has agreed to convey the remaining half to other parties. All his assets, the petition says, have been assigned to the corporation.

For this reason, Mrs. Burroughs in her complaint asks the court ot appoint a receiver during the pendency of her lawsuit to determine the value of his holdings on the theory that it is all community property and that she, therefore, is entitled to an equal division.

ASKS ALIMONY

Mrs. Burroughs says she is without means of support and asks the court to award her $1000 monthy alimony as well as $3000 attorney's fees and court costs.

The marriage was the second for both, Mrs. Burroughs' former husband having been Lee Deerholt and Burroughs' first wife the former Emma Centennia Hulbert by whom he had three children. He is 67.

TRAVELED WIDELY

A world traveler and author of many books and magazine stories. Burroughs spends most of his time writing at his home at Tarzana.

Mrs. Burroughs, who is 36, began her screen career in 1930, but retired after her marriage to the author. She is a native of Chicago.


Mrs. Edgar Rice Burroughs Sues for Mexican Divorce
Los Angeles Times ~ June 26, 1942
Granted a divorce here only last May 4, Mrs. Florence Gilbert Burroughs filed a Mexican divorce petition two weeks ago against Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author, Juarez civil court records disclosed yesterday.

Judge Xavier Rosas Cegallos said Mrs. Burroughs, the author's second wife, appeared personally. The Magistrate said the divorce decree probably will be granted some time next month.

Mrs. Burroughs' suit aroused speculation that she might be trying to speed a legal separation from the author to marry again. Under California law the decree she obtained here will not become final until May 4, 1943.


SON AND DAD MEET 
AT OVERSEAS BASE
Los Angeles Times ~ April 18, 1944
An advanced base in the Marshalls, April 8 (Delayed) (AP) -
It isn't every man who can meet his dad at an overseas post thousands of miles from home.

Capt. Hulbert Burroughs of Los Angeles did.

He caught up with his father, Author Edgar Rice Burroughs, in reporting for duty here with the 7th Army Air Coprs. The elder Burroughs, creator "Tarzan," had stopped off here on a tour as a war correspondent. 

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Los Angeles Times ~ March 20, 1950
Author Edgar Rice Burroughs, 74, who created the apeman Tarzan and made millions from him, died yesterday at his Death came at 8:55 a.m. His personal physician Dr. Herman Seal, attributed it to a heart condition and arteriosclerosis.
The famed novelist had been ill about three months. For the last six weeks he had been confined to his bed and a wheel chair.

READING PAPERS
he had an early breakfast yesterday and was reading the Sunday newspapers in bed. His hands loosened on the papers and he dropped them. Then he closed his eyes and died. His daughter, Mrs. Joan Pierce, and his two sons, John and Hulbert, were at his bedside. Dr. seal was there on a regular  morning call.

Burroughs created his apeman Tarzan when he was 35. It was said of him that he found a greater source of wealth in Africa than any many who ever went there in search of gold, diamonds or ivory. And never once did he step on the shores of the Dark Continent.

Few figures in American fiction made such an impact upon readers as did Tarzan. His author, who was large enough to wrestle a lion himself, put his tree-swinging creation through more than 20 novelized adventures in 39 years.

NEW ADVENTURES
He was busy writing new adventures about his hero until his recent illness. In addition, he wrote 38 other novels of such fabled places as Mars, the moon and a world within this world.

His business manager, Ralph Rothmund, who handles the financial empire of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., said the author leaves 15 novels behind him, still to be published. Almost 40,000,000 Tarzan books have been sold. In addition, radio serials, motion-picture rights, cartoon strips, games, toys and a candy bar added to Burroughs' royalties.

FILM EARNINGS
The author merely leased the Tarzan screen rights to studios. He earned almost $5,000,000 from pictures in which his creation appeared although he never wrote a single line of a screen play. The apeman appeared in 27 movies. He was played by such actors as Johnny Weissmuller, Herman Brix, Buster Crabbe, Elmo Lincoln, Frank Werner and Lex Barker. 

Sol Lesser, producer of many Tarzan pictures and a friend of the author since the first apeman picture was made in 1918, yesterday expressed sorrow at the news of the death and said, "Burroughs was a man of warmth and kindliness who encouraged younger talent. In Tarzana he created an unforgettable piece of American folklore."
Lesser said there are 15 Tarzan pictures still to be produced.

NATIONAL LEGEND
Tarzan had two cities named after him -- the San Fernando Valley city of Tarzana, which Burroughs founded, and Tarzan, Tex. He became a national legend and a national tradition. The man who created this legend and this tradition said he did so from escapist motives. "I did it to escape being broke, and it helps readers escape humdrum lives and go off in another realm and share adventures," he once said. Burroughs understood that. He himself was born with a roving foot and a love of adventure.

NATIVE OF CHICAGO
He as born in Chicago Sept. 1, 1875, of well-to-do parents. He ran away from textbooks and schoolrooms to an Idaho cattle ranch. In 1900 he married Emma Hulbert, mother of his three children. Burroughs followed 100 trades before he turned to writing. He was a cowboy, gold miner, railroad guard, clerk and salesman. He traveled over the Western United States before he settled in Santa Barbara and turned to stories. His first was a tale of Mars. It sold for $400. A second novel was unsuccessful.

DREW ON IMAGINATION
"Then," Bourroughs once told an interviewer, "I took stock of this trade of writing. I knew I wasn't going to write literature -- my grammar wasn't the best and I probably split a lot of infinitives. I concerned myself with two questions -- will the story sell? And will it entertain? Then I started Tarzan." He said he began wit the ancient story of Romulus and Remus (twin Roman boys reared by wolves in mythology) and grafted his tale to Africa and apes. He drew soley on his imagination for a picture of jungles and jungle life. But African residents have called them authentic.

"Tarzan of the Apes" was written and published in 1912. Burroughs sold the rights to it for $700. It was a phenomenal success. It has been translated into 58 languages and has had one of the largest sales on record. Burroughs cannily refused to sell rights to subsequent novels. He leased them. Many of the Tarzan books he published himself. 

Burroughs began investing in CAlifornia real estate from the profits of his first books. In 1918 he purchased the Gen. Harrison Gray Otis estate in the San Fernando Valley. He subdivided much of it and built his home Tarzana in its center. The city of Tarzana grew up around his house. 

TARZAN HOME SOLD
He sold his home after he and Mrs. Burroughs were divorced in 1934 and subsequently lived in Malibu and Beverly Hills. A year after his divorce, Burroughs married Florence Gilbert Dearhart, an actress. They were divorced in 1941 and Burroughs moved to Honolulu -- a few months before Pearl Harbor. The author stood on the shores of the great naval base and watched the Dec. 7 attack. He wangled  job with the Red Cross and later was accredited as a war correspondent and for four years traveled the battle lines, island by island, until illness sent him back to California. At the age of 70, he was probably the oldest correspondent at the Pacific fronts of World War II.

After the war he returned to his writing and the San Fernando Valley. He purchased his last home, a cottage at 5565 Zelzah Ave., Encino, were he lived quietly until his death. Pierce Bros. Valley Mortuary will be in charge of funeral arrangements.
 



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