Celebrating the 2018 Tarzan Film Centennial #1 In October 1912, “The All-Story” pulp magazine printed, complete in one issue, the adventure novel “Tarzan of the Apes” by fledgling author Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose previous story, “Under the Moons of Mars” (later retitled “A Princess of Mars”)
had run in the February-June issues of the magazine under the pseudonym “Norman Bean.” “Tarzan of the Apes” was an immediate sensation, and newspapers across the country began reprinting the story in serialized form.

The novel presaged great things for Burroughs, and was a turning point in American pop culture. 

Recognizing the commercial potential of his creation, Burroughs soon embarked on a sequel, “The Return of Tarzan,” launching what would eventually become a series of 24 novels and a media empire.

Celebrating the 2018 Tarzan Film Centennial #2 In 1914, the pulp story “Tarzan of the Apes” was published as a hardback novel by Chicago publisher A.C. McClurg. 

Author Edgar Rice Burroughs, ever the entrepreneur, retained agent Cora Wilkening, to shop the book to movie producers and studios in the nascent film industry. 

Burroughs met with Colonel William Selig, who was producing jungle pictures through his Selig Polyscope company, 
but the Colonel eventually passed on Tarzan, opting instead  to produce Burroughs’ story “The Lad and the Lion,” which was released on May 14, 1917.

Celebrating the Tarzan Film Centennial #3 By 1916, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prosperous author (having written two dozen stories in four years), who posed for this formal studio portrait at age 41. 

On June 6 of that year, Burroughs sold the film rights to his novel “Tarzan of the Apes” to producer William “Smiling Bill” Parsons 
for a $5,000 cash advance, stock, and five percent of the gross box office.

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William E. “Smiling Bill” Parsons (seen here in a 1919 promotional photo for “The New Breakfast Food”) was a former insurance salesman-turned comedy actor and producer. 

Upon optioning “Tarzan of the Apes” on June 12, 1916, he immediately encountered difficulties meeting deadlines and paying author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ advance, until he was finally able to raise the money by hiring David Watkins as a sales agent. 

Watkins procured the capital from a Wyoming cattlemen’s association. On Oct. 28, 1916, Burroughs received $10,000 in stock and the balance of his $5,000 advance for film rights to his novel. 

Burroughs was already growing impatient with the false promises and glacial pace of the production.

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In early 1917, producer William E. Parsons moved his operation from Chicago to Hollywood, establishing his National Film Corporation at L. Frank Baum’s former Oz Manufacturing Studios at Gower Street and Santa Monica Boulevard. 

There, Parsons began pre-production on his planned epic, “Tarzan of the Apes.” Former newspaperman William E. Wing was hired to script, which became a bone of contention with author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was unhappy with Wing’s changes to the original novel. Parsons assured Burroughs that other writers would smooth out the script; Fred Miller and Lois Weber were eventually credited for the scenario. 

Wing later returned to the franchise to script “Tarzan and the Golden Lion” (1927), starring James Pierce as Tarzan.

Windrow poses as Tarzan in the treetops of Louisiana.

The film crew had lost their first jungle lord, Stellan S. Windrow (né Vindruva) to the navy for World War I when his draft number was called up and Tarzan was found physically fit for service (no surprises there). He was replaced by Elmo Lincoln, a member of D.W. Griffith’s stock company renowned for his 53-inch chest. Lincoln would go on to be remembered as the first film Tarzan when Windrow’s arboreal footage and all rights associated with it were bought for $1,000, along with his silence.

A 6’2", 200-pound University of Chicago athlete, Windrow was born September 2, 1893, in Chicago, Illinois to a pair of Swedish physicians. After his wartime service, he married and settled in London later moving to Paris for several years, dubbing English films into Swedish for Paramount. He eventually returned to the U.S. and resettled in New York, where he worked as a news photographer and served in the Red Cross for World War II. He died November 25, 1959 in New York of hardening of the arteries.

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