The “Babes” of Tarzan
A Top 10 Countdown
by Alan Hanson
Edgar Rice Burroughs didn’t handle
women very well, as an author anyway. Oh, a few of his female characters
showed flashes of substance, but for the most part, Burroughs’ heroines
suffered from “heaving bosom syndrome.” When the going got tough, they
fainted. But then, Burroughs knew his audience. He was writing for the
typical working Joe, who paid a dime for his popular magazine and wanted
his money’s worth in action and romance. He wanted to escape into a world
where he could pursue, protect, and possess the most beautiful woman in
the world, if only for a few hours. Burroughs had the formula for satisfying
that need, and he used it over and over again.
Burroughs may have been deficient
in fully developing his female characters but he certainly had the ability
to conjure up beautiful women. I don’t know what they called them when
Burroughs was writing, but when I was a young man, we called them “Foxes.”
In the ’90s they were labeled “Babes.” We’re talking superficiality
here; lust at first sight. Forget character or personality; that’s a turnoff.
Many of Burroughs’ women could be characterized as “Babes.” They lacked
substance but were beautiful beyond compare, had perfect bodies, and oozed
sex appeal that drove men to great lengths to possess them.
To illustrate, ponder the following
countdown of the top 10 “Babes” found in the Tarzan stories. Of
course, this list is subjective, based on my own libido (which I consider
typical for a man my age). For starters, I looked for a beautiful face
and a perfect body — those were the basics. Then other sensual qualities,
like voice, body language and movement, were factored in. Add passion and
seductive talent, and you’ve got a “Babe Quotient” that allowed
Burroughs’ heroines to be rated against each other. Here’s my top 10.
#10 — Meriem
The youthful innocence Meriem exuded
in The Son of Tarzan qualifies her as a “Babe.” During
her early years in the jungle with Korak, Burroughs was careful to describe
her as a growing, curious child, but when she entered what would have been
her baby-sitting years, Burroughs gave bloom to her appearance. “She was
sixteen now,” the author noted, “though she easily might have passed for
nineteen, and she was very good to look upon, with her black hair and her
tanned skin and all the freshness and purity of health and innocence.”
On another occasion, Burroughs placed
Meriem in a scene that likened her to a blossom ready to be picked. As
she walked through “My Dear’s” garden, she was, “that other infinitely
more beautiful flower who wandered often among the blooms beneath the great
moon — the black-haired, sun-tanned Meriem.” Her figure certainly caught
the lascivious eye of the Hon. Morrison Baynes, who looked askance at the
girl’s profile and found it “most alluring.”
However, Meriem is at the bottom
of the “Babe Countdown” because of a certain quality that turned
even the lustful intensions of Morrison Baynes to honorable ones. Burroughs
described it as, “that quality of innate goodness and cleanness which is
a good girl’s stoutest bulwark and protection — an impregnable barrier
that only degeneracy has the effrontery to assail.” Now, even “Babes” can
have some degree of innate goodness, but if you want to stay a “Babe,”
you can’t let it show. Meriem did.
#9 — Naomi Madison
Okay, so Naomi was a bimbo, but
when she wasn’t whimpering and fainting in Tarzan and the Lion Man,
she knew how to act the “Babe.” Let’s face it — she was physically
perfect. Burroughs described her as glamorous with a beautiful face, a
perfect body, and even “beautiful ears.” When the Arabs kidnapped
her, they expected to get big bucks for her in the harem markets to the
north.
Of course, Naomi’s greatest claim
to “Babe” status came from her ability to use her body to manipulate
men. When she wanted something from director Tom Orman, “She moved closer
and leaned her lithe body against him.” In the end, though, there is a
quality about Naomi Madison that keeps her far down on this “Babe List”
— obvious shallowness. Even Stanley Obroski (pretty shallow himself) noticed
it. “He decided that it was the glamour of the Madison’s name and fame
that had attracted him — stripped of these there was little about her to
inspire anything greater than an infatuation.” Shallowness could be
sold as sexuality in Hollywood, but the dangers of Africa revealed and
reduced Naomi’s “Babeness.”
#8 — Gonfala
There is no doubt that Gonfala
was beautiful. In fact, the American Stanley Wood described her on a couple
of occasions as the most beautiful woman in the world. She was young, just
20 years old, and queen of her people when Burroughs provided the following
exotic description of her in Tarzan the Magnificent.
“She wore breastplates of virgin
gold and a stomacher covered with gold sequins. Her skirt was of the skins
of unborn leopards, soft and clinging. Dainty sandals shod her, and upon
her upper arms and her wrists and her ankles were many bands of copper
and gold. A light crown rested upon her blond head.”
Exotic does not make erotic, however,
and more than her appearance it is her entrancing dual personality that
landed her a spot on the “Babe Countdown.” Wood was attracted by
what he referred to as Gonfala’s “radical contradictions,” which
found her one moment a soft woman full of compassion and the next a she-devil.
Tarzan got a chance to observe her mood swings. When he first saw her in
the throne room, she was every bit the queen with piercing eyes and a sullen
expression. Later in her quarters, she had changed. Tarzan noted that,
“She was no longer the queen, but a girl, soft and sweet, appealing.”
Within moments and without reason, “Her expression changed; her body stiffened.
Her eyes became hard and cold — cruel.”
Great beauty paired with an unpredictable
personality swaying between dominance and subservience made Gonfala a “Babe”
to be sure, but one that only a very strong man could handle. I wonder
if Stanley Wood was up to the job when he took her back to the states with
him.
#7 — Jezebel
For those who find innocence a
turn-on, Jezebel’s “Babe Quotient” is sky high. In Tarzan
Triumphant, Jezebel, at an age when a young woman finds herself
suddenly attracted to men, still didn’t have the slightest idea what sex
was. That’s understandable, considering her upbringing in the stringent
religious cult of the Midians.
Of course, like all the “Babes
of Tarzan,” Jezebel was strikingly beautiful. When Danny “Gunner” Patrick
first gazed upon the girl, he noticed, “the graceful contours of the
lithe young body, the wealth of golden hair, and the exquisite face.”
That communist cad, Leon Stabutch, said that he had never seen so beautiful
a woman in his life. Lady Barbara Collis (who was much too well-bred and
self-reliant to make this survey) knew that Jezebel’s combination of great
beauty and total naiveté could bring her much grief. Wise to the
ways of men, Lady Barbara told Jezebel, “You are too beautiful ever
to have perfect safety or perfect happiness.”
A “Babe” she surely was,
but a fragile one. I’ll bet Danny never let her pump gas for male customers
at the filling station that he and Jez opened in California after they
left Africa.
#6 — Jane Clayton
At first consideration, it seems
sacrilegious to call Jane Clayton, loyal wife and mother, a “Babe.”
Burroughs described her as a “gently bred woman” and in The
Son of Tarzan, “sweetness and goodness were stamped indelibly
upon her countenance.” That’s certainly a turn-off, as is the self-reliance
she demonstrated in Tarzan’s Quest.
Still, despite all that, there is
no doubt that Jane was physically beautiful. When he first saw her through
the cabin window, Tarzan noted her “sweet face and graceful figure,”
her “delicate snowy skin,” her “lithe, young form,” and the
“half-smiling, half-quizzical expression that made her face wholly entrancing.”
And this delicate beauty was enduring, as Burroughs pointed out in Tarzan
the Terrible. “Both time and hardship had failed to leave their
impress upon her physical beauty — the contours of her perfect form, the
glory of her radiant loveliness had defied them.”
Yet Jane came to understand that
her great beauty was also a curse, for, like no other woman in the Tarzan
series, she inspired uncontrollable lust in men of all races. Among the
men who physically attacked Jane through the years were Nickolas Rokoff,
Mohammed Beyd, Lu-don, Mo-sar, Lt. Obergatz, Luvini, and Kavandavanda.
Those who lusted for Jane, however, risked much to possess her. Prior to
Lu-don’s attempted rape, Jane told him, “One of us shall die before
ever your purpose is accomplished.” That was true for all seven of
her attackers. None ever succeeded and all eventually paid with their lives
for their impudence.
#5 — Olga de Coude
During his travels, Tarzan resisted
the charms of many beautiful women. Marriage fidelity is one thing, but
in not even allowing himself to be tempted, Tarzan came across as a cold
fish most of the time. It took a real “Babe” to get a rise out of
him, and the Countess de Coude was one of the few who did.
Granted, at the time of their encounter,
Jane was out of the picture. Still, other than Jane’s, Olga’s lips were
the only ones that Tarzan ever smothered with kisses. And it wasn’t just
one moment of passion; Olga’s charms slowly sucked him in. Aboard the steamer
returning him to France in The Return of Tarzan, the ape-man
first noticed the countess’ “slender, well-modeled figure” and her
“winsome smile that displayed a row of perfect teeth.” After he
met her, “she smiled so sweetly upon him that Tarzan felt that a man might
easily attempt much greater things than he had accomplished, solely for
the pleasure of receiving the benediction of that smile.” Later, when Tarzan
visited her home in Paris, it was obvious that she had the naïve ape-man
hooked. Burroughs wrote, “The memory of her half-veiled eyes and perfect
lips as she had stood smiling up into his face as he bade her good-by remained
with him for the balance of the day. Olga de Coude was a very beautiful
woman.”
This all reached a climax sometime
later in Olga’s boudoir when Tarzan “took the panting figure into his
mighty arms, and covered the hot lips with kisses.” Okay, so Rokoff
maneuvered them into that tableau. Still, none of it could have happened
had Olga de Coude not been such a “Babe.”
#4 — Patricia Canby
(aka Bertha Kircher)
Like all true “Babes,” Patricia
Canby was young and well shaped. She was nineteen, and Tarzan conceded
that she was very beautiful. Burroughs also referred to the “rounded
beauty of the girlish form” and to the fact that she was “very young
and very feminine.” Unlike Olga de Coude, she could not elicit a romantic
response from Tarzan, although she did try and was wearing him down by
the end of Tarzan the Untamed. (Perhaps she would have been
successful had Tarzan not been so filled with hate for Germans, which he
supposed her to be.)
In the end, though, what earns Patricia
such a high spot on the “Babe” list is that in the course of one
novel her breasts were twice exposed to the reader, something quite rare
and provocative for Burroughs. In Patricia’s defense, both double exposures
were forced upon her, but both nevertheless caused the reader to sit up
and take notice.
The first exposure came after a
lion cornered Patricia. “His growls increased to roars as he drew back,
ripping the front of the girl’s waist (shirt) almost from her body with
his long talons, exposing her white bosom.” Of course, a topless woman
is like a tree falling in the forest, unless there is some man around to
see it, and Tarzan was rewarded for saving the girl from the lion with
a glimpse of Patricia’s charms. “He saw her naked breasts where Numa
had torn her clothing from her,” Burroughs noted, and the ape-man’s
hand immediately reached in their direction. (Unfortunately, for the reader’s
prurient interest, he was not reaching for Patricia’s breasts but for the
locket that dangled between them.)
Later in the story, after the Xujans
captured her, Burroughs sent Patricia on stage topless again. In preparation
for being brought before King Herog XVI, Patricia was fitted with a clinging,
revealing garment. Gazing down in horror at her naked breasts, she gasped,
“They are going to lead me into the presence of men in this half-nude
condition!” The handmaiden’s answer was provocative. “By comparison
with what you may be called upon to undergo, this is but a trifle.”
Fortunately for Patricia (and unfortunately for some readers), she escaped
the city before being forced to “undergo” further indignities.
#3 — Jessie Jerome
(aka Kali Bwana)
I have to admit that I am biased
when it comes to Jessie. Among all the women of western culture in the
Tarzan stories, I rank her as the finest “Babe,” and I doubt if
many other readers would agree. I just admire the way, through no overt
action on her part, she did a number on the head of Old Timer in Tarzan
and the Leopard Men. I mean, this is the way a real “Babe”
operates, bringing a man’s passion to the boiling point with her looks
alone.
Check out what happened to Old
Timer.
Step #1: He checks her out.
“Having seen her face he knew
she was beautiful. How beautiful she must be when properly garbed and groomed
he dared not even imagine. He had noticed her blue-grey eyes. Now he was
appraising her hair, confined in a loose knot at the nape of her neck;
it had that peculiar quality of blondness that is described today, as platinum.”
Step #2: He begins to fantasize
about her.
“In the smoke of his pipe he
saw her, unquestionably beautiful beyond comparison. He saw the long lashes
shading the depths of her blue-grey eyes; her lips, curved deliciously;
the alluring sheen of her wavy blond hair; the perfection of her girlish
figure.”
Step #3: He becomes infatuated.
“His mind was filled with visions
of the girl. He saw her as he had first seen her in her camp: the radiance
of her fair face, the haunting allure of her blond hair, disheveled and
falling wavy ringlets across her forehead and about her ears. He saw her
as he had seen her in the temple of the Leopard God, garbed in savage,
barbaric splendor, more beautiful than ever. It thrilled him to live again
the moments during which he had talked to her, touched her.”
Step #4: He’s a basket case.
“He could see her only dimly in
the darkness; but in his mind’s eye he visualized the contours of that
perfect form, the firm bosom, the slender waist, the rounded thigh; and
passion swept through him like a racing torrent of molten gold.”
Only a true “Babe” can turn
a man to jelly like that.
#2 — Nemone
The very complex character of Nemone
defies labels, and certainly to refer to her primarily as a “Babe”
is the shallowest of interpretations. That said, let’s ignore for now the
more substantive side of her nature and survey her considerable “Babe”
qualities.
Sensually, there was no female character
that Burroughs ever described in so much detail. Nemone was not just a
beautiful face and a perfect body, though certainly she did have those
“Babe” basics. Tarzan noted that Nemone was “marvelously beautiful
by the standards of any land or any time.” Although she was clothed
in barbaric splendor when he first saw her, Tarzan observed that her figure
“ required no embellishments other than those with which nature had
endowed it.” A band of gold mesh supported her breasts. (Burroughs
didn’t specify whether or not there was a garment under the mesh, but I
know how I have always chosen to visualize that.)
Physically, though, Tarzan was entranced
most by her eyes. “What strange eyes were hers — so beautiful,” the
ape-man mused, “with fires burning far beneath the surface, so mysterious.”
Neither her eyes nor any other part
of her appearance could have been captured on canvas, for, in addition
to her beauty, her movement and speech were essential parts of her sensual
package. Tarzan described her movement as, “a combination of the seductive
languor of the sensualist and the sinuous grace and savage alertness of
the tigress.” Tarzan was thrilled by the “vibrant qualities of her
rich, deep voice,” which in moments of romantic passion turned smooth,
caressing, eager and a little husky.
Nemone went aggressively about seducing
Tarzan, and all but had the job done twice but for frustrating interruptions.
“He could feel the warmth of her body close to his,” Burroughs noted,
“the aura of some exotic scent was in his nostrils; her fingers closed
upon his arm with a fierceness that hurt.” And later, “She pressed
against him caressing his shoulder with a smooth, warm palm. ‘Love me,
Tarzan,’ she whispered.” The usually self-possessed ape-man came away
staggering, his vision clouded by a hypnotic mist, and declaring, “She
was even more gorgeous than he had believed it possible for any woman to
be.”
Tragic figure that she was, there
is no denying that when she laid her crown aside for an evening, Nemone
was the most erotic “Babe” that ever flowed from the pen of Edgar
Rice Burroughs.
#1 — La
No one compared to the Queen of
Opar when it came to pure physical beauty, and Burroughs repeatedly emphasized
that in the four novels in which La appeared. He noted La’s “gorgeous
beauty was her first and most striking characteristic,” and that “she
was beautiful, not by the standards of prehistoric Atlantis alone, but
by those of modern times was La physically a creature of perfection.”
A mass of wavy hair half surrounded her oval face, and her figure featured
“firm breasts” and “shapely legs.”
In addition to repeatedly dwelling
on her loveliness in narration, Burroughs also had other characters react
with amazement to La’s beauty. Tarzan was struck by her “deathless beauty
that neither time, nor care, nor danger seemed capable of dimming.”
Zora Drinov thought that La was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen,
and Wayne Colt took note of the “staggering beauty” of La’s face
and figure. And of all the women who had been sold into Arab harems in
the north, Sheik Abu Batn predicted, “The new one (La) will bring a
price such as has never been paid before.”
Such beauty alone qualifies La for
“Babe” status, but the passion she exuded helped to elevate her
far above the other passive beauties in the Tarzan stories. The ape-man’s
entry into her world “liberated all the pent passions of a thousand
generations, transforming La into a pulsing throbbing volcano of desire.”
In Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, La unleashed that passion
on the ape-man in what is the most sensual scene in all of Burroughs’ works.
“She ran her hands in mute caress over his naked flesh. She covered
his forehead, his eyes, his lips with hot kisses; she covered him with
her body as though to protect him from the hideous fate she had ordained
for him, and in trembling, piteous tones she begged him for his love. For
hours the frenzy of her passion possessed the burning handmaiden of the
Flaming God.”
Despite its pulsing power, there
was also a softness to La’s passion that was in stark contrast to the rough,
demanding passion of Nemone. Tarzan once told Nemone, “Were you a little
more human, you would be irresistible.” La possessed that human touch,
and that combined with her great beauty and fiery passion, makes her the
“Ultimate Babe” in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan epic.
Babe Basics
There you have my countdown of
the top 10 “Babes” in the Tarzan stories. Another reader’s list
would undoubtedly be different. It all depends on how the mind’s eye fleshes
out the descriptions Burroughs provided of his female characters. Some
others who could quality as “Babes” but did not make the top 10
are Victoria Custer, Guinalda, Favonia, Rhonda Terry, Balza, Atka, Helen
Gregory, and Corrie van der Meer.
A final glance at the list above
reveals some common characteristics that Burroughs gave his “Babes.”
For starters, they are all white. (As mentioned earlier, Burroughs knew
the audience for which he was writing.) As for nationality, four them (La,
Nemone, Jezebel, Gonfala) were from lost civilizations in Africa. Burroughs
could make these women much more appealing than he could American or European
women, since with civilized women he was restricted by the subdued moral
values of his time. Also on the list are three Americans (Jane, Jessie,
Naomi), one English (Patricia), one French (Meriem), and one Russian (Olga).
They all had good figures; “perfect”
and “shapely” being Burroughs’ two favorite adjectives in describing
their bodies. Hair color was restricted to two contrasting shades — black
(Olga, Meriem, Nemone) and blonde (Jane, Jezebel, Jessie, Gonfala). Eye
color, when specified, was always dark. La was said first to have grey
eyes, and then later black ones. (Maybe she had one of each!) Jessie Jerome’s
eyes were blue-grey and Nemone’s were just described as “dark.”
As for the more subjective aspects of sex appeal, such as voice, carriage,
clothing, and facial features, there is much difference between the 10,
giving each girl a degree of individuality, in spite of what they all have
in common.
In closing this admittedly shallow
assessment of female characters in the Tarzan stories, it nevertheless
has to be conceded that feminine beauty was not just some fluff that Burroughs
added to his stories. It may seem a superficial quality in real life, but
above all else, physical beauty was the critical quality of a Burroughs
heroine. In his stories an unattractive woman did not inspire great feats
among men. The reward for pursuing and protecting a Burroughs heroine was
always the same — a “Babe” to hang on your arm.
— the end —
