All the guys called the Olympic Village a high-class Boy Scout camp.
All the kids know me. They grow up watching me every Saturday morning.
All through the years one always knows that nothing good will follow something evil. It's an inbuilt heaven or hell.
At school, I thought only about swimming, and went to bed with my pair of boxing gloves.
Can you imagine - a blond Tarzan?
Hoods were real big back in those days, in Chicago.
How can a guy climb trees, say Me Tarzan, You Jane, and make a million?
I always sent Mother money. I used to ask her to come out here but she didn't want to leave her old friends.
I believe in fair contests and sportsmanship, but also in national pride. I'd train our boys anytime, but I couldn't train their opponents. It's against my nature.
I came just about as close to death as a man can get and still come out breathing. The place was Mexico; a man-eating shark was staring me right in the eye.
I could make good time because I was so long and skinny, shooting through the water like a stick.
I didn't do the dive because it was over 300 feet high.
I didn't have much dialogue as Tarzan, but I know I can play character parts.
I feel I'm now in a position to risk a change. With clothes on, I may not even have to starve myself all the time!
I get $50 a week from my paycheck. It's true. So I have to go out and play golf to make some money.
I had always dreaded swallowing a mouthful of water. I knew the lights would go out.
I had to quit school after my father died. Your guts get so mad when you try to fight poverty.
I have always been vitally interested in physical conditioning. I have long believed that athletic competition among people and nations should replace violence and wars.
I learned to yodel pretty well. It took me a few months, but I eventually perfected it.
I need freedom to be happy.
I never lost a freestyle race. Never. Not even in the YMCA.
I never thought I'd make Tarzan movies. When I was a kid I used to read all the Tarzan books.
I not only won every race I entered, but established my first world's record.
I paddle around the pool with the kids. You'd think they wouldn't know Tarzan the way their parents and grandparents did, but thanks to television, I'm still Tarzan to them.
I ran away once and slept under an elevated railroad, but then came back to the beating I knew he would give me.
I resemble my father. Both my father and mother liked the water, but they never did much swimming.
I set my own goal and hit out for it.
I started out as a scrawny kid in Chicago, and even that was lucky. It got me to swimming. Then all the good breaks in the world happened-and kept on happening.
I was following my own line. That mental line has guided me through 18 years of Tarzan and seven as Jungle Jim.
I was on my way to a career as an executive of a swimming suit company when a writer spotted me one day walking through the Hollywood Athletic Club.
I was skinny, but there was nothing sickly about me. I would have filled out even without swimming.
I'm an American. I've seen our flag in the place of honor atop Olympic arenas.
I'm an outdoor man, and I don't do any work unless I want to.
I'm past 60 and feel like I'm about 40. I'm in good shape. I don't run around much.
I've gotten mail from Red China and Russia. The movies never stop showing.
I've had about as perfect a 55 years as any human could have.
I've never had any real dark moments.
I've no fixed idea about shedding my jungle role entirely.
If I had my boyhood days to live over again, I can't imagine anything more interesting to do than what I've just done.
It is better to drive onself and one's surroundings instead of the one born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
It's a mistake not to teach children to swim.
It's silly to retire. I don't know how to retire. I love life too much. I'll always be doing something.
My family came from Vienna, and in Chicago we would go to the German picnics on Sundays.
My fans forgave the fact that I wasn't a great actor.
My screen test was terrible. I looked exactly like what I was-a swimmer who couldn't act, and an actor who couldn't swim.
No marriage can stand up under the strain of incessant association.
No matter how much you care towards a person it gives you a feeling of being tied hand and foot never to be alone-to be away from that one human being even for a second.
Once I was following my elephant by vine when he stopped suddenly and I ran into his tail-end and broke my nose.
Professional swimmers couldn't make much of a buck in those days.
Swimming gave me my start, but my pal Tarzan did the real work. He set me up nicely.
Swimming had come naturally to me. Like all kids, I yearned for adventure. Swimming over the Rocks was dangerous, but it was exciting.
Tarzan never grows old. Like a Western, it will be the same in 1989 and it was in 1949.
Tarzan sees the white man invading his territory and killing animals, and he swings down from the tops of the trees warning them.
The director sent for me for Tarzan. I climbed the tree and walked out on a limb. The next day I was told I was an actor.
The first Tarzan picture made $40 million on its first showing around the world.
The showbiz concept of sports is different now.
The William Morris Agency handled me. In that business, you're only as good as your last picture.
They ask me why Tarzan was so big. I have an idea it was the freedom thing.
Throughout my career I swam for form. Speed came as a result of it.
Treat your body well, and it'll see you through for many years.
We could have made the films much faster at Africa. We spent too much time building sets in the old days. The pictures took at least four months to make.
We didn't have the lane ropes, we had to get up higher in the water to avoid the little waves.
We had come to the Olympiad to do a job and training for it was foremost on our minds. I never got a breather.
We used to swim when there was no one looking because we didn't have any swimsuits.
Well, let's have some coffee and then take a swim.
What does a man think about when he's on the threshold of death? All I could keep thinking was, If you've ever set speed records before, set one now!
When I fight, I certainly know who I hit. I don't want to be known as a nightclub fighter. I have to depend on my reputation.
When I was a kid, I thought I would be a cop when I grew up.
When I was ill and couldn't swim for a while, I got punchy.
When people don't know me any more or want my autograph, then I'll think about retiring.
When you've been married as many times as we have, you look at things a little differently. We try to accept what we've had in the past, and what we don't have now.
With but few exceptions, it is always the underdog who wins through sheer willpower.
Working with animals, especially a chimpanzee, you have to do a scene five or six times.
Johnny was fined $5000 for every pound he was overweight while making the Jungle Jim films.
Johnny was inducted into the Body Building Hall of Fame in 1976.
At Johnny's burial, the Tarzan yell was played as his casket was lowered into the ground, per his request.
Johnny said his famous Tarzan yell came from splicing and mixing together the sounds of a hog caller, a soprano, and alto singers.
Johnny made a total of 13 pictures as Jungle Jim with Columbia Pictures, as well as the 1955 TV series for the Screen Gems subsidiary division of Columbia. The movies include: Jungle Jim (1948) The Lost Tribe (1949) Mark of the Gorilla (1950) Captive Girl (1950) Pypmy Island (1950) Fury of the Congo Jungle Manhunt (1951) Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952) Voodoo Tiger (1952) Savage Mutiny (1953) Valley of Head Hunters (1953) Killer Ape (1953) Jungle Man-Eaters (1954)
Johnny made a total of 12 pictures as Tarzan, the first six with MGM Studios and the final six with RKO Studios. These included: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) Tarzan and His Mate (1934) Tarzan Escapes (1936) Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) Tarzan Triumphs (1943) Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) Tarzan and the Amazons (1945) Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948)
Johnny was the founding chairman of the International Swimming Hall Of Fame, started in 1965.
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