Ron Ely, the strapping Texan who found fame as television’s first Tarzan in the 1960s, died late last month at the California home of one of his daughters, she said on Wednesday.
Kirsten Ely shared the news of her father’s death aged 86 in a lengthy tribute on Instagram. “The impact he had on others is something that I have never witnessed in any other person—there was something truly magical about him,” she wrote. “This is how the world knew him.”
Ely was 28 years old, 6 feet and 4 inches tall, and made of muscle when he was cast as the lead in NBC’s Tarzan, which ran for 57 episodes from 1966 to 1968. The show found the wild apeman having returned to his roots in the jungle after trying civilization and education on for size.
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Though the show retained some of the original novel and subsequent movie series’ most notable characteristics, like the iconic Tarzan yell, it entirely omitted Jane Porter, his lady love. She would reappear again in the 1980s, with the actress Bo Derek portraying her in MGM’s Tarzan, the Ape Man.
Instead, Ely’s Tarzan was often accompanied by a chimp named Cheeta and a kid sidekick named Jai, and remained primarily focused on doing battle with poachers, diamond thieves, and other nefarious villains.
After Tarzan ended, Ely went on to host the Miss America pageant in 1980 and 1981, and guested on shows like Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, L.A. Law, and Hawkeye in ensuing decades. He also starred in 1975’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze as the blockbuster’s eponymous twinkle-eyed pulp hero.
His final onscreen appearance was in 2014, when he played an elder in the Lifetime drama Expecting Amish opposite AJ Michalka, of Aly & AJ fame, and Jesse McCartney.
In 2019, he made headlines for more tragic reasons. His 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, fatally stabbed his mother and Ely’s wife, Valerie Ely, at the family’s home. He was shot by responding police officers more than 20 times after he told them he had a gun, according to authorities.
The next year, Ely, who was home at the time, challenged investigators’ findings that Cameron’s killing had been justified, claiming in a wrongful death lawsuit that he’d been unarmed. A jury upheld the prosecutor’s report in 2022, finding that the police had acted in self-defense.
Kirsten hailed her father in her Instagram post as “strong and protective,” “brilliant and ridiculously funny,” and “stoic and sensitive.” She said that his life had been “one of relentless perserverence [sic], unending dedication to his family and friends, courage to do what was right, and willing sacrifice to facilitate the dreams of those he loved.”
