Remembering 2024’s Losses: Ron Ely

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Along with the musicians who passed away last year, I’m remembering and celebrating others who left us in 2024. Today’s entry shows that “age stamp” that, truthfully, we all have. Here’s today’s entry. Ron Ely By “age stamp,” I mean an actor who IDENTIFIED a character for people of a certain age group. For example, most of the people my age only acknowledge one “real” Batman: Adam West. It’s the same with things like Star Trek (you don’t have to say “the original series” to us ). Superman might be the exception, where people might have remembered both George Reeves in the TV series AND Christopher Reeve in the 1978 movie. There’s something similar in music: if you think “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room” is a Poison song, then you have a different “age stamp” from someone who remembers the Brownsville Station original. Ron Ely is an “age stamp” when it comes to the character of Tarzan. There were countless movies and radio programs featuring the Edgar Rice Burroughs character. My dad’s “age stamp” of Tarzan would have been Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan in 12 films. For me, however, the 1966 TV series gave me my Tarzan “age stamp,” and that was Ron Ely. Ely had small roles in films and TV shows before becoming a lead actor in 1961’s series The Aquanauts (which I never saw, but based on the description, sounds like a mirror of the popular Sea Hunt). Then, in 1966, he made his mark as Tarzan in the live-action series that ran for two years. According to Picky Wedia, he did his own stunts in the show, which gave him a few broken bones and animal bites. (See, kids, they didn’t have AI and CGI back then.) He left a mark on kids my age as THE Tarzan. Speaking of Sea Hunt, they revised that in the 80s, and Ely was the star of the series. He continued working in various capacities as an actor and even a game show host (Face the Music). In 2019 his son stabbed his wife to death. The son, 30 years old, was killed by police when he attacked them. Ely died in September 2024. No doubt, his final years were haunted by the pain of 2019. Ron Ely Born Ronald Pierce Ely, June 21, 1938, Hereford, Texas Died September 29, 2024, Los Alamos, California (unknown cause) (age 86) Here’s a clip of the TV series: