100 years in the past on the Paris Olympics in 1924, 20-year-old Johnny Weissmuller gained three gold medals for swimming and a bronze medal for water polo. He went on to win two extra golds on the 1928 video games in Amsterdam and set 67 world information in his athletic profession.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Hollywood got here calling. In keeping with the L.A. Occasions, a author who was engaged on MGM’s Tarzan the Ape Man envisioned Weissmuller in a non-speaking function in a minor movie and took him to see the Tarzan director and producer. “I didn’t understand what was happening,” Weissmuller informed the Occasions. “They requested me if I may climb a tree and I mentioned sure, they usually requested me may I choose up a woman and stroll away along with her and I mentioned sure . . . and that’s all there was to the check. I had the half.” The movie was one of the crucial profitable of 1932, and the primary of 12 Tarzan movies that featured the “ape man” yodeling his means throughout the jungle as he swung via the vines carrying his Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan in six of the movies).
In 1948, after hanging up his loincloth, Weissmuller added to his Hollywood resume with the collection Jungle Jim, based mostly on the sketch by Alex Raymond. He would make 16 movies over eight years and 26 episodes for a TV collection. They made Weissmuller a really wealthy man, as he owned a share of them.
Following in Weissmuller’s footsteps, Clarence Linden “Buster” Crabbe II parlayed a medal-winning Olympic swimming profession — the bronze for the 1,500m freestyle in Amsterdam in 1928 and the gold for the 400m freestyle race on the 1932 Los Angeles video games — right into a Hollywood appearing profession.
Crabbe additionally performed Tarzan as soon as, in 1933’s Tarzan the Fearless, adopted by extra jungle man-style roles in King of the Jungle (1933), Jungle Man (1941) and King of the Congo (1952). Then got here three Flash Gordon movies, a Buck Rogers movie and a dozen Billy the Child movies. He additionally performed reverse Hollywood main girls equivalent to Betty Grable in The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi (1933) and Million Greenback Legs (1939); Ida Lupino in Seek for Magnificence (1934); and Anna Could Wong in Daughter of Shanghai in 1937. He and Weissmuller appeared collectively in Swamp Fireplace in 1946 and Captive Lady in 1950. “Some say my appearing rose to the extent of incompetence after which leveled off,” Crabbe is reported to have quipped.
Determine skater Sonja Henie, hailing from Norway, made her Olympics debut on the Winter Video games in 1924 at age 11. She gained gold medals in determine skating in three consecutive Olympics in 1928, 1932 and 1936, a report by no means bested to this point.
After touring along with her present, “Hollywood Ice Assessment,” Henie signed with Twentieth Century Fox and starred in 10 movies, starting with 1937’s One in a Million which cemented her standing as a star and earned her a reported $500,000. “I need to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing,” she informed a reporter. Henie would turn out to be considered one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars with hits equivalent to Skinny Ice (1937) with Tyrone Energy; Completely happy Touchdown (1938) with Ethel Merman; My Fortunate Star (1938) with Cesar Romero; Second Fiddle (1939) with Energy once more, and Solar Valley Serenade (1941), a musical that includes the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Milton Berle and the Nicholas Brothers.
British fencer Bob Anderson competed within the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki however didn’t win a medal, though the embellished soldier gained many championships in fencing. Nonetheless, he went on to have a six-decade profession in Hollywood as a struggle choreographer and/or sword grasp within the Bond movies From Russia With Love and Die One other Day, The Weapons of Navarone, On line casino Royale (1967), the Zorro movies, Highlander, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Pirates of the Caribbean. His crowning achievement was when he performed Darth Vader within the struggle scenes reverse Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Again and Return of the Jedi, together with the scene within the former movie revealing to Skywalker that he’s his father. His work because the stunt double was stored beneath wraps till Mark Hamill mentioned in an interview in 1983, “Bob Anderson was the person who truly did Vader’s combating. Bob labored so bloody laborious that he deserves some recognition. It’s ridiculous to protect the parable that it’s all completed by one man.”
One other under-the-radar athlete, silver medalist within the 1948 Summer season Olympics in London within the light-heavyweight class for weightlifting is Harold Sakata. His declare to fame in Hollywood is the function of the evil, bowler-hatted Oddjob in 1964’s Goldfinger, the place he squares off reverse Sean Connery. He additionally appeared in forgettable movies like 1972’s Goin’ Coconuts and 1982’s Invaders of the Misplaced Gold and Xiong Zhong, however most of his appearances have been on tv, together with roles in The Superb Spider-Man, The Rockford Recordsdata, Quincy M.E., Gilligan’s Island and others, all within the 1970’s.
Decathlete Rafer Johnson gained silver within the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and gold within the 1960 Rome Olympics, main the U.S. group as flag bearer within the latter. He additionally had the glory of lighting the Olympic torch on the 1984 Los Angeles Video games. His Hollywood profession started after he retired from sports activities and he appeared in lots of movies all through the Sixties and ’70s like The Fiercest Coronary heart (1961) with Juliet Prowse, The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961) with Angie Dickinson, Wild within the Nation (1961) with Elvis Presley, A International Affair (1964) with Bob Hope, None However the Courageous (1965) with Frank Sinatra, The Video games (1970) with Michael Crawford — a movie in regards to the Olympics — and The Final Grenade (1970) with Stanley Baker. On tv, he appeared within the collection Roots: The Subsequent Generations (1978-79).
He’s additionally had a hand in establishing the California Particular Olympics.
Caitlyn Jenner (previously Bruce) gained the decathlon gold in 1976 on the Montreal Olympics and the moniker “World’s Best Athlete.” Jenner as soon as mentioned, “I’m the kind of man who fails and fails and fails, after which, as if failure has turn out to be sick of him, succeeds.” Jenner was featured in tv reveals like The Fall Man, Homicide She Wrote and The Love Boat, however is greatest identified for changing Erik Estrada in CHiPs for seven episodes and the disco-style musical “Can’t Cease the Music.” As Caitlyn, Jenner made frequent appearances on the Kardashian actuality TV reveals.
Honorable mentions go to basketball superstars Michael Jordan (gold medal within the Barcelona video games in 1992 for basketball) who appeared within the hit House Jam in 1996 reverse Bugs Bunny and Invoice Murray; and Shaquille O’Neal (gold medal within the Atlanta video games in 1996) who was featured in Blue Chips, Kazaam and Metal. 4-time gold medal winner on the Olympics in 2000, 2008 and 2012, tennis star Serena Williams has been seen within the tv reveals My Spouse and Youngsters, The Bernie Mac Present, ER, Legislation & Order: Particular Victims Unit, Drop Lifeless Diva and others.
Determine skater Tara Lipinski, who gained gold on the 1998 Winter Olympics, confirmed up in Touched by an Angel, seventh Heaven and Malcolm within the Center earlier than ending up in a supporting function on the cleaning soap The Younger and the Stressed in 1999.
Esther Williams was considered one of MGM’s largest stars of the Nineteen Forties and ’50s, starring in a string of profitable “aqua-musicals.” Williams began as a aggressive swimmer and certified for the 1940 Olympics Video games — however they have been canceled as a result of WWII. Williams was a two-time Golden Globe winner, in long-extinct classes: World Movie Favourite in 1952, and Hollywood Citizenship Award in 1956. Although she by no means made it to the Olympics, she did find yourself with gold.