December 28, 2011

One of the great film stars from the golden age of Hollywood has died... at the age of 80.

"He was very compassionate... He could tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. He was always trying to get me to laugh if he thought I was having a bad day. He was very in tune to human feelings."

Not everyone was a fan. Mia Farrow tells us that her mother Maureen O'Sullivan always referred to him as "that bastard."

26 comments:

MadisonMan said...

RIP ya little monkey.

Christopher in MA said...

He never was the same after he got turned down for the part of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.

vet66 said...

OOOOO OOOOO OOOO?!

Cheetah was arguably the best actor in most of the movies he appeared in.

RIP!

DADvocate said...

What!!! I didn't know chimpanzees lived that long. I was ape over that guy. Always monkeying around. Made me go bananas.

Toad Trend said...

'Right turn, Clyde...'

Can't believe that primate was 80...wow.

Christopher in MA

Great call...used to watch that one as a kid!!!

I await Curious George's comment.

Jose_K said...

I tought it was a she. Now i understand why he undressed Mauren O Sullivan

Wince said...

In a post on her Twitter account, Mia Farrow, who is O’Sullivan’s daughter, wrote: “Cheetah the chimp in Tarzan movies died this week at 80. My mom, who played Jane, invariably referred to Cheetah as ‘that bastard.’”

"That bastard." Wasn't that the same name Farrow used for "the cheater", her husband Woody Allen?

Scott M said...

That damned, dead ape.

Anonymous said...

Cheetah, Oon gaw wah!

edutcher said...

He never made the transition to talkies.

Jose_K said...

I tought it was a she. Now i understand why he undressed Mauren O Sullivan

He was a swinger.

And an animal.

richard mcenroe said...

Actually, Cheetah isn't dead. He'll only be working Branson from now on.

He's already got an option on "Oh God Book III"

F said...

My roommate in college played the part of one of the African children in several Tarzan movies. I guess they were filmed in a large bamboo thicket in the Arcadia Arboretum.

wv: prole. What Cheetah was not.

Wince said...

We have video of Cheetah's final moments, commenting on Maureen O'Sullivan and Farrow.

traditionalguy said...

He was the ultimate method actor.

William said...

He was the victim of stereotyping. He would have made a great King Kong, but the part, as always, went to the taller actor.

Mike said...

You would have thought that--having seen Cheetah upstage Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller--Ronald Reagan would not have signed on to a cast that included Bonzo.

YoungHegelian said...

His career nearly got completely derailed in the early 40's when he had a private misadventure a la Fatty Arbuckle involving an orangutang chorus "girl" and a banana.

The studio tried their damndest to get the papers to spike the story, but it finally leaked.

If Pearl Harbor hadn't have blown the story off the front page, he would have been sold to Barnum & Bailey.

Honest.

Curious George said...

"Don't Tread 2012 said...
I await Curious George's comment."

Cool. More bananas for me.

Beth said...

We have one of his paintings.

Amexpat said...

...sympathetic animal sidekick whose intelligence sometimes seemed to rival that of his human co-stars

Don't usually see humor in an obit. Guess it's OK because it's for an animal.

Cedarford said...

In the end, Cheetah suffered the indignity of being on no one's Death Pool betting lists because everyone assumed he was already dead.
Same currently with former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.
Arsenio Hall. (Yes I know he is still as technically alive as PM Sharon is)

Rob said...

The AP story (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/12/27/us/AP-US-Obit-Cheetah.html?hp) includes the sanctuary director's comment that Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker, though it quotes a volunteer who says Cheetah did sometimes throw feces. If throwing feces doesn't make you a troublemaker, then we have yet another example of what Pat Moynihan called defining deviancy down.

KLDAVIS said...

Seems like "Cheetah" was more or less a scam...see this article, Lie of the Jungle: The Truth About Cheetah the Chimpanzee.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

You made me look. Thanks, Althouse. You made a monkey out of me.

Anonymous said...

If throwing feces doesn't make you a troublemaker, then we have yet another example of what Pat Moynihan called defining deviancy down.

I'm gonna pass on the easy Wisconsin Capitol protests snark, unless this counts.

Schorsch said...

I have one of Cheetah's paintings. I wonder if the usual rule of appreciation of an artist's work after his death will apply.