In 1918, when the movies were young, silent and reasonably carefree, an actor named Elmo Lincoln donned a leopardskin, yodeled, and dove from a studio tree into a studio tank. Thus began a series of films about an ape man named Tarzan, a character based loosely on the hero of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. The movie series, 28 in all, wore out ten Tarzans—among them Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe, Glenn Morris and Lex Barker—but never the plot. Such humdingers as Tarzan and the Mermaids and Tarzan's Magic Fountain found their way to the screens of thousands of movie houses.
Last week the ape "man's indefatigable mentor, Producer Sol Lesser, announced that he had signed a new Tarzan. The find: Gordon Scott, 26, a lifeguard at Las Vegas' Sahara Hotel. His qualifications: 6 ft. 3 in., 215 lbs., a So-in. chest, a 30-in. waist and a catlike walk.