Mystery surrounds Cheeta, purportedly the world's oldest chimpanzee

latimesblogs ^ | February 14, 2009

[JoeProBono]

Could Cheeta the chimp, the famous performing primate who's said to have starred alongside Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan films and Rex Harrison in Dr. Doolittle, be an impostor?It's a story whose plot resembles a 1930s screwball comedy, but author R.D. Rosen says it's true: Cheeta the chimp, said to be the oldest nonhuman primate in the world at 76, is not who he claims to be. (Or rather, he's not who his deceased trainer, Tony Gentry, claimed he was.) In 2007, Rosen set out to write a book about Cheeta: his abduction from the wilds of his native Liberia; his storied history in Hollywood; his bizarre post-stardom life with trainer Gentry, who stipulated in his will that Cheeta be euthanized after his death, fearing no one else could provide the proper care for him; Gentry's subsequent reversal of that decision at the behest of a relative and fellow animal trainer, Dan Westfall, who runs the Palm Springs sanctuary to which Cheeta was eventually retired.

[JoeProBono]

[Grut]

Hmm dere... P. Troglodytes can be either black-skinned or white skinned. It does look like Cheeta of the movies is 'white' while Cheeta of the golden years is 'black'. Ungawa!

[BykrBayb]

Are you sure? She’d be almost a hundred now, if she wasn’t already dead.

[Slings and Arrows]

More monkey business.

[Ditto]

LOL. I saw my first Tarzan movie when I was about 6 years old and to me, she'll always be that hot babe in the loin cloth.

She could make a man go ape! ;~))

[Free Vulcan]

Holy crap, you ain’t kidding! Those outfits had to be absolutely scandalous back in the day.

[a fool in paradise]

Did he write the porkulus spending bill too?

[a fool in paradise]

Actually what was scandalous was that the original release prints had Jane swimming in the nude.