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Cheeta the chimpanzee, who starred in Tarzan movies alongside Olympic swimmer-turned-actor Johnny Weissmuller in the 1930s and ranked #1 on EW.com’s list of the 10 Best Monkeys at the Movies, died of kidney failure Saturday. According to the Suncoast Primary Sanctuary’s outrach director, Cheeta was “roughly 80 years old, loved fingerpainting and football and was soothed by nondenominational Christian music.” Roughly 80?! Way to live, chimp! That’s amazing! (Cheeta was an anomaly; the average zoo chimp dies around age 35-45.) I sure hope my favorite chimp lives that long.

Tennessee Hospitality Association CEO Walt Baker has sent out an e-mail mockingly comparing Michelle Obama to Tarzan's chimpanzee sidekick, Cheeta. In an e-mail forwarded by Walt Baker to 12 prominent Nashvillians on Thursday, in what he originally called political humor, there was an unflattering picture of Michelle Obama, whose face was in a certain expression, right beneath a chimpanzee which seemed to be making the exact same facial expression. Additionally, Michelle Obama was the butt of the joke in the same e-mail in a comparison to chimpanzee Cheeta, after it was said that she went on to marry a lawyer...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The CEO of Tennessee's hospitality association is apologizing for sending an e-mail to a group of public figures that compares first lady Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee. The Tennessean of Nashville reports that Tennessee Hospitality Association CEO Walt Baker's e-mail compares the first lady to Tarzan sidekick Cheeta. At the bottom of the e-mail is a photo of Obama, caught in an awkward moment with her lips pursed, and one of a chimpanzee wearing a similar expression.

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;...

Cheeta the chimp, star of a dozen "Tarzan" movies in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrated his 74th birthday with sugar-free cake. Although healthy and active, Cheeta is diabetic. "He had a good time. The party went real good," said keeper Dan Westfall, operator of the primate sanctuary Creative Habitats and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes - or CHEETA. Representatives from a Spanish film festival also showed up for Sunday's party to present Cheeta with the first award of his career - an International Comedy Film Festival of Peniscola prize. Cheeta has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World...