Tarzan's Chimp "Cheetah" -- RIP

When I read the BBC's obit about Cheetah, Tarzan's famous chimpanzee companion, I thought it was a web hoax, a web version of a practical joke. Really? Cheetah lived to age 80? According to the BBC story, the age expectancy of chimps is normally half of what fate doled out to Cheetah.

Of course, this leads to an obvious question: was this the "real" Cheetah that cavorted with Johnny Weissmuller?

The BBC article, whose original source was a Tampa Tribune piece, is great fun to read. I've also linked a YouTube of a film clip from a Cheetah-Weismuller Tarzan movie in which the chimp hams it up for the camera. And yes, Weismuller for my money was the one and only movie Tarzan. The others were always in his shadow.

And yes, when it came to screen persona, there may have been many chimp actors, but there was only one Cheetah.