By Andrew Dalton | Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Ron Ely , the tall, musclebound actor who played the title character in the 1960s NBC series “Tarzan,” has died at age 86. Ely’s daughter, Kirsten Casale Ely, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her father died Sept. 29 at his home in Los Alamos, California, an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County.
While Ron Ely was not quite as well-known as Johnny Weismuller, the Olympic swimmer who played Tarzan in movies in the 1930s and 1940s, Ely helped form the image of the shirtless, loincloth-wearing character further immortalized by Disney. “He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader,” Kirsten Ely said in an Instagram post . “He created a powerful wave of positive influence wherever he went.
The impact he had on others is something that I have never witnessed in any other person – there was something truly magical about him.” In 2019, he tragically returned to the news when his 62-year-old wife, Valerie Lundeen Ely, was stabbed to death at their Santa Barbara, home by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely , who was subsequently shot and killed by police . Ron Ely, who was home during the stabbing, c hallenged the prosecutor’s report that his son’s shooting was justified.
“If he didn’t have a gun or he didn’t have a weapon, what was the basis of shooting him?” Ely’s attorney John Burris said in 2020. “They may have very well thought he was involved in some other act.
