Ron Ely, the tall, musclebound actor who played the title character in the 1960s TV series Tarzan, has died at age 86. Login or signup to continue reading Ely's daughter, Kirsten Casale Ely, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her father died on September 29 at his home in Los Alamos, California. 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 immortalised by Disney.
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, California, 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, challenged the prosecutor's report that his son's shooting was justified. In the early 1980s, Ely was host of the Miss America pageant and met Valerie, a Miss Florida, there.
They married in 1984. The couple had three children, and Ely retired from acting to focus on his family in 2001. "Late in life I had a young family.
I decided to stop acting and work at home, as an author, that way I could be with the kids all through school and be able to attend their sports games and things," he told London's Daily Express in 2013, expressing interest in the time at re-entering acting. He would return briefly in the 2014 TV movie "Expecting Amish." Ely's Tarzan didn't spe.
