Tarzan actor on TV was 86

Ron Ely, the handsome and attractive Texas native who portrayed the Lord of the Jungle in the first television series “Tarzan,” has died, his daughter Kirsten told Fox News Digital. He was 86.

He died Sept. 29 at the home of one of his daughters near Santa Barbara. The New York Times reported.

Ely also hosted the Miss America pageant in 1980 and 1981, filled in for longtime host Bert Parks, and hosted a syndicated game show called ” Face the music around this time.

The 6-foot-3, blue-eyed Ely had appeared opposite Clint Walker The Night of the Grizzly and with Ursula Andress in Once before I die in films released in 1966, when he was hired to don the loincloth on a new NBC series as executive producer for Sy Weintraub.

Ely was offered the Tarzan gig after former NFL linebacker Mike Henry, who played Edgar Rice Burroughs' creation in three '60s films, abruptly quit after being bitten in the jaw by a chimpanzee. (He would then sue for unsafe working conditions.)

“I met [producers] One Monday, and when they offered me the role, I thought, “I definitely don't want to fall into this bear trap.” “You do Tarzan and you're written off for life.” Was I ever right?” He recalled in an interview by 2013. “But my agent convinced me that it was a quality show and would work. So on the [next] Friday I was on the plane to Brazil to shoot the first episode.”

The show, which also filmed in Central America and Mexico, premiered in September 1966 and Ely had to perform his own stunts throughout the two-season, 57-episode series. (Since he barely wore any clothes, it was difficult to find a similar stunt double, he said.)

Ely was not unhappy when the series ended in March 1968. “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything more I could have done,” he said. “I was mentally and physically exhausted. At least it would have taken me a few months to recover. My body was a wreck. I had so many pulled and torn muscles and broken shoulders, wrists and bones. Every part of me was hurt.”

Ely portrayed another legendary hero when he starred in the Warner Bros. film Doc Savage: The Bronze Man (1975), produced and co-written by George Pal. He had high hopes for it, but a regime change at the studio ended any chance the film had of success, he said.

Ronald Pierce Ely was born on June 21, 1938 in Hereford, Texas. He graduated from Amarillo (Texas) High School in 1956 and then attended the University of Texas at Austin for a year before heading to California.

“I felt like a fish out of water in college. I felt like I was going crazy,” he said. “I actually had a brother from a fraternity who asked me if I would ever like to go to Los Angeles and perform there. I told him, “Yeah, I've thought about it.” So we started talking about it. … I ended up driving to San Jose and hitchhiking back to LA.”

He made his screen debut in 1958 as a pilot in the film adaptation of South PacificHe then signed a contract with 20th Century Fox.

A year later, he tried to snog Betty Anderson (Elinor Donahue) on an episode of Father knows bestHe played the older brother of Dwayne Hickman's character in the pilot The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and appeared with Barbara Eden on the syndicated TV version of How to marry a millionaire.

He then continued playing The Aquanautsa 1960–61 CBS adventure series about deep-sea divers recovering sunken wrecks off the coast of Southern California.

After TarzanHe made several films in Europe and portrayed Mike Nelson (Lloyd Bridges' character) in a 1987 syndicated revival Sea hunting and worked on other television shows like The Love Boat, Fantasy island, wonder Woman, LA Law And Sheena.

In the 1990s, he played a retired Superman Superboy and a big game hunter in the syndicate Tarzan the hunted and had published two novels that featured private investigator Jake Sands.

On October 15, 2019, his second wife, former Miss Florida Valerie Lundeen Ely, 62, was stabbed to death in their Santa Barbara-area home by their son Cameron, 30, whom officers found outside the home and fatally shot.

“My father was someone people called a hero,” said his daughter Kirsten. “He was an actor, author, coach, mentor, family man and leader. Wherever he went he created a powerful wave of positive influence. The effect he had on others was something I had never experienced in another person – there was something truly magical about him.”

Survivors include his other daughter, Kaitland.