Ron Ely, US actor who put modern spin on 'Tarzan,' dead at 86

Ron Ely, whose sophisticated spin on the character Tarzan was broadcast to televisions across the world, has died at the age of 86, his family said Wednesday.'

The American actor's title role on the 1960s television show "Tarzan" was an updated take on the grunting, vine-swinging hero, instead portraying him as a man educated in the modern world and returning to the jungle where he was raised.

Still, this more urbane Tarzan also cemented the modern image of the character in many people's minds -- with a musclebound, loincloth-wearing Ely accompanied by his chimpanzee sidekick.

He reportedly did his own stunts, which led to injuries while filming, including a lion bite.

"The world has lost one of the greatest men it has ever known," his daughter, Kirsten Ely, said on social media on Wednesday.

The elder Ely had died on September 29, in Santa Barbara, California.
After the two seasons of "Tarzan" wrapped, Ely continued acting -- mostly on TV -- through the 1990s, and took a role in the film "Expecting Amish" in 2014.

He was also the author of two detective novels.

Still, the role of Tarzan remained his biggest claim to fame -- so big he once called it a "trap."

In 2019, police shot dead Ely's son, Cameron, while responding to the stabbing death of Ely's wife Valerie Lundeen Ely.

Police said Cameron, who was accused of the stabbing, had posed a threat. Ely filed a wrongful death lawsuit, though the judge ruled the police had acted in self-defense.

"My father was someone that people called a hero," Kristen Ely said in her Instagram post. "There was something truly magical about him. This is how the world knew him."