Tarzan's chimp Cheetah dies aged 80

[Ian David]

25. Monkey business: Is Tarzan's chimp Cheeta a cheater?

Monkey business: Is Tarzan's chimp Cheeta a cheater?
By David Leafe
Last updated at 11:41 PM on 3rd April 2009

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Recent investigations suggest Cheeta cannot be as old as claimed and certainly isn't the chimp who appeared in the early Tarzan films. If this is true, the world's favourite animal film star is an impostor.

The story of Cheeta's life which has been accepted until now relies heavily on the accounts given by his first owner, Hollywood animal trainer Tony Gentry. He claimed to have acquired him as a baby chimpanzee during a visit to Liberia in West Africa in 1932, hiding him under his jacket and smuggling him aboard a Pan Am flight back to America.

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First there was Tony Gentry's claim about bringing Cheeta back to America on that Pan Am flight in 1932. Rosen's research showed that there were no transatlantic airline services until 1939.

Next was the suggestion that Cheeta had played Chee-Chee in Doctor Dolittle. Although this had been supported by numerous newspaper stories since, Rosen watched a DVD of the movie and was puzzled to see that Chee-Chee was portrayed by a juvenile chimpanzee who was clearly no older than eight.

Since the film was made in 1966, by which time Cheeta would have been at least 34 by Tony Gentry's own account, this could not be the same chimp that starred with Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan epics.

More:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1167159/Monkey-business-Is-Tarzans-chimp-Cheeta-cheater.html