The Greystoke Legacy (26 page)

In 1919, Burroughs purchased a ranch near Los Angeles with the money he earned from the first Tarzan movie, calling the property “Tarzana.” As the city spread around the ranch, Burroughs sold part of it for development, and in 1930, his neighbors voted to name their new town Tarzana.

In 1922, Burroughs's old friend, Robert D. Lay from the Michigan Military­ Academy, visited Burroughs's California ranch. Lay had become president of a large life insurance company.

Buster Crabbe, an Olympic swimmer, stepped into the title role for 1933's
Tarzan the Fearless
, opposite Jacqueline Wells.

Burroughs reviewing
Tarzan and the Lion Man
, the seventeenth book in the series, in 1934.
Lion Man
is the closest thing to a comic novel in the Tarzan series, with Burroughs satirizing Hollywood's treatment of the Tarzan character and even spoofing his own work

Burroughs dictating into an Ediphone in March 1937.

Burroughs, right, and Cyril Ralph Rothmund, his secretary and manager for many years, in 1937.

Burroughs working on a story at his Honolulu office on November 21, 1941. He wrote many stories in this office, and sent them to his secretary-manager, Rothmund, in Tarzana. Rothmund then arranged for retyping and submission to magazine editors.

Burroughs with his grandchildren, John Ralston Burroughs, James Michael Pierce, and Danton Burroughs, in 1945.

Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan costarred in many of the Tarzan films.

Burroughs with Lex Barker, the tenth movie Tarzan.

Since 1912, the Tarzan character has been brought to life in television, movies, newspaper comic strips, comic books, and art. Illustrator Frank Frazetta began creating cover art for Burroughs's Tarzan paperbacks in the 1960s, a period when Frazetta's work was redefining fantasy art.

T
he year 2012 sees the centenary of an iconic figure. One hundred years ago Tarzan first swung from the jungle and into the pages of
All-Story Magazine
. Through books, comics, films, radio shows, and countless television shows, Tarzan left an indelible mark on the public's imagination. Generations still know who he is even if they've never read one of Edgar Rice Burroughs's twenty-six original Tarzan novels. There is no better time than the one-hundred-year anniversary to give new life to the world's first eco-warrior.

To author Andy Briggs, it was clear that if somebody didn't inject new life into Tarzan, the character was in danger of eventually becoming extinct, consigned to pop-culture memory. But when he approached the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate to suggest Tarzan be reinvented for a whole new generation of readers, he was astonished by the estate's overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. They agreed it was time for a contemporary Tarzan.

With the estate's blessing, Briggs was given rein to bring Tarzan into the twenty-first century. Everything we know and love about the character has been maintained: He's still an English lord raised in the wild by apes, and he's often a wild untamable savage. But gone are the clichéd native tribes, replaced by warring rebel guerrillas. Jane is no longer an inactive damsel in distress; she's now a modern teenager who proves herself more than a match for the Lord of the Jungle. And Tarzan himself is not only Lord of the Jungle, but also a symbol for all that is good and noble, and for the preservation of the wild, untamable regions of our natural world.