US actor Ron Ely passed away at the age of 86. He was most renowned for his portrayal of Tarzan in the television series of the same name from the 1960s.
“The world has lost one of the greatest men it has ever known – and I have lost my dad,” Kirsten Casale Ely, Ron Ely’s daughter, wrote on Instagram.
When Tarzan first appeared on the NBC television network in 1966 and 1968, the actor broke several bones and was reportedly bitten by animals while doing his own stunts.
Ely started writing and published two mystery novels when he retired from performing in 2001.
Ely briefly returned to acting in 2014, playing an Amish elder in the television movie Expecting Amish.
He had appearances in other popular television shows in the 1980s, such as Wonder Woman with Lynda Carter and the comedy The Love Boat, which was set on a cruise ship.
Ely, who was born in 1938 in Texas, married his high school love in 1959 and got divorced two years later.
In the early 1980s, he also gained notoriety as the host of the Miss America pageant, when he met Valerie Lundeen, his second wife. Three children were born to the couple.
In 2019, their son Cameron fatally murdered Lundeen, then 62, at their California home. After being judged a threat by responding policemen, he was then shot dead by police.
Although the judge determined that the police had acted in self-defense, Ron Ely launched a wrongful death claim against the force.
On September 29, the Tarzan actor passed away at his Los Alamos residence in Santa Barbara, California.
“My father was someone that people called a hero,” the actor’s daughter wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday, announcing the actor’s passing. He was a leader, family man, coach, mentor, writer, and performer.
“I knew him as my dad—and what a heaven-sent honor that has been,” she continued. He hung the moon, in my opinion.
