Ron Ely, known for starring in TV’s ‘Tarzan’ in the ’60s, dies at 86

Ron Ely, the actor best known for playing the titular character in the 1960s TV series Tarzan and went on to appear in shows for an additional three decades, has died at 86.

He died at his home in California’s Santa Barbara County, in the community of Los Alamos, his daughter, Kirsten “Kiki” Casale Ely, wrote on social media Wednesday.

Ely played Tarzan for two seasons, from 1966 to 1968. But he did it differently than audiences were used to seeing. This version of the character, who’s based on a 1912 story by author Edgar Rice Burroughs, was about a man who had been raised in the jungle but left and returned more sophisticated.

Mostly, the actor did his own stunts, according to the New York Times. The decision resulted in two lion bites, a torn back muscle, and two broken shoulders.

Still, he said in another interview, that the biggest cost of being Tarzan was being typecast.

“That character is such a trap, nobody gets out alive,” he told The Fresno Bee in 2014, per the Times. “I became so associated with the role, I had to go to Europe to get work.”

In addition to Tarzan, Ely appeared in TV classics such as The Many Lives of Doby Gillis, Father Knows Best; The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Wonder Woman, and Fantasy Island. Later, he was cast in more modern series, including L.A. Law, Superboy, and Hawkeye.

He also had a memorable starring role as comic book hero Clark Savage Jr. in the 1978 movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.

“Now Doc Savage comes along, and I just had to say: Is this a joke? Another iconic superhero? I’d just got out of the fire, and now you’re putting me back in?” Ely said to NJ.com in April 2012. “It was unexpected that I would go that route again. I thought I had learned my lesson.”

Ely continued working through the 1990s. His last project was a TV movie, Lifetime’s Expecting Amish, in 2014, which marked his first appearance on the screen in more than a decade, according to IMDb.

In 2019, his family infamously suffered a tragedy when his wife, Valerie Lundeen Ely, was stabbed to death by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, at their home. Santa Barbra County Sheriff’s Office deputies reported that they fatally shot the suspect after finding him outside the home.

He and his wife had married in 1984. They also shared two daughters, Kiki and Kaitland.

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“The world has lost one of the greatest men it has ever known – and I have lost my dad,” Kiki Ely wrote. “My father was someone that people called a hero. He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader. He created a powerful wave of positive influence wherever he went. The impact he had on others is something that I have never witnessed in any other person – there was something truly magical about him.”