Following in his footsteps? ... Michael Phelps and Johnny Weissmuller. Photograph: David Gray / Reuters and Cinetext / Allstar
In past decades, Olympic swimming success entitled the new all-American hero to a shot at Hollywood glory. But a sequence of movie misfires suggests it's unlikely that Michael Phelps will follow in the slipstream of such pool predecessors as Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe, who form a quartet of Olympic Tarzans with 1928 silver medal-winning shot putter Herman Brix (aka Bruce Bennett) and 1936 decathlon champion, Glenn Morris.
Arriving at Ellis Island aged seven months, János Weissmüller denied his Austro-Hungarian origins and claimed to have been born in Pennsylvania to secure his place on the swimming team for Paris 1924. Already the world record holder, he took gold in the 100m and 400m freestyle events, and added gold in the 800m freestyle relay and a water polo bronze for good measure. Four years later in Amsterdam, he triumphed again in the 100m and the relay before retiring undefeated, with 52 domestic titles and 67 world records to his name.
Having debuted on screen wearing only a fig leaf as Adonis in the primitive talkie version of the Ziegfeld show Glorifying the American Girl (1929), Weissmuller did modelling and promotions work before signing to MGM for the lead in "One Take Woody" Van Dyke's Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The sixth actor to play Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle superman, Weissmuller teamed effectively with Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane and Cheeta (who is now an amazing 76 years old) as his chimpanzee sidekick in half a dozen pictures before he decamped to RKO for six more. Hanging up his loincloth, Weissmuller starred in 13 "programmers" as Jungle Jim at Columbia (1948-54) and also teamed up with Larry "Buster" Crabbe in Swamp Fire (1946).
Raised in Hawaii, Crabbe was no match for Weissmuller as an athlete, taking only a bronze in the 1500m freestyle in Amsterdam and gold in the 400m at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. However, he was a much better actor and racked up over 100 pictures, including several B Westerns as Billy the Kid. His reputation, though, rests on his serial work, where he played the leads in Tarzan the Fearless (1933), Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938). Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) and Buck Rogers (1939). What's more, he kept himself in shape and, in 1971, he broke the over-60s record for the 400m freestyle.
Among the other swimmers to find film fame are Henri Decoin, who swam in Stockholm 1912 and flew planes in the Great War before making three excellent Simenon adaptations and directing wife Danielle Darrieux in nine box-office hits in their native France, and Carlo Pedersoli, who was the first Italian to swim the 100m freestyle in under a minute. Although Pedersoli competed in Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956, he is much better known as actor Bud Spencer, whose raft of spaghetti westerns alongside Terence Hill included Enzo Barboni's They Call Me Trinity (1970) and Trinity Is STILL My Name! (1971).
The list of iconic Olympians would almost certainly have included Esther Williams had the outbreak of the Second World War not led to the cancellation of Tokyo 1940. Indeed, several stars have similarly been deprived of Games glory, including Hume Cronyn (boxing), Dennis Weaver (decathlon), Tammy Grimes, Thomas Kretschmann (swimming), Strother Martin, Jason Statham (diving), Sonny Chiba (gymnastics) and Geena Davis (archery).
Dolph Lundgren, however, made it, as the Swedish-born star of such blockbusters as Rocky IV (1985) and Masters of the Universe (1987) put his screen career on hold to act as leader of the US modern pentathlon team at the LA Games of 1996. Conversely, decades before, Cornel Wilde opted out of fencing for the United States in Berlin in 1936 in order to concentrate on his acting. It proved a wise decision, as he became a durable star in swashbucklers, romances and film noir.
An even more accomplished swordsman, Bob Anderson, represented Great Britain in London in 1948 and in Helsinki four years later. He made the transition to cinema when he helped Errol Flynn with the duelling sequences in William Keighley's Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation, The Master of Ballantrae (1953), and, having coached Sid James and Jim Dale for Carry On Don't Lose Your Head (1967), he served variously as sword master and fight arranger on such prestigious pictures as Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), Russell Mulcahy's Highlander (1986), Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (1987), Steven Herek's The Three Musketeers (1993) and Martin Campbell's The Mask of Zorro (1998). He also worked on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and Pierce Brosnan's final 007 outing, Die Another Day (2002).
But Anderson's finest hour remains his uncredited stunt doubling of Darth Vader in the lightsaber showdowns in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), which had to be photographed from a low angle to disguise the fact that he was six inches shorter than the 6'7" Dave Prowse.
In more recent years, sporting titans like Muhammad Ali (The Greatest, 1977), Mitch Gaylord (American Anthem, 1986), Rafer Johnson (Licence to Kill, 1989), Michael Jordan (Space Jam, 1996), Greg Louganis (Touch Me, 1997) and Carl Lewis (Alien Hunter, 2003) have all failed to set the screen alight. So, perhaps Michael Phelps may find television a more lucrative and less stressful way of remaining in the public gaze before he defends his eight titles in London in 2012.
