Ron Ely

Ronald Pierce Ely (June 21, 1938 – September 29, 2024) was an American actor and novelist, best known for portraying Tarzan in the 1966–1968 NBC series Tarzan and playing the lead role in the film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975). He hosted the Miss America pageant telecast in 1980 and 1981.

Ely won the role of Tarzan in 1966 after playing supporting roles in films such as South Pacific (1958), as an airplane navigator, The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958) and The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959).^{[citation needed]}

During the filming of Tarzan, Ely did almost all of his own stunts, and received over two dozen injuries, including two broken shoulders and several lion bites.

During the first week of July 1969, Ely, who had recently wrapped up his work as television's Tarzan (1966 TV series), starred in a production of "The Teahouse of the August Moon" at the Little Theatre on the Square in Sullivan, Illinois. He was also hired to serve as grand marshal for the Fourth of July parade in nearby Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; during the parade, spotting a nine-year-old boy on crutches on the sidewalk, Ely swiftly alighted from his convertible to chat with the boy, Fernando Gonzalez Sfeir, who grew up to be a medical doctor and surgeon, jungle explorer and benefactor of The National Geographic Society.

Ely's height (6'4")^{[citation needed]} and athletic build also won him the title role in the film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), as well as various guest shots. He was in five episodes of the series Fantasy Island; in one, in 1978, he portrayed Mark Antony in a Roman military short tunic and breastplate and starred in the Wonder Woman two-part episode, "The Deadly Sting".^{[citation needed]}

Ely starred on the series The Aquanauts in 1960–1961, in the western adventure film The Night of the Grizzly (1966) opposite Clint Walker, and later appeared in Jürgen Goslar's slavery movie Slavers (1978). In the 1980s, he hosted the musical game show Face the Music, as well as the 1980 and 1981 Miss America Pageants, replacing longtime host Bert Parks. He starred in a 1987–1988 revival of the 1960s adventure series Sea Hunt as Mike Nelson, the role played by Lloyd Bridges in the original series.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s, Ely's roles included a retired alternate universe variant of Superman in the Superboy episode "The Road to Hell", and hunter Gordon Shaw in the Tarzán episode "Tarzan the Hunted".^{[citation needed]} Until about 2001, he appeared on such shows as Sheena and Renegade.^{[citation needed]} He wrote two mystery novels featuring private investigator Jake Sands: Night Shadows (1994) and East Beach (1995).

Ely retired from acting in 2001, returning with an appearance in the television film Expecting Amish (2014).

Ely was born in Hereford, Texas on June 21, 1938, and raised in Amarillo. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Janet Triplet, in 1959. Both natives of Hereford, Texas, they divorced in July 1961.

In 1984, Ely married Valerie Lundeen, who won the Miss Florida USA title in 1981, and they had three children.

On October 15, 2019, Ely's son Cameron, 30 years old, stabbed Valerie Ely to death at the family's home in Hope Ranch, California, a coastal residential community in Santa Barbara. Police officers were called to the scene for a "family disturbance" and killed Cameron Ely, claiming he posed a threat to officers.

The Santa Barbara district attorney ruled the police shooting a justifiable homicide. No charges were filed, and an attorney representing Ely disputed the police account of Cameron's death. An autopsy found Cameron was in the early stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy before he died.

Ely died at the home of one of his daughters in Los Alamos, California, on September 29, 2024, at age 86. His death was not announced until October 23, 2024.

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