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presents
Volume 5774
THE EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS /
BEATLES ST. PEPPER CONNECTION
Two of my life's passions have been books and music.
I have been a devoted fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs since the late '40s and have amassed a large collection of books, comics, film, videos, etc. Since 1996 I've parlayed this interest into the largest ERB Website on the Internet -- and one of the largest collection of Webpages devoted to any personality.

When the Beatles shook the world in the early '60s they piqued my musical interest. Sue-On and I have performed their songs across Canada, USA and England. We even surprised the locals in China, SE Asia and India who showed an interest in music from the West. 

There has always been a music connection in our travels to Burroughs conventions across America. When ERB, Inc. and Phil Collins invited us to the Tarzan Musical Premier in Hamburg I spent a couple of weeks before and after the Premiere visiting and photographing all the sites frequented by the Beatles in their early years.

It's not surprising then, that while studying the faces on the Sgt. Pepper cover, I found numerous connections between two of my major life influences. 

The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
has a widely recognized album cover that depicts several dozen celebrities and other images.
The face immediately recognized by all Burroughs fans is movie Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller.
A search through the ERBzine archive, however, will find that
many of the other celebrities shown in the cover photo also have a connection to ERB and his works.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_images_on_the_cover_of_Sgt._Pepper's_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band


CONNECTIONS
1. Johnny Weissmuller
2. David Livingstone
3. Tony Curtis
4. Mae West
5. Tyrone Power
6. Shirley Temple

JOHNNY WEISSMULLER

Johnny Weissmuller, Hungarian-born American competition swimmer and actor, was best known for playing Tarzan in films of the 1930s and 1940s.
www.ERBzine.com/movies

TARZAN, THE APE MAN
TARZAN AND HIS MATE
TARZAN ESCAPES
TARZAN FINDS A SON
TARZAN'S SECRET TREASURE
TARZAN'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE
TARZAN TRIUMPHS
TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY
TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS
TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN
TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS
TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS
David Livingstone (I presume)

DAVID LIVINGSTONE
David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a Scottish congregationalist pioneer medical missionary and an explorer in Africa. He was one of the most popular national heroes of the late-19th-century in Victorian Britain. He and Ed Burroughs shared the same day of birth: March 19.

ERB's personal library contained many books by Henry Stanley, the American newspaperman who found missionary David Livingstone in Central Africa in 1871.
These books were obviously important sources of information about Darkest Africa.
See ERB's Personal Library Shelf S4:
* How I found Livingstone:  Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa: Including an Account of Four Months Residence with Dr. Livingstone: 1872
* In Darkest Africa (2 vols.)
David Livingston
In the film Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, the book Across Darkest Africa by David Livingstone was used in the film – Tarzan picks it up and looks at it.

"In Gods Of Mars, a subtle examination of evolution, ERB describes his Black race as the First Born.  He, himself, picked up the idea from the nineteenth century missionary David Livingstone from his book Missionary Travels in South Africa.
"In Livingstone's book in a conversation with a Bushman the Bushman tells Livingstone that God created the Black man first, then the White man.  Thinking in a Darwinian way Burroughs reasoned that first came the anthropoids then the Blacks then the Whites.  Thus, of the Homo Sapiens the Blacks were the First Born.  If the current scientific information is accurate then this is true.  Burroughs was on solid evolutionary ground." ~ RE Prindle


TONY CURTIS

Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades. He acted in more than 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances. One of his last films was Tarzan in Manhattan.
TARZAN IN MANHATTAN
(1989 ~ 100m TV Movie ~ American First Run Studios)
CAST: Joe Lara ~ Kim Crosby ~ Tony Curtis
Curtis played Jane's father, Archimedes Porter.

Joe Lara and Tony Curtis


MAE WEST

Mae West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades.
James Pierce was a movie and radio Tarzan and husband of ERB's daughter Joan.
James Pierce worked with MAE WEST twice: as an admirer in "Belle of the Nineties" [1934] and as a cowboy in "Goin' to Town" [1935].
http://www.erbzine.com/mag27/2729.html


TYRONE POWER
Tyrone Power was an American film, stage and radio actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. Power enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1942 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant a year later. When he was considered over the age limit for active combat flying, Power volunteered for piloting cargo planes that he felt would get him into active combat zones. For his services in the Pacific War, Power was awarded the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars, and the World War II Victory Medal.

From Edgar Rice Burroughs: The War Years
www.ERBzine.com/war
www.ERBzine.com/bio
May 25, 1945: Ed's thoughts of marriage were put on hold as he was accepted as a navy correspondent. He left Pearl Harbor on the U.S.S. Cahaba, a fleet oiler. He wrote of fleet procedures, being shot at by a sniper at Ulithi Atoll, a kamikaze attack, and flying in a plane piloted by Marine Lieutenant Tyrone Power.

July 15, 1945: Ed  Flew to Guam in a plane piloted by Marine Lieutenant Tyrone Power., and then on to Hawaii, having travelled 5,000 miles by air and 11,000 miles by ship over a period of two months.

Lieutenant Tyrone PowerNeighbour Tyrone Power's Home in Bel-AirTyrone Power
Power was a neighbour in Bel-Air -- close to the Burroughs Bel-Air home.


SHIRLEY TEMPLE

Shirley Temple was an American actress, singer, dancer, businesswoman and diplomat who was most notable as Hollywood's number one box-office star from 1935 to 1938 - a very famous child star.

Shirley Temple in the Tarzan of the Apes parody
KID IN AFRICA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OYiauWwtKQ


Shirley Temple – Kid in Africa
by Gina Chen

Shirley Temple in the Baby Burlesk short video, Kid in Africa, is set out for an expedition to search for and civilize the Cannibals tribe members with her African tribe members. At the beginning of this clip Shirley directs and commands her tribe members to do as their told, which is fairly unusual within this time period due to the fact that there were not many women leaders. The Cannibals then invade her tribe members and explicitly add salt on each person to symbolize that they are about to be eaten. Shirley believes that she can help civilize them. Then, as Shirley is in a big pot being cooked the cannibals are sitting around her chanting, “We want food!” All the cannibals are African, in diapers and have their face painted. The cook of the Cannibals then calls a different tribe and says that they should come eat. The tribe says that they wouldn’t want to pass up this opportunity. As Shirley is in the pot she is reading a book called. ‘What to do in case of a Sunburn’ which represents a sense of comic relief. Throughout all the commotion there is a little boy that is dressed in leopard loin cloth that is supposed to depict Tarzan. He calls out for the longest time until his elephant comes to help him rescue Shirley. There is a huge satire relating to the movie Tarzan of the Apes (1918). In the movie Tarzan rescues a girl named Jane which is essentially Shirley in this Burlesk short video. As this Tarzan character is saving Shirley, Shirley, acting like an adult, powders her noses in realization that her hero has come to sweep her away. As Tarzan and his elephant scare all the cannibals away, Shirley still wants to civilize them.

There then is another clip that shows the “civilized cannibals” wearing grown up clothes that don’t fit. The cannibals have started using “milk pumps” to gain more energy. At the end of the Burlesk short video the Tarzan character says that he is thinking about going to play golf this afternoon. Shirley quickly response with a quick objection and that he needs to do the dishes. As Shirley and the Tarzan character are at their home, the Tarzan character wants to go out and play with his lion but sure enough Shirley objects. During that time period it could seem that a woman bossing the man around is considered funny. In our reading, Kasson says, “Shirley fought the Great Depression on a number of fronts can tell us much about the emotional demands of capitalist society during one of its greatest periods of crisis and the effects these demands had on children as well as adults” (126). Through this short video Shirley does an amazing job at performing in attempt to conduct herself as an adult. Throughout the whole short video there are depictions of adult behavior that supply comic relief. Even when Shirley exemplifies an adult there is still an innocent aura about her. This innocence about her, in the Burlesk short video, is what appeals to the audience during that time period. The childhood innocence that Shirley might not know nor understand what cannibalism is might give pleasure to adults due to the fact that it could be considered cute. The motive of the Burlesk video can be a way of cheering up the country from the depression. Kasson says, “Ultimately, the progressive forces of amusement triumph over the gloom and lift the country out of the Depression, emotionally and economically, but not without a struggle” (127). Even though these videos might be a source of amusement to adults during the period there poses a question of how the child actor might feel in these explicit roles that they play. Do the child actors understand the character they are playing? Do they understand what they are saying and portraying? These are the questions that Kasson addresses in the article, Behind Shirley Temples Smile, and I believe that in the Burlesk videos the child actors don’t understand what they are actually doing. The child actors are just doing what they are told to do. In defense, children understanding the actual message of these videos might corrupt their innocent thoughts, which would cause them to lose their whole innocent aura.




BILL HILLMAN
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