Famous Hollywood Actor Passes Away at Age 80

[Keith]

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/dec/27/1/tarzan-co-star-cheetah-dies-at-palm-harbor-sanctua-ar-341123/

[seano1]

rip

cheetah

[Mendoza Line]

Lie of the Jungle: The Truth About Cheeta the Chimpanzee

Lie of the Jungle: The Truth About Cheeta the Chimpanzee

"......It was one of the standard stories in Cheeta's biography -- repeated in Newsweek and other magazines, recited by Cheeta's current owner and many Cheeta admirers -- that the first of his two owners, animal trainer Tony Gentry, had gotten him in Liberia as a baby and smuggled him under his overcoat aboard a Pan Am flight home in 1932. During the long flight, the diapered Cheeta escaped from under Gentry's coat, mischievously scampered up and down the aisle, and had to be subdued by hysterical stewardesses with a bottle of warm milk.

After four months of research and writing, I decided to ask a question that, in retrospect, was so obvious that it was curious that no journalist before me had bothered to ask it: In 1932, were there any transatlantic flights for Gentry to smuggle Cheeta onto? The answer, I wasn't surprised to learn, was no. Transatlantic commercial airline service wasn't inaugurated until 1939......"

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Mendoza Line

Lie of the Jungle: The Truth About Cheeta the Chimpanzee

Lie of the Jungle: The Truth About Cheeta the Chimpanzee

"......It was one of the standard stories in Cheeta's biography -- repeated in Newsweek and other magazines, recited by Cheeta's current owner and many Cheeta admirers -- that the first of his two owners, animal trainer Tony Gentry, had gotten him in Liberia as a baby and smuggled him under his overcoat aboard a Pan Am flight home in 1932. During the long flight, the diapered Cheeta escaped from under Gentry's coat, mischievously scampered up and down the aisle, and had to be subdued by hysterical stewardesses with a bottle of warm milk.

After four months of research and writing, I decided to ask a question that, in retrospect, was so obvious that it was curious that no journalist before me had bothered to ask it: In 1932, were there any transatlantic flights for Gentry to smuggle Cheeta onto? The answer, I wasn't surprised to learn, was no. Transatlantic commercial airline service wasn't inaugurated until 1939......"

pretty sure that was a different Cheetah. This one was pretty much accepted as one of the ones from those Tarzan movies in the 1930's:




Similar claims were made about another very old chimpanzee, named Cheeta, which lives in California. But a writer researching that chimp in 2008 found considerable evidence it was too young to have appeared in the films, and its owners have accepted the findings on their website, cheetathechimp.org.