Hollywood cinema icon in his legendary role as Tarzan, Olympic swimming champion, Johnny Weissmuller is one of the greatest incarnations of the American dream. His destiny is retraced in “Johnny Johnny”, a first novel by Frédéric Rossignol.
An immense swimming champion, with exceptional agility, he remains above all famous for his role as Tarzan in the cinema between 1934 and 1948. Johnny Weissmuller, an adored, seductive and sunny figure, swore only by pleasure, agreeing to leave the management of his career in the hands of his coaches and producers.
In “Johnny Johnny”, a false autobiography narrated in the first person, the French author Frédéric Rossignol offers us the point of view of a child of European immigration at the beginning of the 20th century, who twice became one of these hero that America loves.
It’s a book that I started a long time ago, but perhaps unconsciously, with the arrival of the Olympics, and as he won several gold medals in Paris in 1924, it played a role in the fact that it is published today.
Archimedes thrust
It all began with a crossing of the Atlantic in 1905, when Petrus and Berty, parents of the very young János Péter Weissmuller, left a Europe with nothing more to offer them. German immigrants from what is now Romania, which at the time was still a territory attached to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, all three became stateless at the end of the First World War.
The American dream is not immediately a reality for Johnny between an abusive father, the school he has to leave prematurely and the contraction of polio. Little Johnny will manage to overcome these obstacles by swimming in the cold waters of Lake Michigan.
Movement constitutes me. Water is my country. Adrenaline my drug. After the races, the public is jubilant. Each competition is a kind of huge party.
Having become a swimming champion who, according to documents, never lost a race, Johnny Weissmuller won several gold medals at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, defeating the Duke, a true living legend. Having become the country’s greatest champion, Johnny will move from the pools to the screen, to play Tarzan, hero of the novels by author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The swimmer is as comfortable in front of the cameras as in the fluids.
>> To listen, interview with Frédéric Rossignol on his book “Johnny Johnny”:
Tarzan embodies the myth of freedom. He is free from any influence. Beyond aesthetics, despite himself, he offers a renewed approach to immanence. I don’t understand everything, but in any case Burroughs is a genius
From light to darkness
Far preferring pleasures to administrative paperwork, Johnny Weissmuller leaves to others the task of supervising and deciding on his career, his contracts and his married life. Divorces, excesses, doping substances, alcohol mark a life dictated by carelessness, but also friendship: that with the actors Errol Flynn and John Wayne, who also intervenes personally to get Johnny out of a chaotic stay in hospital psychiatric.
With “Johnny Johnny”, Frédéric Rossignol was able to transcribe with the enthusiasm of a simple language, sometimes in rhyme, the urgency of this America which sought to build a mythology for itself and of which Hollywood was the superhero factory.
Ellen Ichters/sc
Frédéric Rossignol, “Johnny Johnny”, ed. Arléa, March 2024.
Do you like to read? Subscribe to QWERTZ and receive every Friday this newsletter dedicated to book news prepared by RTS Culture.
