Cheetah, the chimp from the Tarzan movies, has passed away at the age of eighty…or so some say. Me, I'm skeptical. First off, there was more than one simian in the role and at least one or two have died before. Secondly, eighty is really, really old for a chimpanzee. It's old for a person too unless you're Abe Vigoda but it's really old for a chimp. Thirdly and by no means lastly, if you had an old chimp in captivity, might there not be a strong temptation to increase its value or attention by claiming it was Cheetah as opposed to some no-name ape?
Not to compare animals to child actors — though W.C. Fields often did — but there was once a widespread practice of folks lying and saying they had been kid players in the old Our Gang comedies. Until there was a book in print that documented who the players in those films actually were, this country was littered with frauds who claimed to have been Buckwheat or Porky or some character no one ever heard of. How could there not be some Cheetah impersonators out there? This article expounds on the suspicions.
Meanwhile, Paul Castiglia writes…
What do you think – will Cheetah make it into the "those we lost in 2011" Oscar montage?
Personally I think Cheetah is worthy of making it into the montage but I understand that by doing so the Academy opens themselves up to more criticism than usual for the (human) folks they'll inevitably leave out (as they do annually).
Yeah, that's it. Every year, the Academy receives angry or tearful letters and phone calls from folks whose recently-departed loved ones didn't get into the montage. In fact, I'm told some have proposed dumping the "In Memoriam" reel altogether because of that, though it'll probably remain. Still, how would you like to be the person who has to explain to some crying widow on the phone why a chimpanzee got in but her late husband didn't?
And they really don't want to get calls from people saying, "That's not the real Cheetah! I own [or more likely, owned] the real Cheetah!" I would think that controversy plus the other concern would freeze this alleged Cheetah out of the running.
Still, it would not surprise me if Oscar host Billy Crystal got some mileage out of this premise. He and his writers will probably play with it after the nominations are out and after they get finished writing the TEN song parodies he's going to have to do if he continues his tradition of singing about each film that's up for Best Picture. Remember that when he hosted in the past, there were only five nominees in that category and now there are ten. We could be there for some time.