Stellan Windrow

Born - Feb 9, 1893   |   Died - Nov 25, 1959   |  

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Biography by AllMovie

The answer to a trivia question, Stellan Windrow (born Vindruva) became film history's first Tarzan when hired by independent producer William "Smiling Bill" Parsons to play the famous jungle man in Tarzan of the Apes (1918). Windrow, however, had only finished a few tree-swinging tests when he defected to join the navy; Elmo Lincoln replaced him. A college athlete, the tall Swedish-American later worked for Paramount at Joinville outside of Paris and, later still, appeared in a couple of Swedish films, Hjärtats Röst (1930) and Den Farliga Leken (1930). He served in the American Red Cross during World War II and later worked as a magazine photographer.