Me Cheeta

by Cheeta

  The Boy picked up on it, too. In the year and a half since Tarzan Finds a Son! he had developed into a strolling braggart and lout, clattering with laughter as he beaned the occasional curious hyena or demoralized leopard with a stone from his sling. It wasn’t even realistic. What kind of human was deliberately cruel to innocent animals? You’re just not like that. “Got him, right on the nose!” he crowed, brushing aside my protests. “Aah, don’ worry, Cheedah, he had it comin’ ta him. He’s always makin’ trouble!” The elephant calf he’d enslaved he actually called Bully.

  And there was an even greater worry, although it was uncommented upon by the rest of the zombified jungle family: Emma had disappeared. Exhausted, perhaps, by years of mindlessly tugging Jane’s elevator up and down. Or had Metro waited until it was expedient and canceled her contract because of the altercation with her trainer? The alphas never forgot. Whatever had happened, nobody (except Johnny, whom I’d heard asking) referred to her absence, because nobody liked to conjure up failure’s specter in Hollywood. Once you were out, to all intents and purposes you were dead: yet another pile of bleached tusks and ribs in the Graveyard.

  It was all making me extremely nervous. No love; no fun; animals being bullied by a brat; whole reels devoted to lunch; swashbuckling washing-up sequences and a browbeaten serf-monkey suffering continual abuse. A dreamer such as myself, I like to think, has a natural grasp of what his audience wants, and I didn’t believe that this was what the American public was after. I mean, who wants to see a noble human, the very image of a God, who has lived for an untold period at peace among the beasts of the forest, cast out of paradise because of his wife’s inability to resist the lure of “improvements”? A downer of a story like that—it’s not what people want to hear. Since the early thirties Johnny and Maureen’s fan mail had declined, I knew. I assumed mine was holding steady, or was at least still more than Rex the Wonder Dog’s cutoff point. But it was a serious situation: Tarzan Finds a Son!, with its tragic ending, had been released in certain dream-palaces as a second feature.

  Well, I have a motivational dream that still taps on the mesh of my consciousness once a year or so, a little more frequently recently, I’ve noticed. I’m working in the medical research center and my fellow interns are all sitting across from me: the hairless one, the one that can’t breathe, the white-eyed macaques, the dogs that Errol couldn’t save, Emma, Gary, Otto—and one of them will open its mouth and out’ll come the little voice: Survive, survive, survive. My pep-talk dream, as I like to think of it! At the time I was having that dream almost nightly. Because at the rate things were going I wasn’t going to be around much longer. “Oh, Tarzan,” she would say one day soon, “Cheeta’s broken the fondue set again. Every week it’s something else. Don’t you think it’s time that we, you know… ?” Survive, survive, survive …

  Fight back.

  I found my inspiration when rummaging through the safari bag of one of our visitors, Mr. O’Doul (Barry Fitzgerald). It was a bottle of whiskey, the first alcohol the escarpment had ever seen. I thought, If I’m to be ridiculed as Jane’s “naughty” monkey then why shouldn’t I give ’em the real naughty Cheeta? The one Kay Francis once fondly described as “the most fun I’ve had since my mother died. Thanks for a delightful evening, Johnny!” as she picked out the ice cubes I’d popped down her cleavage? Cheeta, you’ve had enough grapes! It couldn’t go on. Let Jane do her worst, let’s at least have a little fun around here. Let’s at least put some of the joy back into the jungle. Let’s have a laugh. I’d picked up a few giggles here and there before, but essentially I was a heroic figure: a noble rescuer, a saver of days with a humorous edge. Comedy-thriller work, with the emphasis on “thriller.” Fuck it, I thought—tossing the cap in the undergrowth, unaware that I was making one of the crucial artistic decisions of my career, I’ll just be myself.

  Of course (you’re way ahead of me), I’m talking about Tarzan’s Secret Treasure’s seminal “Drunk/Postage-Stamps-On-Foot-Then-Hand” sequence. Opinion in the profession is divided as to whether you ought to be drunk in order to play drunk. Personally, I don’t think you can give of your best if you’re not sober—the bottle you see on screen was actually full of cold tea (I’d already finished the whiskey)—and so I was pleasantly surprised by how well the scene turned out, considering how unbelievably drunk I was. Four minutes and thirty-two seconds of pure magic, for which I’d like to thank my old teacher, Mr. Gately, who was tireless in helping me focus throughout an arduous day’s shooting.

  It’s been argued that my work in this scene and in the dreams that followed was the single biggest cause of, or influence on, the boom in chimpanzee-related entertainment that adorned Western culture from the late forties through to the end of the century. J. Fred Muggs of the Today show, the Marquis Chimps and their marvelous swing band, Zippy the chimp from Howdy Doody, Liberchimpski, that amusing pianist, Lancelot Link the Secret Chimp, the special agent: I’m told that my pioneering mid-period comic work opened the doors for all these stars and many more. You can imagine how proud that makes me feel. To have contributed, if only in a small way … it’s not something I like to talk about. Rather, I think I’ll take a leaf out of Henry Trefflich’s book. Here’s a man who, if you remember, was so dedicated to the Project that he personally helped rehabilitate nearly a million and a half macaque monkeys. Yet over the course of his whole autobiography he mentions it, glancingly, only once! That’s modesty. But I’m not quite a Trefflich and I don’t think I can resist quoting a few of my notices.

  At this point I ought to come clean. I know all this stuff because Don bought a bunch of old movie magazines at a collectors’ fair, photocopied selected parts from the reviews and then had the whole thing framed. Not in the john, either. It’s in the den, propped on a table in the Memorabilia Corner. Anyway:

  New York Times:“… comic relief provided by Cheta, the Martha Raye of chimpanzees, who would tear herself into little bits to give you a laugh, and whose wild and Corybantic cacchination at opportune moments is a joy and an affront to hear.”

  Toronto Star:“Cheta the chimp steals the show every time she’s around.”

  Hollywood Film Daily:“… comedy antics of the pet simian Cheta help somewhat with elemental laughs.”

  Motion Picture Herald:“The most interesting of the performers is probably the chimpanzee, who seems to be forever laughing at her human companions.”

  Variety:“This addition to the series is in the groove for juves at least, due to the extraordinary amount of footage the director gave and the cutter permitted to remain to the antics of the trained chimp… quite enjoyable.”

  The critics were unanimous. As an actor, it was the new direction I’d been searching for since Tarzan Escapes. But, most importantly, it wrong-footed Jane. She’d be shouting, “Cheeta, stop that! Don’t you dare!” and behind the cameras you’d hear, “Keep rolling. Keep him going, Gately. L.B. wants more of the chimp. Gonna be a long day, Maureen.” Ah, sweet vindication. You want me to stop? Well, L.B. doesn’t. I was mocking her cherished “civilization” openly and the preview cards were saying they liked it. The cards were saying, “It was good when Cheta had the whiskey and fell over. Fun-nee!” and “It was exiting but it was boring sometimes but it was funny with the bit with the Chita” and “Monkey was best actor in it.” Why, I was keeping us alive! By the time of the late masterpiece Cheeta Engages Jane the Betrayer in a Final Battle for Tarzan’s Soul, or, as it was disappointingly titled for the theatrical release, Tarzan’s New York Adventure, I was pretty much carrying the whole thing.

  None of which made the slightest bit of difference to what was happening at Rockingham Avenue. I would never in a million years have dreamed of interfering between Johnny and one of his lifetime mates. He’d made his commitment to Beryl in the form of little Johnny and now another baby called Wendy, and he didn’t want to walk out on what he’d built. I absolutely respected that. But he wasn’t happy. And this meant that things were very difficult, sin
ce Beryl had made it clear on my first visit to the mansion that I was there on sufferance. Like the original Jane, she was implacably opposed to the animal kingdom. The mansion was full of mouse- and rat-traps; the gardeners were under orders to gas all moles; there were even, dotting the flowerbeds, little traps made of half-shells of grapefruit to kill slugs. Slugs! Now, they really aren’t dangerous.

  “It may be well trained, darling, but it’s only been here ten minutes and it’s already smashed one of our best jugs,” Beryl said—true, I’d accidentally knocked over those stingers, but the Gaboni serving-girl had frightened me, “and I won’t have it running amok doing its business in the house or the garden.”

  And that was exactly what I’d been planning on doing! That was the whole point of being there, to have a little fun, a couple of drinks, walk around the terrace on my hands with a bottle between my feet, climb up the avocado trees and lob some fruit-bombs among the Gaboni gardeners… to cheer Johnny up a little, take him out of himself. But I couldn’t do that because Beryl would have me out of there the moment I showed any sign of having fun. I didn’t even smoke.

  So on my rare visits we were a subdued pairing: he flighting an infinity of white balls in somehow sadly perfect arcs toward me, and me faithfully scurrying after them with the bucket they’d come from banging painfully against my knees, putting them back so we could do it all over again. And up on the terrace the real-life Jane, visibly without a sense of humor from two hundred and fifty yards away, periodically raising her head to ascertain that I was keeping out of mischief and not defecating on her lawn. He sent the Top Flites over to me, I thought, like signals of distress. Those beautiful towering smooth arcs he made the balls describe were like a series of gorgeous vine-swings, great loops and curves that became, when they thumped onto the lawn, just a hard little white ball as disappointing as the important thing you wanted to say is when you finally remember it. Don’t look at me, I tried to communicate to him via kindly but disapproving-sounding cheeping. You were the one who married her, you idiot.

  Why had he married her? This woman who was fifteen years younger than he but was in every other respect his senior? Maybe because he wanted her to stop him being a boy. Always at heart an essentially obedient human, he could, with fatherhood, cars, mansion and bridge-playing aristocratic non-Hollywood wife, at least stage an impersonation of the prevailing version of male adulthood. Or maybe he’d only married her because Lupe had tired his heart out.

  When we’d finished with the golf, we’d usually walk down to the pool, where I’d putter around while he did his high-headed laps of breaststroke, still trying to keep himself clear of the shit. He was thirty-eight now. It was nearly a decade since we’d first met. You saw his aging in the loss of symmetry in his face, in the white untanned lines that now spoked across his sixteen-and-a-half-inch neck. He was twenty-five pounds heavier; he was no longer the most beautiful human being on Planet Earth. But as he stepped into the trousers he’d hung (along their creases—always impeccable) over a chaise, he still looked good enough, like someone who’d say, “Still good enough,” when he looked in the mirror, lying only a little with the muscles of his stomach. “OK, sport, I’ll get Pete to run you back to Metro now.” He had everything a man could want, everything, except a happy marriage.

  It could have been a paradise. I mean, I could have lived there, nested down in an avocado tree at nights, waking to an early breakfast with him on the terrace before driving down to Culver City to work on New York Adventure, which we’d gone straight into after Secret Treasure. Yes, finally Jane had had her way. The Boy had been kidnapped from the escarpment and taken to New York (a likely story: I suspected she’d arranged the whole thing herself), and at last she had the excuse she needed to take us away from the forest into “civilization.”

  Tarzan was encased in a double-breasted suit; Jane found time, despite the urgency of the hunt for her henchman, to model a succession of elegant twinsets and inexplicable headgear; I wore whatever hats or amusing garments I could lay my hands on. But how New York had changed! I’m kidding—I had been looking forward to going back there, but the whole thing was dreamed up on the soundstage at Metro. So it was under the kliegs in the studio that Jane and I finally had it out. I took heart from the memory of Kong. After all, it was in New York that he’d defeated his enemies and found peace with his beloved human.

  Greatest damn city on earth. In New York, after all the grief of the last five years, the Betrayer was revealed to be nothing more than a paper tyrant. Everywhere we went, I mocked civilization and she tried to chastise me. But the New Yorkers were wise to her. Nobody was listening. New York finished Jane.

  First thing I did in Immigration was help myself to a drink from a watercooler. I got into a bit of a tangle with the paper-cup dispenser, spilled a few of the cups, munched a few up, sprayed some water about, that sort of thing… and, of course, she was furious. “Cheeta! What are you doing? Stop that right now!” I raised my head wearily. A whole crowd of New Yorkers, however, was vigorously encouraging me to continue. Were, in fact, splitting their sides in a way I’d seldom achieved on the Beverly Hills social circuit. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she tried to apologize for me, “she gets a little… ahakhakahka… playful sometimes!” No need to apologize, sweetheart: they don’t mind.

  And then, to my surprise, poor old ball-busted Tarzan actually stepped in to defend me: “Cheeta thirsty!”

  Same story at the nightclub we visited. I started fooling around with the hatcheck girls, tossing a few hats around because I… because I like to throw hats around, that’s why, and Jane was trying to upbraid me: “Cheeta, how could you? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” But you could tell from the indulgent smiles on the faces of the citizens of the fine city of New York where their sympathies lay. You could tell they were thinking, Why’s the cool chimp hanging out with this Limey prig with the nickel up her ass? He’s a riot! Kid, ditch the broad with the phony accent and come up to the Village with us….This is why I query the title. Tarzan’s New York Adventure has an adventure tacked onto it, to do with the little bullyboy’s kidnapping, but in essence it’s one long comic showpiece for me, fooling with taxicab drivers, mugging on taxicab roofs, with gavels in courtrooms and the bell at Reception. It’s the picture by which I’ll be judged: Maureen O’Sullivan’s last Tarzan picture.

  She knew the game was up. She trailed me everywhere with injunctions and prohibitions but the power she’d wielded in the Treehouse was gone. Gately and I spent half an afternoon working on a set piece with a listening device that had the crew in stitches. “Cheeta, Cheeta, give me that telephone” (that’s the word!), “right away! Don’t you dare touch it… etc., etc., etc.” She knew she couldn’t stop me—L.B. wanted more, the fine citizens of New York wanted more, the dream-palaces of America wanted more.

  The centerpiece of the whole picture, and the fatal blow to the bitch’s credibility, was the “hotel room” sequence. “A rambunctious simian romp,” you’ll remember the New York Times described it. Perhaps, or perhaps “a clear-eyed and corrosively satirical denunciation of a tyrant” would have been more accurate. Chaplin had Hitler in The Great Dictator; I had Jane. I’ll leave you and the American Film Institute to judge which was the more successful in skewering its target, only commenting that Maureen left Metro immediately afterward, whereas I don’t really think Hitler was very bothered by Chaplin’s barbs, do you? Eh, Charles? He invaded Poland. But Maureen went into semiretirement.

  I subtly deconstructed Jane right there in the hotel room. I took the Hitler of the Jungle to pieces. I started by exposing the fact that she had, though supposedly sleepless with anxiety over the Boy, remembered to pack in her darling little traveling case several pairs of gloves, makeup, makeup remover, various nightwear and garters. Some mother! I finished by vainly prancing in front of the mirror with her stockings on my talcum-dusted head, as grotesque a satire on “refinement” and “poise” and all her fake values as I could manage. Don loves to p
lay this sequence on DVD nights, but I don’t think he grasps the savagery of the satire. Mayer did. “Rushes with chimp antics OK,” L.B. wrote, sanctioning what I was doing to his former Golden Girl.

  You see, Louis B. Mayer liked to think that he knew more about American family values than anyone in the country. He knew, just like the rest of America, and indeed the rest of humanity, what had gone wrong on the escarpment. We’d had a paradise in our grasp and in its stead she’d put labor-saving devices, table manners, dishwashing, refrigerators and elevators, overhead fans and leopard-skin interior design, materialism and denial. Mayer didn’t want American children growing up with these phony suburban values. Jane’s Reich was a lie, a fake Eden that depended on the slave labor of animals. The Happy House? Mom in her kitchen, Pop hunting and gathering from nine to five, subhuman servants knowing their place? Mayer saw it for the nightmare it was. Let it burn.

  And that was the end of one of human cinema’s great villains: Jane Parker. In the movies, of course, it usually works out in the end. Now all I had to do was get rid of the Jane on Rockingham Avenue.

  9

  New Challenges!

  You know there are slightly more tigers in America today than there are left in the wild? It should be stressed that that’s not a cause for celebration just yet: the job’s only half finished. An immense amount remains to be done, of course, and you should be proud of what’s been achieved so far. One day soon the rest of us will be able to walk, hop and scurry safely through these wonderful new tigerless—and leopardless? a personal request—forests in relative peace. And it’s win-win, isn’t it? Even the tigers reap the benefit—there are no long, hungry, bad-hunting stretches in rehab, no frightening alphas moving in on your girl. Like with polar bears and seals: good news for seals, great news for the rehoused bears, all thanks to your ingenious “global warming” idea! But making sure that no animal, anywhere, has to put up with the daily threat of death—that’s going to take a little longer.