Camp Meenahga / Buster Crabbe Timeline:

Timeline coming soon.

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Who was Buster Crabbe:

Buster Crabbe graduated from the University of Southern California. In 1931, while working on That's My Boy (1932) for Columbia, he was tested by MGM for Tarzan and rejected. Paramount put him in King of the Jungle (1933) as Kaspa, the Lion Man (after a book of that title but clearly a copy of the Tarzan stories). Publicity for this film emphasized his having won the 1932 Olympic 400-meter freestyle swimming championship and suggested a rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller. Producer Sol Lesser wanted Crabbe for an independent Tarzan the Fearless (1933), though he first had to get James Pierce to waive rights to the part already promised to him by his father-in-law, Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was released as both a feature and a serial; most houses showed only the first serial episode, which critics panned as a badly organized feature. Just prior to the film's release Crabbe married his college sweetheart and gave himself one year to either make it as an actor or start law school at USC. Paramount put him in a number of Zane Grey westerns, then Universal gave him the lead him in very successful sci-fi serials (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers) from 1936-40. In 1940 he began a string of Billy the Kid westerns for low-budget (VERY low-budget) studio PRC. After World War II he acted only occasionally, devoting much of his time to his swimming pool corporation and operation of a boys' camp in New York. (Courtesy of http://www.imdb.com)

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Photos of Buster Crabbe:

Buster Crabbe

Buster Crabbe in Tarzan Comic

Buster Crabbe in Flash Gordon Comic

Buster Crabbe as "The Oil Raider"

Buster Crabbe and Horse

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Video of Buster Crabbe:

Video Clip as Buster Crabbe in "Tarzan The Fearless" (1:17 with sound)

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