Gordon Griffith

Biography

Before Elmo Lincoln ever let out the famous yell, a barefoot, sun-browned ten-year-old swung naked through the African canopy—Gordon Griffith, the movies’ first Lord of the Apes, trading lines with genuine chimpanzees while Lincoln later wrestled stuntmen in rented gorilla skins. Griffith had already clocked four years in front of the camera by then, clowning opposite Charlie Chaplin in five brisk one-reelers. After *Tarzan of the Apes* (1918) opened with its boy-hero prologue, he kept the jungle spirit alive as Tarzan’s own son, then whitewashed fences as Tom Sawyer and squeezed in a handful of other kid roles before the studio outgrew him. Adulthood swapped the spotlight for a clipboard. He stepped behind the camera at Monogram, rose through Robert Sherwood and Gregory Ratoff units, and by 1941 was running the back lot as Columbia Pictures’ production manager. Later he signed off on RKO’s *Never Wave at a WAC* and United Artists’ *Monsoon*, trading vine swings for budgets and schedules. When the final reel rolled, he left the jungle, the studios, and one surviving sister behind.