Customer Reviews

Me Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Septuagenarian Cheeta of Tarzan fame is proud of his film résumé. Before becoming Weissmuller's sidekick in 1934, he was captured two years earlier in the Liberian jungle and brought to Hollywood under the name Jiggs. After performing in eleven Tarzan movies as Cheeta, he was considered too old so he was forced into retirement. He came out of the rest home for retired acting chimps to make one film in the 1960s in Doctor Doolittle (Harrison not Murphy). Still alive and residing in Creative Habitats and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes (C.H.E.E.T.A.) in Palm Springs, California, he provides his unique perspective of Hollywood.

This is a unique autobiographical fiction in that it is "written" by a chimp who tells his story in Hollywood. Cheeta provides an insider look at some of the great names especially in the 1930s and 1940s like Gable, Bogart, Rooney, and of course his sidekick Johnny Weissmuller. Although there is little about the life of an animal star in spite of the author, fans will enjoy the latest Hollywood exposé as Cheeta tells about his co-stars' monkey business as the likes of Natalie Wood and Victor Mature agreeing he was a better kisser than James Dean.

Harriet Klausner

This is a brilliant parody of a Hollywood memoir. Some critics (Ha! Critics, what do they know?) have complained that it is done by a ghost writer after only half an hour of face time with the star and a few afternoons of googling. So what? So normal Hollywood memoirs are different? Get real. This has the real gamey flavour of authentic chimpanzee.

Cheeta the chimpanzee (or Cheater, or Jiggs as also known) was a star in the golden age of Tarzan, and hung out with everyone that mattered, Sure, we've forgotten most of them, but they're still on daytime TV, and at Christmas. OK, Cheeta did not know the real alpha males, the studio bosses who controlled the stars, but he was privy to some entertaining stuff and some real stars whose name I've forgotten. Maybe he drank a bit, maybe he smoked a bit, maybe he bit a bit (I particularly liked the story about how he bit the ass of the adulterous wife of his star-hero and blamed it on the dog) but hey... that's Hollywood.

The critics should lighten up, and light up a stogie for Cheets (now in his record-breaking 78th year and dying for a smoke). And just because the ghost is a Brit (and he can get some grammatical French in: "Le tout Hollywood was..." Ya what?) some critics have suggested it's not true. Well, it's been checked by the lawyers, and the absence of chapter 8 proves... well nothing much. But cheer up, after this memoir, which dishes the dirt in bucket loads (and that's the selling point, isn't it?) who needs another celebrity autobiography ever again?

I look forward to the author's new projects on... what Checkers thought of being dragged into a TV studio (all that panting under the lights, all those ice cubes) what the asp thought about Cleopatra ("I was going for her nose, not her tits, I swear") and a guide to Crete by the Minotaur.

I thought this one of the most entertaining books about Hollywood I've ever read (and I've read tons). I particularly love the proverbial Golden Age of Hollywood and its characters and thought this a highly original approach. It's poignant, too, and highlights fragile thespian egos and movie star fears. I read it and then watched the Tarzan movies with Cheetah and then read it again. I guarantee you'll pant-hoot.
Highly, highly recommended!!!!!

Hmm, what to make of this memoir "written" by Cheeta the chimpanzee, sidekick to Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan movies and purportedly the world's oldest chimp? (The real author is British writer James Lever.) Well, it's a spoof, of course, a profane, funny send-up of those tell-all biographies and autobiographies of thirties Hollywood stars. And the stars are all in "Me, Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood"; most of what Cheeta has to say about each of them is delectably wicked. On a more serious note, Cheeta's love for his co-star Weissmuller, the handsome, much-married Olympic swimmer, is a kind of meditation on the relationship between humans and the intelligent animals that serve them---and abandon them, often enough. Cheeta's voice, as you read along, has a kind of Doctor Doolittle effect; it seems he IS talking to you. Occasionally I'd glance over at my Labrador retriever and wonder what HE was thinking about ME.

Okay, okay, I admit that the effect of this novel is a bit strange. It's too long by a third, too, and I found that I couldn't read more than thirty pages at a time before I had to take a break. The voice of a nicotine-addicted, tequila (and etc.)-swilling chimpanzee can only be taken in small doses, like reading "People" magazine in the dentist's waiting room. Oh, and the whole premise of the novel--that Cheeta arrived here from Africa in the thirties, starred in all the Tarzan films, and now lives in Palm Springs, retired and having exceeded the usual chimpanzee lifespan by 25 years--is evidently completely bogus. (See the writer R.D. Rosen in "The Washington Post" on this.) It doesn't matter. Enjoy Cheeta's gossip and his perspective on the "omnicidal" humans he adores, when he's not revealing all their secrets. It all got him onto the 2009 Man Booker long list.

I have no interest in chimps nor a particular love of Tarzan, but I am a fan of vintage Hollywood and picked this up on a friend's recommendation. It's the first book I've read in ages that made me laugh out loud. Those looking for a 'true' biography of this animal will be disappointed, but the average reader will be overjoyed by the creative license taken by the author. He has turned Cheetah into an outrageously behaved, sardonic and outspoken Hollywood 'actor' with some serious personal issues. The writer has a truly unique turn of phrase. I've done a bit of digging and found out the author is named novelist James Lever, who himself was parodied in a novel last year 'Choking on Marlon Brando' by his then girlfriend author Antonia Quirke. I followed up on this book (also a funny read) and it seems there's a lot of similarity between the man and chimp....

If you liked this book, you'll love TARZAN, MY FATHER by the late Johnny Weissmuller, Jr. with William Reed and W. Craig Reed. Me Cheeta presents a "familiar" story, but from the monkey's point of view. Amusing, yes, but not as interesting as from the only son of Weissmuller. If Cheeta was such a friend to Weissmuller, one might ask why the little chimp decided to take his mentor's book and pen it as his own? One might ask. Given the obvious source of the material presented, I had to give this book four stars.

--W. Craig Reed, co-author of TARZAN, MY FATHER, author of the thriller DNA and RED NOVEMBER, Behind the Secret U.S. - Soviet Underwater War coming from HarperCollins in 2010.

I found the premise irresistible.Cheeta , the oldest chimp in the world , who also happens to be a great star, tells his story. The rumor about Delores Del Rio is untrue!The book is humorous if not hysterically funny.Cheeta has been through a lot.He's survived alcohol , tobacco and even a flirtation with cocaine.Children - numerous and unknown.He knows how humans taste and Maureen O'Hara was the worst. Johnny Weissmuller was a god.Lupe Velez, well what could be done?What could top a day out with Johnny and Niv? Silly, definitely !However, the thought of Tarzan in New York still makes me smile.Cheeta was a real star.I would much rather see him than Brad Pitt.He is right to point out what a trailblazer he was.He had an eloquence that was beyond words. He will never die and if you hear the contrary , it's a lie.They don't make them like this anymore.

I was (honest to God born in a movie studio) and thought I had an insider view of Tinsel Town growing up. Boy, did I learn shocking new things from Cheeta's experiences away from the camera! Had he had time during Hollywood's hey days he could have been another Hedda or Louella (but, of course, censorship existed in those ancient days) and he wouldn't have been able to tell us what Clark did to.....oopps, there are other sites which could better describe the kind of activity Cheeta was exposed to.

This mad monkey's adventures will have you laughing, churn up your nostalgia factor to a straspheric level and you'll want to immediately add the early Tarzan films on your Netflix list (which I did - and they were really damned good flicks - not Saturday matinee fodder).

Yes, Cheeta reveals his true feelings about Jane (and they rhyme with the word itch) and asks the questions, "Am I not Tarzan's real son - not that snotty little Johnny Shefield?"

This funny little book will please anybody who always wanted Cheeta as their personal pet (he could have been an X-Rated one on occasion when your Aunt Ida was visiting). Great for movie buffs or National Inquirer readers who wants the low down on the real monkey business that went on in Hollywood way back then.

Of course this is a parody, probably not written by the chimp himself, do you think? There is a serious side to this book, it speaks very profoundly to the despicable treatment of animals in Hollywood and by humans in general. The tendency of our society to anthropomorphize animals in order to make them 'manageable' is also the sly underlying theme. However, that said, it is immensely entertaining to all of us who have read the more traditional eulogistic star biographies and long for some dirt. I do think a little judicious editing could have been applied, especially in the earlier chapters. Overall, however, it is a highly original, funny and even anthropologically legitimate book - a must for animal and old Hollywood people.

Interesting book. Not quite believable auto-biography of America's number one Chimp. Great Hollywood fables told through the eyes of "The Chimp on the Wall". Cheeta was truly one of my favorite childhood actors, and of course from my generation, Tarzan was one of the great heroes! I love the inside tales of how the people REALLY were, and who was good to a Chimp, and who wasn't. At 76, maybe Cheeta really DID type this whole "tell-all", Hell, if anyone could manage it, she is for sure the Alpha female of all Chimps anywhere, so all I can say is, "Rock on Cheeta!!"