Cheeta
Sign in to saveAlso known as Cheetah, Cheta, Chita
Cheeta (sometimes billed as Cheetah, Cheta, or Chita) is a chimpanzee character that appeared in numerous Hollywood Tarzan films of the 1930s–1960s, as well as the 1966–1968 television series, as the ape sidekick of the title character, Tarzan. Cheeta has usually been characterized as male, but sometimes as female, and has been portrayed by chimpanzees of both sexes.
Key facts
- Character.name
- Cheeta
- Character.image
- 220px
- Character.caption
- Portrait of "Cheeta" (Jiggs IV), long alleged to be the principal animal performer of the Cheeta role
- Character.first
- Tarzan the Ape Man
- Character.portrayer
- Jiggs and other animals
- Character.alias
- Cheetah, Cheta, Chita
- Character.species
- Chimpanzee
- Character.gender
- Male
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Cheeta.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Cheeta
- date of death
- 2011-12-24
- date of birth
- 1931-00-00
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Article
11 sectionsContents
- Role
- Portrayers of the character
- Tony Gentry's Cheeta hoax
- Gentry's allegations
- Later life of Cheeta/Jiggs IV as a celebrity
- Honors
- Influences
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Cheeta (sometimes billed as Cheetah, Cheta, or Chita) is a chimpanzee character that appeared in numerous Hollywood Tarzan films of the 1930s–1960s, as well as the 1966–1968 television series, as the ape sidekick of the title character, Tarzan. Cheeta has usually been characterized as male, but sometimes as female, and has been portrayed by chimpanzees of both sexes.
While the character of Cheeta is inextricably associated in the public mind with Tarzan, no chimpanzees appear in the original Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs that inspired the films. The closest analog to Cheeta in the Burroughs novels is Tarzan's monkey companion Nkima, who appears in several of the later books in the series.