He is not yet the king of the jungle, but in this year 1924, he is undoubtedly the king of the Games. In the swimming events “Johnny” Weissmuller won four medals for the United States. Gold over 100 meters, over 400 meters and in the 4 × 200 meters relay; and a bronze medal in water polo. The public is seduced by this breathtaking colossus of 1.90m, the first to go under the minute for the 100m and who swims the front crawl with his head above water.
The end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
But beneath the triumph and sporting ease, the worry of a secret, which bears witness to the upheavals of History. Born János Peter Weissmuller in 1904 in Freidorf, a district of present-day Timisoara (Romania), into a family of Banat Swabians, Johnny became stateless during the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of the entire Weissmuller family who emigrated to the United States, only his younger brother, born in Pennsylvania, has American citizenship.
Impossible for the athlete to participate in the Olympic Games without valid identity papers. With the complicity of his mother, Elizabeth, he will therefore exchange his identity with that of his brother, Petrus or “Pete”.
In his memoirs, Tarzan, my father, Johnny Weissmuller Junior recounts how a baptismal certificate was even strangely altered, with the first name “John” inserted with different ink and writing just after “Petrus”. Relatives and friends will keep the truth to themselves and Uncle Pete will forever take the official place of the older brother, “of Romanian origin” and who will later be naturalized.
The inaugural cheating will not be without consequences, however. Despite his sporting and later cinematic successes, Weissmuller never left feeling uneasy. Fear of medals being withdrawn, of social shame; the colossus with the identity of clay will take his secret to the grave.
