His father had been a major in the Union army during the Civil War. Edgar Rice Burroughs attended the Brown School then, due to a diphtheria epidemic, Miss Coolie's Maplehurst School for Girls, then the Harvard School, Phillips Andover and the Michigan Military Academy. He was a mediocre student and flunked his examination for West Point. He worked a variety of jobs all over the country: a cowboy in Idaho, a gold miner in Oregon, a railroad policeman in Utah, a department manager for Sears Roebuck in Chicago. He published "A Princess of Mars" under the title "Under the Moons of Mars" in six parts between February and July of 1912. The same "All-Story Magazine" put out his immediately successful "Tarzan of the Apes" in October of that year. Two years later the hardback book appeared, and on January 27, 1918, the movie opened on Broadway starring Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. It was one of the first movies to gross over $1,000,000. Burroughs was able to move his family to the San Fernando Valley in 1919, converting a huge estate into Tarzana Ranch. He was in Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 and remained in Hawaii as a war correspondent. Afterward he returned home with a heart condition. On March 19, 1950, alone in his home after reading the Sunday comics in bed, he died. By then he had written 91 novels, 26 of which were about Tarzan. The man whose books have sold hundreds of millions of copies in over thirty languages once said "I write to escape ... to escape poverty".
Recent movies
| # | Name | Character | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Legend of Tarzan (2016) | Director / Writer | 6.5 |
| 2 | Tarzan (2013) | Director / Writer | 5.8 |
| 3 | John Carter (2012) | Director / Writer | 6.8 |
| 4 | The Land That Time Forgot (2009) | Director / Writer | 7 |
| 5 | Princess of Mars (2009) | Director / Writer | 7 |
| 6 | Tarzan II (2005) | Director / Writer | 5.8 |
| 7 | Tarzan & Jane (2002) | Director / Writer | 5.5 |
| 8 | Tarzan (1999) Oscars 2000 | Director / Writer | 7.2 |
| 9 | Tarzan and the Lost City (1998) | Director / Writer | 4 |
| 10 | Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) | Director / Writer | 7.2 |
| 11 | Tarzan the Ape Man (1981) | Director / Writer | 1 |
| 12 | The People That Time Forgot (1977) | Director / Writer | - |
| 13 | At the Earth's Core (1976) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 14 | The Land That Time Forgot (1974) | Director / Writer | 4.5 |
| 15 | Tarzan Goes to India (1962) | Director / Writer | 5 |
| 16 | Tarzan the Magnificent (1960) | Director / Writer | 5 |
| 17 | Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 18 | Tarzan and the Trappers (1958) | Director / Writer | 5 |
| 19 | Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (1955) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 20 | Tarzan's Peril (1951) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 21 | Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 22 | Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 23 | Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 24 | Tarzan and the Amazons (1945) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 25 | Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 26 | Tarzan Triumphs (1943) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 27 | Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) | Director / Writer | 7 |
| 28 | Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) | Director / Writer | 4.5 |
| 29 | Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) | Director / Writer | 7 |
| 30 | Tarzan Escapes (1936) | Director / Writer | 8 |
| 31 | The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) | Director / Writer | 5 |
| 32 | The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) | Director / Writer | 4 |
| 33 | Tarzan and His Mate (1934) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 34 | Tarzan the Fearless (1933) | Director / Writer | 6 |
| 35 | Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) | Director / Writer | 8 |
| 36 | Tarzan of the Apes (1918) | Director / Writer | 5 |
