Jiggs (chimpanzee)

Jiggs (circa 1929 – February 28, 1938) was a male chimpanzee and animal actor who originated the character of Cheeta in the 1930s Hollywood Tarzan movies. He was owned and trained by Tony and Jacqueline Gentry.

In a likely apocryphal account Jiggs was said to have been brought over from Africa by Gary Cooper, who sold him because the animal occasionally went berserk. More reliably, Jacqueline Gentry claimed to have raised and trained Jiggs from infancy. He is stated to have been brought up with a collie named Spanky and to have later refused to do any film work without the dog present. Spanky was also used to help control Jiggs on the set.

Jiggs had a seven-year film career. He appeared as Cheeta in the first two Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934). Apparently he was in the third of the series, Tarzan Escapes (1936), as well. He also appeared in the rival Buster Crabbe serial Tarzan the Fearless (1933) and the Herman Brix serial The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), also released in feature-film form as Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938). In the Brix films, which were more faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs' original stories than the Weissmuller ones, Jiggs was cast as Nkima, not Cheeta.

Jiggs was cast in at least three additional films, the Laurel and Hardy short Dirty Work (1933), the Our Gang short Divot Diggers (1936), and the Dorothy Lamour film Her Jungle Love (1938), which was his last picture.

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