Las Vegan lord of the jungle

 

Denny Miller is a card-carrying PTA member.

No, not that PTA.

After all, he just turned 73, his son and daughter are grown and he has one granddaughter. (To say nothing of his wife Nancy’s eight grandsons.)

No, the PTA Miller belongs to is a far more exclusive organization: the Past Tarzans Association, restricted to those mighty few who have played the Lord of the Jungle onscreen.

Miller’s PTA may be a figment of his fertile imagination — "I made that up," he confesses with a grin — but his portrayal of the jungle swinger in 1959’s "Tarzan, the Ape Man" assures him a permanent place in cinematic history.

Yet Tarzan is hardly the only instantly recognizable character Miller, who has lived in Las Vegas almost five years, has portrayed during his five decades in showbiz.

He traded Tarzan’s loincloth for a cowboy hat as scout Duke Shannon on TV’s long-running "Wagon Train" series.

The strapping, 6-foot-3 Miller also played Superman in a series of Army recruiting spots and spoofed his Tarzan past as Tongo the Ape Man on "Gilligan’s Island."

Miller also spent 14 years pitching frozen seafood as the Gorton’s fisherman. (When Gorton’s hired him, the company’s packaging featured a clean-shaven fisherman, but that changed when Miller declined to shave his beard.)

These days, Miller still has his whiskers, now a Santa Claus-worthy white, along with his muscular 215-pound physique. (The weight room in his garage has a sign proclaiming it "Miller’s Body Shop.") And he retains the sense of humor that has helped him survive the showbiz jungle.

He was cast in a European coffee commercial, he recalls, "because I Iooked like the guy that started the company. He’d been dead for 200 years. Now that is real acting talent!"

Then again, Miller never intended to be an actor. He originally wanted to be a basketball coach although, in retrospect, Miller counts himself lucky he never reached that goal.

"If I had been a coach, I would have had a stroke — or a heart attack," he says. "Every time I watch (a game), I see the veins sticking out of my neck" while "screaming and yelling at my cohorts."

Yet he sees parallels between acting and athletics, because both depend on teamwork.

"Acting is a team sport," Miller says. "I think that’s why so many athletes end up doing well" in show business, he adds, citing examples from John Wayne to Tarzan predecessor Johnny Weismuller. "Even if you’re doing a monologue onstage, if you’re not coordinating with the guy running the spotlight, you’re in the dark."

As a college student at the University of California, Los Angeles, Miller played basketball for one of the greatest coaches in the sport’s history: John Wooden.

The self-deprecating Miller attributes his presence on the team to the fact he was dating Wooden’s daughter at the time — and, by putting Miller on the team, Coach Wooden could keep an eye on him.

But Miller’s hoops prowess was genuine, says teammate Denny Crum, who went on to become a legendary college basketball coach himself at the University of Louisville.

"He was a good player — probably the last of the two-handed shooters," says Crum, who now hosts a weekday radio show in Louisville.

Miller always did a lot of weight training, Crum recalls. "He looked great as Tarzan."

Crum and Miller were teammates for one year. That’s because the muscular Miller, working as a mover during summer vacation, caught the eye of a talent agent and wound up playing the title role in a remake of "Tarzan, the Ape Man."

As the previews proclaimed: "Denny Miller! MGM’s sensational new young star! His exploits of daring a challenge to the taboos of a forbidden land!"

Instead of exotic Africa or Asia, however, Miller found himself on MGM’s back lot, riding elephants, wrestling with rubber alligators and stuffed leopards, palling around with a chimpanzee and attempting to perfect Tarzan’s trademark jungle call. (He never did, sounding so much like "a wounded yak" that MGM used the same yell audiences heard in Weismuller’s movies.)

The studio had the rights for three Tarzan movies, "but the one I did was so bad they didn’t do the other two," Miller says, chuckling.

Even so, Miller likens his Tarzan tenure to "being in a circus," responding to directions from "go ride that elephant" to "go swing on that vine."

All these years later, Miller returns to the jungle for the annual Tarzan Dum-Dum gatherings, named for the sound of the thundering drums that always alerted Tarzan to trouble.

Miller will be a guest of honor at August’s Dum-Dum in Louisville.

"I asked him specifically because he’s such a nice person," explains George McWhorter, curator of the Burroughs Memorial Collection, which is devoted to the works of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, at the University of Louisville library.

By contrast, McWhorter "had to go through agents" to contact some other ex-Tarzans — who never responded.

"Most of ’em don’t want to have anything to do with" the role, he says. "Denny is very pro-fan. He takes time with anyone that approaches him." (With the recent deaths of 79-year-old Gordon Scott and 100-year-old Herman Brix, who later changed his name to Bruce Bennett, Miller is now the oldest surviving big-screen Tarzan.)

In Miller’s view, every autograph request or comment from a fan represents "delayed applause."

In addition to science fiction conventions where Miller embraces his Tarzan past — along with roles in 1983’s "V" miniseries and a guest appearance on the original "Battlestar Galactica" in 1978 — Miller rides the range at various Western festivals, recalling his "Wagon Train" years. (During his "Wagon Train" run, his billing evolved from Denny Miller to Denny Scott Miller to Scott Miller, which inspires an amusing chapter in his 2004 memoir "Didn’t You Used To Be What’s His Name?")

Miller’s "Wagon Train" tenure brought him into contact with a host of Hollywood legends, from Barbara Stanwyck to Robert Ryan to Bette Davis. The latter shook him up when she responded to the way he delivered a line by complaining to the director, " ‘Is he going to say it like that?’ " Miller recalls, ably mimicking Davis.

(Miller had better rapport with another screen queen, Katharine Hepburn, who demanded that he and his brother, Kent, teach her to bodysurf in Malibu during their college years. They tried to, anyway. "We almost killed her," Miller says, then launches a Hepburn imitation, quoting her as saying, " ‘I must have done something terribly wrong.’ ")

When Miller joined "Wagon Train," he was so overcome by nerves that he was in danger of losing his job — until series star Ward Bond (who died soon afterward) intervened, urging studio officials to give the kid another chance.

"I’ve always been thankful," says Miller, who learned more working each week with his veteran co-stars than he did during lessons as an MGM contract player.

Miller cemented his Western identity on the big screen, playing cowboy star "Wyoming Bill" Kelso in the 1968 Peter Sellers comedy "The Party" — and reveling in the chance to share scenes with a genuine comic genius.

Sellers and his "Pink Panther" collaborator, writer-director Blake Edwards, threw out the script and essentially improvised the movie, Miller remembers. "It was so fun — 12 weeks of delight."

As testament to his affection for "The Party," a mirror from the set hangs in Miller’s living room. And Wyoming Bill’s gaudy Western tuxedo — complete with embroidered longhorn steers and his name emblazoned on the back — recently returned from a roundup at the Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas devoted to cowboy heroes.

Miller’s movie career includes turns opposite Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte (1972’s "Buck and the Preacher") and Charles Bronson (1980’s "Caboblanco").

He also carved out a successful television career, from a role as Juliet Prowse’s husband in the short-lived 1965 sitcom "Mona McCluskey" — she’s a movie star, he’s an Air Force sergeant, they’re trying to survive on his measly salary — to guest appearances on such series as "Gunsmoke," "Charlie’s Angels," "M*A*S*H," "Murder, She Wrote," "Dallas," "I Dream of Jeannie," "The Rockford Files," "Magnum, P.I." and even "Vega$."

One of the most memorable, in Miller’s view: an "Incredible Hulk" guest shot in which he plays a paraplegic who tells hospitalized David Banner (series star Bill Bixby), "Just ’cause you can’t walk, life doesn’t stop — it just changes. How it changes is up to you."

Because of his imposing physique, Miller frequently found himself cast in comic roles — "I could be a buffoon or a big jerk on ‘The Brady Bunch’ " — or as a villainous thug destined to be beaten up by the tough-guy star.

"When getting so many violent parts, my responsibility as an actor was to make violence so ugly, so horrific that no one (watching) would ever want to go there," Miller explains.

With a physical education degree from UCLA — and a father who was a physical education professor and member of presidential youth fitness advisory committees — Miller retains a, well, healthy interest in staying in shape. He often prefaces his autographs with the phrase "Stay well …" and has taught fitness and relaxation. (He’s scheduled to teach a relaxation course at the Community College of Southern Nevada in July.)

All of which explains the fitness focus of Miller’s second book, which addresses America’s obesity epidemic, "Toxic Waist: Get to Know Sweat!" (To Health With You Publishers, 2006).

Yet, despite his robust build, Miller found himself battling clinical depression several years ago.

"It happened overnight," Miller recalls, noting that "I had nothing to be sad or feel depressed about." Ultimately, medication — and Nancy’s support — helped him overcome his bout with depression, but "it took me two years to come out of it," he says.

These days, it’s difficult to imagine the affable Miller as anything but easygoing.

"He’s about as easy to get along with and talk to as anyone I’ve ever met," classmate Crum says. "I’m happy we’ve been able to keep in touch."

Miller doesn’t work much these days, having hung up his Gorton’s slicker after 14 years. (Previously, he spent 10 years as the brawny image of Brawny paper towels.)

He speaks admiringly of such actors as Tom Hanks or Clint Eastwood, who can "pick and choose" what they do.

Asked if he regrets never reaching that rarefied level, Miller flashes a quick, only slightly rueful smile.

"I didn’t turn green," he maintains. "Well, maybe pale green. I don’t think I ever turned down a job — I was excited I was working."