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Cinema simians

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Hollywood has long gone ape over apes. From the “Tarzan” movies to “Planet of the Apes” to this summer’s “Speed Racer,” simians have played an important part in cinema. And 20th Century Fox is going bananas for chimps with the new computer-animated family film “Space Chimps,” which revolves around Ham III, the grandson of the first chimp in space, who must follow a $5-billion NASA probe that has disappeared into an intergalactic wormhole.

For every special effects-created or animated ape, real primates have been called into action to play opposite human stars. And just as with numerous non-primate stars, life in Hollywood for a simian actor isn’t all sunshine and lollipops.

Here’s a look at apes — both real and created — and their movies over the years: