Business Acumen Set Burroughs Apart

He was the antithesis of the writer as artiste.

He was the visionary prototype of the writer as entrepreneur.

In 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs tapped a mythic vein and created a character for the ages--”Tarzan of the Apes,” a well-bred English orphan raised by compassionate gorillas in Africa.

How important is the loin-clothed swinger in the pantheon of popular culture? In the view of Valley writer and Tarzanophile Harlan Ellison, the Lord of the Apes is in the top tier. “There are only five literary creations that are known by everybody in the world--Superman, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood and Mickey Mouse,” Ellison said.

But what set Burroughs apart most from other creators of immortal characters was his business acumen. In 1923, he incorporated and got trademarks on the many figments of his imagination. The result was to make Tarzan not just an icon, but a durable cash cow.

According to Danton Burroughs, the writer’s grandson and director, secretary and treasurer of the Tarzana-based company Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., “The business has been doing well ever since my grandfather incorporated.”

A live-action feature titled “Tarzan and Jane” is currently being shot in South Africa by an Australian film company. Disney is making an animated musical based on “Tarzan of the Apes,” to be released next year.

Burroughs, born in Chicago in 1875, moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1910, buying 550 acres that he dubbed Tarzana Ranch. In his view, articulated in a novel called “The Girl from Hollywood” (1923), the Valley represented all that was good and wholesome in Southern California, in contrast to big, bad Hollywood. In 1930, thanks to his leadership, Tarzana became a community with a post office of its own.

Burroughs died March 19, 1950. His ashes and those of his mother are buried beside a black walnut tree in front of the Burroughs company at 18354 Ventura Blvd.