Me Cheeta: The Autobiography. James Lever

This is a brilliant parody of a Hollywood memoir. Some critics (Ha! Critics, what do they know?) have complained that it is done by a ghost writer after only half an hour of face time with the star and a few afternoons of googling. So what? So normal Hollywood memoirs are different? Get real. This has the real gamey flavour of authentic chimpanzee. Cheeta the chimpanzee (or Cheater, or Jiggs as also known) was a star in the golden age of Tarzan, and hung out with everyone that mattered, Sure, we've forgotten most of them, but they're still on daytime TV, and at Christmas. OK, Cheeta did not know the real alpha males, the studio bosses who controlled the stars, but he was privy to some entertaining stuff and some real stars whose name I've forgotten. Maybe he drank a bit, maybe he smoked a bit, maybe he bit a bit (I particularly liked the story about how he bit the ass of the adulterous wife of his star-hero and blamed it on the dog) but hey... that's Hollywood. The critics should lighten up, and light up a stogie for Cheets (now in his record-breaking 78th year and dying for a smoke). And just because the ghost is a Brit (and he can get some grammatical French in: "Le tout Hollywood was..." Ya what?) some critics have suggested it's not true. Well, it's been checked by the lawyers, and the absence of chapter 8 proves... well nothing much. But cheer up, after this memoir, which dishes the dirt in bucket loads (and that's the selling point, isn't it?) who needs another celebrity autobiography ever again? I look forward to the author's new projects on... what Checkers thought of being dragged into a TV studio (all that panting under the lights, all those ice cubes) what the asp thought about Cleopatra ("I was going for her nose, not her tits, I swear") and a guide to Crete by the Minotaur.

I was (honest to God born in a movie studio) and thought I had an insider view of Tinsel Town growing up. Boy, did I learn shocking new things from Cheeta's experiences away from the camera! Had he had time during Hollywood's hey days he could have been another Hedda or Louella (but, of course, censorship existed in those ancient days) and he wouldn't have been able to tell us what Clark did to.....oopps, there are other sites which could better describe the kind of activity Cheeta was exposed to. This mad monkey's adventures will have you laughing, churn up your nostalgia factor to a straspheric level and you'll want to immediately add the early Tarzan films on your Netflix list (which I did - and they were really damned good flicks - not Saturday matinee fodder). Yes, Cheeta reveals his true feelings about Jane (and they rhyme with the word itch) and asks the questions, "Am I not Tarzan's real son - not that snotty little Johnny Shefield?" This funny little book will please anybody who always wanted Cheeta as their personal pet (he could have been an X-Rated one on occasion when your Aunt Ida was visiting). Great for movie buffs or National Inquirer readers who wants the low down on the real monkey business that went on in Hollywood way back then.

I have no interest in chimps nor a particular love of Tarzan, but I am a fan of vintage Hollywood and picked this up on a friend's recommendation. It's the first book I've read in ages that made me laugh out loud. Those looking for a 'true' biography of this animal will be disappointed, but the average reader will be overjoyed by the creative license taken by the author. He has turned Cheetah into an outrageously behaved, sardonic and outspoken Hollywood 'actor' with some serious personal issues. The writer has a truly unique turn of phrase. I've done a bit of digging and found out the author is named novelist James Lever, who himself was parodied in a novel last year 'Choking on Marlon Brando' by his then girlfriend author Antonia Quirke. I followed up on this book (also a funny read) and it seems there's a lot of similarity between the man and chimp....

I thought this one of the most entertaining books about Hollywood I've ever read (and I've read tons). I particularly love the proverbial Golden Age of Hollywood and its characters and thought this a highly original approach. It's poignant, too, and highlights fragile thespian egos and movie star fears. I read it and then watched the Tarzan movies with Cheetah and then read it again. I guarantee you'll pant-hoot. Highly, highly recommended!!!!!

Septuagenarian Cheeta of Tarzan fame is proud of his film résumé. Before becoming Weissmuller's sidekick in 1934, he was captured two years earlier in the Liberian jungle and brought to Hollywood under the name Jiggs. After performing in eleven Tarzan movies as Cheeta, he was considered too old so he was forced into retirement. He came out of the rest home for retired acting chimps to make one film in the 1960s in Doctor Doolittle (Harrison not Murphy). Still alive and residing in Creative Habitats and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes (C.H.E.E.T.A.) in Palm Springs, California, he provides his unique perspective of Hollywood. This is a unique autobiographical fiction in that it is "written" by a chimp who tells his story in Hollywood. Cheeta provides an insider look at some of the great names especially in the 1930s and 1940s like Gable, Bogart, Rooney, and of course his sidekick Johnny Weissmuller. Although there is little about the life of an animal star in spite of the author, fans will enjoy the latest Hollywood exposé as Cheeta tells about his co-stars' monkey business as the likes of Natalie Wood and Victor Mature agreeing he was a better kisser than James Dean. Harriet Klausner