The screen's first Tarzan, Elmo Lincoln might never have landed the role had it not been for WWI. An enormous man (6'1", 230 pounds) who'd worked as an Arkansas law officer before entering films as a bit player, Lincoln was selected on the basis of his physique by D.W. Griffith to play blacksmith White Arm Joe in Birth of a Nation (1915) and the Mighty Man of Valor in Intolerance (1916). He might...
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