Clipped from Wikipedia: Crabbe's role in the 1933 Tarzan serial Tarzan the Fearless launched a successful career in which he starred in over one hundred movies. It would be the only movie in which Crabbe starred as Tarzan. In the 1933's King of the Jungle, 1941's Jungle Man, and the 1952 serial King of the Congo he played generic "jungle man" roles in the Tarzan mode. Buster Crabbe starred in 1936 as Flash Gordon in the popular Flash Gordon serial, which he reprised in two sequels, released by Universal in 1938 and 1940.
Other characters he portrayed included Western hero Billy the Kid, and Buck Rogers. His sidekick in most of his westerns was the actor Al St. John.
Crabbe is the only actor who played Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers — the top three comic strip heroes of the 1930s.
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That first image of Crabbe as Flash Gordon is a-maze-ing.
Last summer, as part of its summer classics series, the Kentucky Theater in Lexington showed a 35 mm print of the 1980 Dino DeLaurentis' "Flash Gordon" (the one with the "Flash! Aah-aaaahh!!!" theme by Queen) to a packed and enthusiastic house, as well as an episode of one of the Buster Crabbe "Flash Gordon" serials. I think they showed the entire serial, one episode per week, for the entire twelve week run of the series. Suffice it to say, it was a hoot and a holler. Crabbe really did look eerily like Alex Raymond's Flash.
Aaah-aaahhhh!!!
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