American · Oakland, California, USA · Born 7 February 1908 · Died 1983-04-23American swimmer who won Olympic gold in the 400m freestyle at the 1932 Los Angeles Games before becoming a Hollywood star, playing Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
Born Clarence Linden Crabbe II in Oakland, California, on 7 February 1908, Buster Crabbe grew up in Hawaii, where he learned to swim and surf, before attending the University of Southern California. He won the bronze medal in the 1,500m freestyle at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics as a teenager. Crabbe's defining athletic moment came at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, where he won gold in the 400m freestyle, beating France's Jean Taris to the wall by one-tenth of a second and setting an Olympic record. Over his amateur career he set 16 world records and 35 national records and won 18 AAU championships, despite claiming only a single individual NCAA title. That tenth-of-a-second victory changed the course of his life: talent scouts from Paramount Pictures, seeking a rival to MGM's Johnny Weissmuller (another Olympic swimmer turned Tarzan), signed Crabbe within days. He went on to star in more than 100 films across the 1930s to 1950s, becoming the only actor to play the era's three biggest syndicated comic-strip heroes — Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Crabbe remained connected to swimming throughout his life, competing in masters events into his seventies and later running a successful swimming pool construction business. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965 and died in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1983 at age 75.
Winning 1932 Olympic gold and becoming the only actor to play Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers
How They Played
Powerful long-distance freestyle swimmer
Lasting Impact
A pioneering example of an Olympic swimmer parlaying success into Hollywood stardom
American Athletes