“He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader,” Kirsten Ely said in an Instagram post. “He created a powerful wave of positive influence wherever he went.
The impact he had on others is something that I have never witnessed in any other person – there was something truly magical about him.”
In 2019, the actor tragically returned to the news when his 62-year-old wife, Valerie Lundeen Ely, was stabbed to death at their Santa Barbara home by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, who was subsequently shot and killed by police. Ron Ely, who was home during the stabbing, challenged the prosecutor’s report that his son’s shooting was justified.
“If he didn’t have a gun or he didn’t have a weapon, what was the basis of shooting him?” the elder Ely’s attorney John Burris said in 2020. “They may have very well thought he was involved in some other activity involving the mom. But that’s not a basis to shoot and kill him. You have to have a lawful basis to do that.”
In the early 1980s, Ely was host of the Miss America pageant and met Valerie, a Miss Florida, there. They married in 1984. The couple had three children, and Ely retired from acting to focus on his family in 2001.
“Late in life I had a young family. I decided to stop acting and work at home, as an author, that way I could be with the kids all through school and be able to attend their sports games and things,” he told London’s Daily Express in 2013, expressing interest in the time at reentering acting. He would return briefly in the 2014 TV movie “Expecting Amish.”
Ely’s Tarzan didn’t speak in the monosyllabic grunts often associated with the character, originally created by novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was instead an educated bachelor who had grown sick of civilization and had returned to African jungle where he was raised.
Ely said in interviews that he did his own stunts on the show, working directly and precariously with the tigers, chimpanzees and other wild animals that were Tarzan’s friends and servants.
As you mentioned, Ely’s final years were marked by a horrific event on October 15, 2019, at his home in Hope Ranch, California
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- Valerie Lundeen Ely: Ron’s wife of 35 years and a former Miss Florida, Valerie was stabbed to death at the age of 62.
- Cameron Ely: The couple’s 30-year-old son, Cameron, was identified as the suspect in his mother’s murder.
- Police Shooting: When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they encountered Cameron outside the home. Claiming he “posed a threat,” deputies shot and killed him.
- Legal Battle: Ron Ely later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, alleging that his son was unarmed and attempting to surrender when he was shot. However, a judge eventually ruled that the deputies acted in self-defense/