Edgar Rice Burroughs

What used to be known as the Tarzana business district is now the "Tarzana Safari Walk." The new moniker, dreamed up by Tarzana resident Maddy Wolpa, is the winner of the Tarzana's Changing Image contest, which sought suggestions for a name that would reflect the area's ties to "Tarzan" creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, who once owned a 540-acre ranch in the area.

Air Force Capt. Harry "Skip" Brittenham was stranded in officers' quarters in Washington, D.C., during a snowstorm in 1964 when he found a copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring," the first installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings. " He couldn't put it down. The next day, he trudged through the snow until he found an open bookstore with a copy of the sequel. Today, Brittenham is arguably Hollywood's most powerful deal-maker, an attorney whose A-list clients have included Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

Tarzan is swinging back into view. This time he'll hit the streets of NYC, where Jane is . . . a cabbie! "Tarzan in Manhattan"--a TV movie-pilot--marks the apeman's return to the small screen. (Ron Ely loinclothed the last "Tarzan" series.) This premise: Tarzan journeys to NYC to rescue Cheetah--who's been chimp-naped for use in animal experimentation. He comes upon feisty Jane--and her security guard dad, Archie--and they team up. The script's approved by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.

Norman Freeman, the former general manager of Sol Lesser Productions who negotiated use of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan" stories for films in the 1940s, has died at the age of 81. Howard Barton, a Paramount Studios attorney and Freeman's cousin, said the investor and motion picture executive died Aug. 5 in a Santa Monica nursing home after suffering from Parkinson's disease for many years. Born in Nazareth, Pa.

Burne Hogarth, 84, author and illustrator who drew the Tarzan comic strip for 15 years. A native of Chicago who studied at the Chicago Art Institute, Hogarth in 1937 took over the strip based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' fictional lord of the jungle. Considered a master of pictorial fiction, Hogarth later published the books "Tarzan of the Apes" and "Jungle Tales of Tarzan." In 1950, he co-founded New York's School of Visual Arts, where he lectured and wrote popular textbooks on anatomy and drawing.

Howard Gregory, 75, a self-educated man who turned his colorful resume and adventures into five books. Born in Philadelphia, he was an orphan and a school dropout by age 15. His string of jobs included driving a beer truck, lugging beef in a packinghouse and working on a railroad and in a steel mill. He was also a motion picture extra, skydiver and aircraft industry analyst. During World War II, Gregory served in a parachute division in Africa, Sicily and Italy and became a boxing champion.

We know. The mere thought of going out to look at nature illustrations carries that doomed whiff of "educational value." Charles R. Knight, however, is a pop culture icon. Well, practically. The post-Victorian natural history painter set the standard for paleo-illustration with his scientifically accurate re-creations of prehistoric species, but there's also a deliciously retro, H. Rider Haggard-meets-Edgar Rice Burroughs ambience to his raging tyrannosauri and Paleolithic sunsets.

The Lost City of Opar, the very cradle of civilization, is found in "Tarzan and the Lost City," but the complex, compelling man called Tarzan is lost in this sequel to the 1984 "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes." You will be entertained. Good triumphs over evil in a movie that offers equal parts of "The Lion King," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and the Nickelodeon game show "Legends of the Lost Temple."

Commercial property owners around Ventura Boulevard will start voting this week on whether they want to be part of a business improvement district that backers of the effort hope would improve the aesthetics and security of the community named after Edgar Rice Burroughs' literary legend. The Tarzana Improvement Assn. is expected to reach about 200 commercial property owners during the voting process, which is expected to take about two months.