Zira (APJ)

Dr. Zira was a chimpanzee psychologist and veterinarian, who specialised in the study of humans, in the movie series Planet of the Apes. Zira was played in the first three Apes movies by actress Kim Hunter. Unique among the Apes characters, Zira had hazel eyes.

Zira was the fiancée (later wife) of Cornelius, and both were ultimately responsible to the Minister of Science, Dr. Zaius. Her work involved both working with humans under laboratory conditions (e.g. learning and behavioural experiments), and working on them physically (lobotomy and other brain surgeries, vivisection, physical endurance and tolerance experiments, and subsequent autopsies). Zira was an outspoken liberal by nature, deploring war and militancy (and despising the gorillas, who seemed to make both a way of life), and eager to seek and develop intelligence anywhere it could be found. Zira literally stood for her principles - or refused to stand, as the case may be.

In the first movie, Zira met American astronaut George Taylor, who was shot in the throat when he was captured by gorillas, and could not speak, just as the native humans of her world could not. She tended to his throat wound, discovered Taylor had intelligence beyond any human she'd seen, and paired him with Nova, also intelligent, hoping the two will breed. When Taylor stole Zira's notepad and wrote his own name on it, Zira abruptly dropped the nickname "Bright Eyes" she'd given him, and took Taylor to meet Cornelius. Both disbelieved Taylor's story that he was from another planet, but supposed that he might be a missing link, to explain the similarities between ape and human behaviour and anatomy... and the strange artefacts Cornelius found at an archaeological dig the year before. She seemed to be fond of the humans that she worked with and gave them nicknames, such as an old one she named "Old Timer". Zira ultimately helped Taylor and Nova to escape the world of the apes, coming to appreciate each as thinking creatures like herself, as well as having a plain fondness for them. In the end, she and Taylor kissed goodbye – even though, as she told him, "You're so damned ugly".

Sequels

Kim Hunter undergoes her transformation into Zira

Beneath the Planet of the Apes showed Zira and Cornelius married and at home (after Zira made a political spectacle of herself at an Ape gathering), when another human entered their lives; the astronaut Brent, sent to rescue Taylor but then needing help himself. Zira treated a bullet wound Brent had sustained, and she and Cornelius sent him and Nova (who met Brent when she had sought Zira, after Taylor had vanished) back out of the city, to spare them from the latest human round-up. When Dr. Zaius visited, he told Cornelius and Zira he planned to appoint them as his proxies, while he was away on a military campaign with General Ursus. (Zira had left her medical gear in sight; covering part of her face, she pretended to Zaius that Cornelius hit her for upsetting the Ape council.) Zaius admonished them both to maintain the status quo, and keep their more liberal values in check. Zira and Cornelius promised to do so, and Zaius departed. In the novelization of the movie, they subsequently began a chimpanzee revolt, with Zaius and the gorilla army gone.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes had the pregnant Zira (with Cornelius and their friend Dr. Milo) making a different kind of experiment – this time space flight, in Taylor's restored craft the Icarus, when they realised their world was doomed. In a reverse of Taylor's experience, the spaceship travelled back in time to a few years after his mission began, splashing down off the California coast. The movie followed Zira and Cornelius (after the accidental death of Dr. Milo) through their discovery of, and eventual rejection by, human society. A large portion of the rejection came from Zira's drugged confessions of the details of her human experiments, to the shock of the reactionary Presidential Commission, who declared them atrocities, since they were done to humans. Zira's and Cornelius' accounts of their origins, and of humanity's coming downfall, further stigmatised the couple. Their baby was born (named Milo after their friend, but later called Caesar), but Zira and Cornelius were murdered a few days afterwards. Circus owner Armando took them in when the baby came; Zira switched her newborn baby with a circus chimp when she and Cornelius had to go into hiding, leaving Armando a clue in case they didn't return.

Zira made no further appearances in the Apes movies, although she was mentioned by name in the remaining sequels, and appeared in video stills (while her recorded voice told the story of their space flight, and of the Earth's destruction) the adult Caesar plays back, to learn more about his parents, in Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

In BOOM! Studios' Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm, Zira's past is explored more fully. Her sister Cassia was killed when the destruction of the Moon caused a huge wave to hit Ape City, eight years before Taylor's arrival. Zira dutifully looked after Cassia's son Lucius, with the help of Prisca, who was a major influence in Zira's life. Zira briefly became involved in a chimpanzee plot to murder Zaius and expel all orangutans and gorillas, but backed out at the last moment and instead helped to bring calm between the ape factions.

Notes

The role of Zira was played by Linda Harrison in the 1966 Screen Test alongside Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson and James Brolin. She would go on to play Nova in the first two movies, though she in fact had more lines of dialogue in the ten-minute screen test than in the two movies combined.

Turning down the part of Zira was one of Ingrid Bergman's greatest regrets. She later confided to her daughter Isabella Rossellini that in hindsight the film would have been an ideal opportunity for her to "disregard her regal bearing", and that she also regretted missing the opportunity of working with Charlton Heston.^[1] Natalie Wood had also been suggested for the part.

The role was due to be played by Julie Harris as late in production as April 1967, weeks before shooting began.^[2]

Ape actors were usually required to wear brown contact lenses if their eyes were not suitably dark, but Zira remained hazel-eyed, as make-up designer John Chambers explained, "We all thought it would add a "human" touch".^[3]

Makeup artist Leo Lotito Jr. worked with John Chambers to create the "Dr. Zira" make-up for Planet of the Apes, and also worked on Beneath the Planet of the Apes.^[4]

Zira appeared in UbiSoft/Fox Interactive’s "Planet Of The Apes" GameBoy, with a very similar role to that in Beneath - freeing the astronaut sent to rescue Taylor.

Trivia

An early Rod Serling script noted that Zira presented her findings on the remarkable human at the 'National Academy of Science'.^[5]

According to The Ape newspaper distributed in theatres showing the movie in 1968, Taylor was initially held at the "Academy of Ape Science".^[6]

A scene written by Michael Wilson had Zira, Cornelius, Lucius, Taylor and Nova flee initially to the farm of Zira's father Brutus.^[7]

Pop/Rock band Redd Kross's 1990 Atlantic Records release Third Eye includes the track "Zira", an homage to the simian heroine written by lead guitarist Robert Hecker.