Sipek was born in Yugoslavia, what is now
Croatia, relocated to
Canada in 1959, and subsequently acted in
B-movies as Steve Hawkes. He played
Tarzan in the 1969 Spanish-made film
Tarzán en la gruta del oro /
King of the Jungle /
Tarzan in the Golden Grotto alongside
Kitty Swan, filmed in
Suriname,
Florida,
Africa,
Spain and
Italy where the producers ran out of money and had to begin filming again. Sipek, working under the name Steve Hawkes, claimed that the film company could not pay the huge licensing fees from
Edgar Rice Burroughs' estate and settled for the name "Zan" for the character. A 1972 sequel,
Tarzan and the Brown Prince, followed with sequences filmed in
Rainbow Springs, Florida, where both Sipek and Swan were burned in a fire that got out of control. When the two actors were tied down in a scene, some spilled fuel began a blaze that panicked the film crew. The
lion in the film who had been trained to remove Hawkes' bonds freed him, Sipek vowed he would pay the lion back by looking after big cats. Sipek also wrote, directed and starred in other films such as
Blood Freak and
Stevie, Samson and Delilah. The second film was based around his love of his immediate family and how they integrated with his beloved pets. An animal lover, Sipek later relocated to
Loxahatchee, Florida where he started an
animal sanctuary that attracted attention when a
Bengal tiger escaped and was killed. He died on June 23, 2019, at the age of 77. ==Notes==