Tapio Rautavaara

Life Early years Tapio Rautavaara was born in the municipality of Pirkkala (now Nokia), a suburb of the industrial city of Tampere, as the son of Henrik Kerttula and Hilda Rautavaara. Just three weeks later, his mother moved to the Helsinki suburb of Oulunkylä, where she had lived before. Rautavaara's father was rarely at home, and soon left the family permanently. In 1921, Tapio and his mother moved to Tampere. Rautavaara used to have conflicts with his conservative teachers due to his working-class background. Tapio earned pocket money by selling socialist papers for local workers of the Finlayson textile factory. Four years later, the family returned Oulunkylä, where Rautavaara lived the rest of his life.

In the late 1920s, Rautavaara joined the local working-class sports club Oulunkylän Tähti (″Oulunkylä Star″) for practicing athletics.

Rautavaara was cast as the protagonist in numerous Finnish films, and was also supposedly a candidate for the part of Tarzan after Johnny Weissmuller had quit his career.

Rautavaara was buried in the Malmi Cemetery in Malmi, Helsinki.