George Reeves began his acting career with small roles in movies including Gone with the Wind, Winged Victory and Blood and Sand. He gained his first lead role as explorer Mike Patton in the 1948 movie Jungle Goddess. In the 1950’s, Reeves played with such actors as Burt Lancaster, Ray Milland and Marlene Dietrich. He also had guest appearances in  television series such as Kraft Television Theatre (1949-1952), Believe It or Not (1950), The Ford Television Theatre (1952), Fireside Theatre (1952. In 1952 he was hired to play the double character of Superman and Clark Kent in Adventures of Superman. 

To this day Superman is still my all time favorite action character. In the early 1960’s,  I would only buy Superman comics. I don’t remember when I saw my first episode of ‘the Adventures of Superman’ on channel 7 WENR-TV (currently WLS-TV), but I’ve since seen every episode a dozen times. George Reeves’ rendition of the first ever superhero was a standard for subsequent versions to be measured against.

Reeves was bouncing around Hollywood in the 1950’s looking for a break, he found one. This came in the form of meeting a woman going by the name of Toni Mannix ( formally Legs Lannear). She was in a rather open relationship with a man named Eddie Mannix, a big shot at MGM. They were not legally married, but not all couples in the business were. She took a liking to Reeves, bought him a house in Benedict Canyon and set out to help his career. Then came the Superman series. Eddie knew all about the relationship with Toni and George. He encouraged it as he had his own philandering. In fact, George was described by outsiders as being part of the Mannix household.

The TV show soon became so popular that Reeves was sent out to do publicity trips to promote the show. On one such trip to Florida, Reeves met a showgirl, Lenore Lemmon. They dated, fell in love and George asked her to marry him. She accepted. On returning to California, he told Toni of his engagement. She, of course, was furious. She saw herself as his agent and he as her boy toy and had big plans for him that did not include a woman that was not herself. In those days, there was a heavy Mafia influence at certain studios, and it was well known around the M-G-M lot that you could get someone to murder for “a hundred and a half.”

On the night of June 16, 1959, Reeves had returned from an evening out with his fiancée, Lemmon.  After returning to their house around 11 p.m., Reeves retired for the night while Lemmon invited writer Robert Condon and two other friends over. A little after 1 a.m., Reeves briefly ventured to the living room to ask Lemmon and her guests to quiet down. However, after he returned to his bedroom, Lemmon allegedly told her guests, per the Daily Beast, “He’s going upstairs to shoot himself.” The guests reportedly heard a sound from the bedroom but didn’t immediately call the police for nearly 45 minutes, and Lemmon later claimed that she was “only kidding” when she made the comments.

Shortly after authorities arrived, investigators struggled to find physical evidence. Fingerprints on the gun were never found, and no gunpowder residue was recovered on Reeves’ hands. In addition, witnesses claimed that they only heard one shot, but investigators found a total of three bullets fired from the same gun. After interviewing the guests, the police didn’t call the crime scene squad. Even though many other clues and more evidence to indicate several shots had been fired, the official conclusion was that Reeves had committed suicide. Many friends and relatives disputed claims that he had become depressed. After all, he was about to be married, a trip to Australia had been planned and his TV show was hugely popular. 

There were numerous suspects and suspicious back stories and sub-stories on who may have wanted Reeves dead. Here is a link to a fascinating article on several strange actions and scenarios leading up to and following his death. My opinion is that Superman was murdered or someone close to him had him killed. That’s just how betrayal was treated in Hollywood back in the 1950’s.

Who knows, maybe someone with the right savvy can use AI to pick up the film noir Superman torch and bring George back to life.

Anyway….

I’m S.A.Bear and I approve this message.