The Fast Life and Strange Death of Actor George Reeves
If you never heard about George Reeves, you will soon enough, thanks to a soon-to-open (but probably already showing by the time you read this) biopic starring Ben Affleck titled “Hollywoodland”.
That Afflect won “Best Actor” honors at this year’s Venice Film Festival for his work in Hollywoodland is in itself just as incredible as the mysterious death of George Reeves a.k.a. “Superman”.
Like a lot of things in Tinsel Town, nothing is ever as cut and dried as it seems. Fame and fortune always seems to have misfortune and mystery in its back pocket, as the life and death of George Reeves certainly demonstrates.
George Reeves – 45 years old and supposedly despondent over being typecast as Superman – pulled a pistol out of his bedroom dresser drawer and committed suicide at 1:59 am on June 16, 1959. There are lots of people who don’t buy into that story and THAT’S what makes Reeve’s death so entertaining (well, as entertaining as a purported Hollywood suicide can be).
When Reeve’s life came to a screeching halt, his career had not exactly come to a dead-end. The Adventures of Superman had aired from 1951- 1957 and had made Reeves more popular than he could ever imagine. Granted, when the show went on hiatus in late 1957, Reeves had trouble finding work. But he was much in demand for personal appearances, had started directing episodic television, and was set to return for a new season of Superman. He was far from penniless, living in a modest two-story home outside of Los Angeles.
That same fame that brought Reeves the adulation of millions may also have led to his downfall. Reeves enjoyed the company of women, and one of them just happened to be Toni Mannix, the wife of the vice-president of the Lowes Movie Theatre chain and a former studio executive at MGM – Eddie Mannix. It was no secret that Eddie Mannix had ties to the underworld, and it’s no stretch to think that Eddie Mannix could have arranged the death of George Reeves for having a long-running affair with his wife.
Consider this: In the three months before his death, Reeves was involved in three mysterious automobile mishaps that almost killed him. The first time, his car was nearly crushed by two trucks on the freeway. Another time, a speeding car nearly killed him, but he survived thanks to his quick, athletic reflexes. The third time, Reeves’ brakes failed on a narrow, twisting road. Only his quick reflexes saved him from being killed.
About a month later, George Reeves began to receive death threats on his unlisted telephone line. Nervous after the near-misses in his car, Reeves filed a report with the Beverly Hills Police Department and a complaint with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.
Despite it all, Reeves was on the rebound. Offers for personal appearances continued unabated. In fact, George Reeves had already signed a contract to take on Archie Moore – the light Heavyweight champion of the World – in a ten round exhibition match. The exhibition match was set for June 19th (three days after Reeves’ death) and was to be played on television so that viewers across the country could tune in to see “Superman beat the champ”! Reeves told reporters that the “Archie Moore fight will be the highlight of my life”.
After the fight, Reeves had plans to marry his fianc�©e, Lenore Lemmon, an attractive brunette and former New York socialite. Reeves then planned to return to Hollywood later in the year and star in a feature film that he would direct. He was then scheduled to shoot more episodes of Superman for syndication and with a hefty salary increase.
This was not the sort of future that would cause a man to commit suicide.
Apparently, George Reeves had a dark side as well: he drank, he partied, he may have been manic-depressive. When he was happy, everyone partied with him, when he was depressed – he often went through the motions of committing suicide with an unloaded German Lugar he kept in his dresser drawer.
So why all of a sudden did the pistol have a real bullet in it on the night George Reeves died?
We will probably never know. And the George Reeves biopic starring Ben Affleck does little to straighten out what may have let led to Reeves’ untimely death.
One thing for sure – George Reeves may have enjoyed his starring role as Superman, but unlike the superhero he portrayed, in the end George Reeves was definitely NOT faster that the speeding bullet that claimed his life.
