He played the Man of Steel on television, but in real life, George Reeves proved to be less than bulletproof.

Reeves was a handsome man and soon after arriving in Hollywood, he signed to a contract with Warner Bros.  However, after appearing in some B-movies and the flop <i>Lydia</i>, Reeves was released from his contract.  He freelanced for a while before being drafted into the Army during World War II.  He was transferred to the Army Air Forces and landed a gig on the Broadway show Winged Victory.  After leaving the Army, Reeves took work where he could find it, finally moving to New York after his 1949 divorce from Ellanora Needles (Wikipedia). 

Less than two years later, he returned to Hollywood and was offered the role he would be remembered for – as Superman on the new DC Comics television series.  Reeves didn’t exactly jump at the role because like many, he felt television wasn’t as important as movies and the pay wasn’t that great.  The contract also prevented Reeves from seeking many movie roles.

Still, the job did pay and Reeves collected extra money from paid appearances as Superman.  He took his clean-cut Superman image seriously except in one area – romance.  The same year he took on the Superman role, he began an affair with Toni Mannix, the wife of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer general manager Eddie Mannix. 

Soon, Reeves grew bored with the Superman role and wanted to break out of the superhero stereotype.  He made a few films, sang on the Tony Bennett show, and appeared on “I Love Lucy” albeit as Superman.

In 1958, he broke up with Toni and quickly afterwards, announced his engagement to Leonore Lemmon.  However, the Reeves/Lemmon pairing was explosive, with the couple often fighting in public.  Accounts of Reeves mental state varied.  Some said that he was depressed about the break up with Toni and financial problems while others said he was looking forward to new career adventures, including a televised fight with light heavyweight champion Archie Moore.  He was also set to star and direct a feature film later in the year.  And, he was getting married to Lemmon, reportedly on June 19th (CourtTV ).

Some felt that Toni didn’t take being dumped too nicely.  Before his death, Reeves was involved in a puzzling series of car accidents.  Once, his car was crushed between two trucks on the freeway and another time, a speeding car almost hit him.  A third time, his breaks failed.  His mechanic suggested that the break fluid had been drained by someone.  Adding to the mystery was the fact that all three incidents occurred within three months.

Reeves also received death threats on the phone.  Was it Toni?  Was it her jealous husband Eddie?  Reeves filed a report with the police department, but the calls were never explained. 

On the night of June 16, 1959, friend Robert Condon was staying at Reeves’ Benedict Canyon home.  Reeves, Condon and Lemmon retired for the night around midnight, but at 1:00 a.m., friend Carol Von Ronkel knocked on the door with her friend William Bliss and was allowed entrance into the house.  While everyone else stayed downstairs to party, Reeves went back up to the bedroom.

Moments later a shot rang out.  When the guests ran upstairs, they found Reeves lying on his back with a gunshot wound to the temple.  George “Superman” Reeves was dead at age 45.  What seems odd is that it took the guests 45 minutes to call the police.  None of the guests ever gave a reason for the delay, but it is widely believed that they wanted to sober up a bit before the police arrived.

Lemmon said Reeves had been playing with a gun earlier that night and his best friend and business manager Arthur Weissman admitted that Reeves liked playing the morbid prank of putting a gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulling the trigger.  Reeves had also been drinking – his blood alcohol level was .27 – and was taking prescription pills for pain, but did that have anything to do with the shooting?

Rumors soon started that Reeves was murdered, especially after many friends claimed he would never take his own life.  As evidence of a homicide, some pointed out that there was no powder marks or burns from the discharge of the gun found on Reeves’ head wound.  Weissman tried to explain this away, saying Reeves was so used to pulling this prank that he kept the gun far enough away from his head to prevent powder burns.

Yet, Weissman also believed Reeves was murdered.  He felt that Eddie Mannix had someone replace the blanks in Reeves’ gun with real bullets, knowing that Reeves liked to fire at his head.  Oddly enough, Eddie knew about the affair between the two and rumors are that Toni and Reeves used to double date with Eddie.

Other clues that this might have been a homicide were the fact that the gun was found between Reeves’ feet, not in his hand.  While the bullet that killed Reeves was found in the ceiling (suggesting Reeves was at an odd angle when shot), there were also two additional bullet holes found in the floor of the room, covered by a rug.

While the room showed no signs of intrusion, no one really knows who was at the home that night. And because she bought the house for Reeves, Toni Mannix had a key.

The police chalked the death up to suicide without much investigation.  They didn’t even take fingerprints of the room.  But, Reeves’ mother, Helen Besselo, always believed her son was murdered.  She had detectives working on the case up until her death in 1964.

Eddie Mannix died in 1963, but Toni never remarried.  She died in 1983.  Publicist Edward Lozzi claimed that he heard Toni confessed to a Catholic priest that she had Reeves murdered.  However, this is disputable, since Lozzi claims to have lived with Toni during the last ten years of her life and she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

Lenore Lemmon left California four days after Reeves’ death, but not before taking $5,000 in traveler’s checks with her, which were to be used on the couple’s honeymoon.  She returned $4,000 after it was noticed the checks were missing (The Chasing Frog).  Lemmon died in 1989.

Tags: George Reeves, Superman

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under Celebrity Death, Celebrity Murder, Celebrity Suicide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.