HOLLYWOOD MYSTERIES AND SCANDALS - THE SUPERMAN STORY of George Reeves
HOLLYWOOD MYSTERIES AND SCANDALS - THE SUPERMAN STORY of George Reeves
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00:00Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings
00:23at a single bound.
00:24Look, up in the sky, it's a bird.
00:25It's a plane.
00:26It's Superman.
00:27George Reeves, known to millions as TV Superman.
00:34Faster than a speeding bullet?
00:36Not on the night of June 16th, 1959, the night Reeves was found dead at the age of 45, sprawled
00:41naked on his bed with a gunshot wound to the head.
00:44Police called it a suicide, but was it?
00:46He was murdered, there's no question about it.
00:49No one will ever convince me, I know they never convinced Helen, his mother, that he
00:54took his own life.
00:55On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll examine that fateful night, the night
00:59America lost a superhero.
01:01We'll also feature exclusive interviews with some of Reeves' Superman co-stars, including
01:05the original Jimmy Olsen.
01:07That there was a hitman who secretly came in the house and murdered George.
01:13That did not happen.
01:15And we'll hear from the two actresses who played Superman's love interest, Lois Lane.
01:19It's hard for me to accept that he did commit suicide.
01:23We were just stunned, because having just seen him, and he was happy, we were going
01:28to work again, and gone.
01:31The story of Superman's mysterious death will be told through rare photographs and archival
01:36footage.
01:37Plus, we'll recreate the death of George Reeves and try to figure out who was holding the
01:41gun that killed the superhero.
01:43Was it his nightclub singer fiancee, afraid she was about to be jilted?
01:47Did his older married lover hire a hitman to bring him down?
01:50Or did a drunk and despondent Superman just decide it was time to throw in the cape?
01:54I'm AJ Benza.
01:55Join me as we take a look at the mysterious death of Superman on this stroll down the
01:59flip side of the Walk of Fame.
02:20Immortalized as Superman, George Reeves' ashes are here in this mausoleum near his
02:33childhood home of Southern California.
02:36Even in death, Reeves cannot escape his overbearing mother.
02:39His ashes bookended for eternity between his mother and his aunt.
02:43It's no surprise that Helen Besselow wanted her ashes to rest beside her only son forever
02:47and always.
02:49The one fact regarding Reeves' early life that everyone agrees upon is that his mother
02:53worshipped George to the point of smothering him.
02:57Reeves had something of a chaotic childhood.
02:59His parents divorced when George was just a baby.
03:01Mother and son eventually moved to Pasadena, California, where George discovered his calling
03:06in the theater.
03:07Film historian Jim Beaver explains.
03:10He fell in love with theater and acting and did a great number of plays there in Pasadena
03:18all through the late 30s.
03:19While he was in a play, he was spotted by a casting director and auditioned for and
03:25got a role in Gone with the Wind, which was, at least in a way, the beginning of his professional
03:30career.
03:32Not a bad gig to start off your professional career, huh?
03:35So Reeves was just one of many actors to get his start here at the famous Pasadena Playhouse,
03:39training ground to such luminaries as William Holden, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman.
03:44Anyhow, he takes his job on Gone with the Wind.
03:46He was to play one of the red-headed Tarleton twins, two southern gentlemen both vying for
03:51the attentions of the beautiful Scarlett O'Hara.
03:54The other brother was played by Fred Crane.
03:56We were both ecstatic about getting the part together because it was the first thing that
04:01either one of us had done in motion picture.
04:04To celebrate, Reeves suggested a night on the town, indulging in one of his favorite
04:08hobbies, drinking.
04:09We had navy grogs and zombies and puka puka punches and ate rumaki and were sitting next
04:16to a very fine gentleman.
04:19And we made a lot of noise and we got off the chairs after we were through and we walked
04:25out on our knees.
04:26Hollywood took notice of the handsome newcomer from Gone with the Wind.
04:30Reeves was cast opposite Claudette Colbert in the 1943 war picture So Proudly We Hailed,
04:35directed by Mark Sandrich.
04:37Just as his career was moving into high gear, he joined the war effort and enlisted in the
04:41army.
04:42Sandrich assured the young actor he would make him a movie star when his tour of duty
04:45ended.
04:46When George got out of the army, which he had entered before the film was released,
04:53Mark Sandrich was dead.
04:55And George always said during the Superman years that if Mark Sandrich hadn't died, he
05:01wouldn't be sitting there now in his monkey suit.
05:03But it was that monkey suit that brought George Reeves fame and with it frustration.
05:08Reeves still dreamed of film stardom and he was embarrassed of his Superman success, but
05:12was he depressed enough to end it all?
05:14Next ahead, we'll introduce the two women in George's life.
05:17Was it one of his lovers who proved the Man of Steel was simply flesh and blood?
05:44Next ahead, we'll introduce the two women in George's life who proved the Man of Steel
06:12was simply flesh and blood?
06:41Next ahead, we'll introduce the two women in George's life who proved the Man of Steel
07:09was simply flesh and blood?
07:39Next ahead, we'll introduce the two women in George's life who proved the Man of Steel
08:08was simply flesh and blood?
08:30Superman, the classic 50s TV show that made George Reeves a household name.
08:35I'm A.J. Benz and welcome back to Mysteries and Scandals and I'll look back at the mysterious
08:39death of Superman.
08:41After World War II, George Reeves scrounged around Hollywood for film roles and then in
08:451951, his chiseled good looks and muscular physique won him the lead role of Superman
08:49on television.
08:50He accepted the role for the oldest reason in the book, he needed the dough.
08:54Besides, Reeves was convinced the last thing America wanted to see was a grown man running
08:59around in tights.
09:00He was wrong.
09:01The series was a thundering success.
09:04Willis Coates, who played Lois Lane during that first season, remembers meeting her co-star.
09:08George invited me over with Izzy Burns, who was George's wardrobe man.
09:14He also took care of me, too, because I only had two suits.
09:18He'd hide one for in case I got egg on one.
09:21So George made us a martini and he said, here's to the bottom of the barrel.
09:30And that was how I first met George.
09:32George was typecast in the Superman role, I was typecast as Jimmy Olsen, and I wanted
09:38to get back into films, too, and I only had a bow tie and a sweater to worry about.
09:43He had the Superman insignia and what he called the monkey suit.
09:47But every year, he would use the monkey suit to the delight of some needy child.
09:52Superman historian Jim Hambrick recalls one of Reeves' annual rituals.
09:56At the end of every season, George would cut the S out of his costumes and send the
10:04S's to kids in the hospital or somebody's birthday or whatever and destroy the rest
10:09of the costume.
10:10Clark, aren't they the cutest puppies you ever saw?
10:15They sure are, but did you ever see a puppy that wasn't cute?
10:18Offscreen, Reeves' life was exactly the opposite of the mild-mannered Clark Kent he played
10:22on TV.
10:23George enjoyed a long-time affair with a wealthy society woman by the name of Toni Mannix.
10:28There was only one little problem.
10:30Toni was very married to an MGM executive, Eddie Mannix.
10:34Hollywood kryptonite author Nancy Schoenberger fills us in.
10:37George Reeves' 10-year romance with Toni Mannix was an open secret in Hollywood.
10:43She had the kind of arrangement with her husband that allowed her to go after what she wanted.
10:49Eddie was an important guy at MGM, a vice president.
10:53They were in a high echelon of Hollywood society.
10:56Eddie knew about their relationship and approved of it.
10:58He'd fallen in love with Toni.
11:01They married.
11:02They were all devout Catholics.
11:04There was never to be a divorce, but there was, I believe, quite a bit of sinning.
11:10A lot of confession.
11:13On Sunday morning, yes.
11:15He called her Ma, and they were a great twosome, and she was very good to George.
11:23She bought the house.
11:24It was quite nice.
11:25You know, she really gave George a good start.
11:29She called him the boy, and she took very good care of him.
11:34Very good indeed.
11:35This trendy British roadster was also a gift from the generous Toni Mannix.
11:39Their affair continued for a decade until just one year before his death, when a flashy
11:44New York nightclub singer blew into his life.
11:46Her name was Lenore Lemon, I kid you not.
11:49George said she was beautiful, and she was quite beautiful.
11:53But pretty is as pretty does, and Lenore had a pretty unsavory reputation, according to
11:57Superman historian Jan Henderson.
11:59She was known for being 86 from certain clubs for brawling over men, a typical thing you
12:06wouldn't think would go in a cafe society.
12:08But that didn't matter to George.
12:10The guy was head over heels.
12:12Gene LeBell was a personal friend of George Reeves.
12:15And then he said, look, I love the woman.
12:18If you wanted a lighter cigarette with a hundred dollar bill, I'd give her the hundred dollar
12:23bill.
12:24George and Lenore announced their plans to marry.
12:27George's longtime lover, Toni Mannix, was not pleased.
12:30Shortly after that, I heard from Toni about Lenore Lemon.
12:36She wanted me to talk to George.
12:37She wanted me to talk to the boy.
12:39And I said, he's a big boy, and that's not, you know, I don't feel that's appropriate.
12:45He was more beautiful than George was ever handsome.
12:53And he was lucky guy, I thought.
12:56But George's luck was about to run out.
12:58Not even the man of steel was up to the task of keeping Lenore in line.
13:01For one thing, she had a temper when she drank, and pretty soon George's close friends stopped
13:05coming around.
13:06She wasn't the kind of person that you fall in love with.
13:10She's the kind of a person that wants to run your life.
13:13And if that wasn't enough, Lenore was rumored to have connections to the mob back in her
13:17native New York.
13:18She was well known as a party girl, and she was involved with Hoffa and all of that.
13:26Look what happened to Hoffa.
13:27Yeah, and look what happened to George.
13:29At least they found his body.
13:31But was Lenore Lemon responsible, or did Reeves make the decision to end it all?
13:35When we come back, we'll take a look at all the theories surrounding that deadly night
13:38in 1959, when Superman bit the bullet after this.
16:08Welcome back.
16:29I'm A.J.
16:30Benza at the famous Chasen's Restaurant, where TV's Superman had his last supper.
16:34It was June 16th, 1959, and Chasen's was the hot spot in town.
16:39As always, the place was packed with showbiz bigwigs.
16:42Spirits were high.
16:43Liquor was flowing.
16:44George Reeves was there with his fiancée, the tempestuous party girl, Lenore Lemon.
16:48Just hours later, the Man of Steel was found dead, naked, and alone in his bedroom.
16:53The newspaper headlines the next morning stunned America.
16:57The official word was that Reeves died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
17:01When he died, everybody was obviously in shock.
17:05All the kids our age.
17:07It was a big thing on schoolyards.
17:09You go to school that day, and every kid was rattled.
17:13George's close friends weren't buying the suicide story.
17:16According to Superman historian John Field, Reeves had too much to live for.
17:20He was going to direct another season of Superman coming up, another 26 episodes of Superman.
17:26He was going to direct a science fiction feature with Phyllis Coates.
17:29He said, I have a script.
17:31It's a science fiction script, and I'm in the guild now, and I'm going to direct this,
17:38and I'd like you to do the lead, would you?
17:40And he was very up about that.
17:42He looked wonderful.
17:44George had always been a big drinker.
17:46Maybe all the booze was beginning to take its toll.
17:49The autopsy revealed an alarming .27 alcohol level when he died.
17:53That's a lot of cocktails, even for Superman.
17:57This amount of alcohol, which is extremely substantial in a case like this, I think contributed
18:09more to what happened than to any of the sinister things that have been speculated upon.
18:13That is a depressed enough state where he could take his own life.
18:18A man comes in, sits down on his bed, and slumps with his head tilted to one side, fires
18:25a bullet through his head, and hitting the ceiling.
18:28This fellow called me up, listen to the radio, George has just committed suicide.
18:38And I said, baloney.
18:40So if it wasn't a suicide, how did Reeves die?
18:43One of the most outlandish stories is that Tony Mannix, George's married lover, hired
18:48a hitman to knock him off.
18:50The scenario goes like this.
18:51Neighbor William Bliss dropped by Reeves' home late that night.
18:54And Lenore Lemon went downstairs, heard the doorbell, opened the door, was chatting with
18:59Bill Bliss at the front door.
19:01The gunman, who had been waiting for his opportunity, went upstairs, shot George, and escaped out
19:07of an upper story bedroom.
19:10The great mystery to us was, was Bill Bliss there by accident or by design?
19:15The idea that Lenore Lemon stood at the door talking with William Bliss while someone sneaked
19:23in the back door of George's house and crept up the stairs is ludicrous.
19:29Now let's take a look at the Lenore Lemon theory.
19:32Rumors were rampant that George was thinking about calling off their marriage.
19:35Did Lenore catch wind of it and fly off the handle?
19:38I would bet my life on it that Lenore Lemon came up there, got a gun, and shot him.
19:46He wants to go to bed.
19:48She's wired, she doesn't want to go to bed.
19:50And he ignores her.
19:52She gets the gun, shoots five holes in the floor.
19:57He doesn't react to it.
19:59And then puts one at his head, thinking the gun was empty, and blew his brains out.
20:07I think she did it because she was inebriated.
20:09I don't know what happened that night.
20:12No one knows what happened that night.
20:14Well, we do know one thing, Superman was dead, and the investigation that followed was a
20:19joke.
20:20Did the police just drop the ball, or did some big shot Hollywood insider tell the cops
20:24to back off?
20:25When we return, we'll take a look at that Boston investigation, and a grieving mother's
20:29fight to save her son's reputation.
23:20Thank you.
23:50The end of the line for the Man of Steel, and the mystery surrounding George Reeves'
23:53violent death remains.
23:55I'm A.J. Benzo, welcome back to Mysteries and Scandals.
23:58No one who was close to George Reeves, not even his possessive mother Helen, brought
24:02the suicide theory.
24:03Here's some reasons why.
24:04Number one, there were no fingerprints on the gun.
24:07Number two, there were no powder burns on the body.
24:09Number three, the shell casing was found under the corpse.
24:12And the best reason of all, there were five random bullet holes later found in George's
24:16bedroom.
24:17Distraught, Tony Mannix, Reeves' longtime lover, called his co-star, Phyllis Coates,
24:22with the news.
24:23She said, the boy is dead.
24:24There are five random bullet holes around the room, the gun's been wiped clean, and
24:28the sheets are in the bin deck.
24:29And I said, my God, what, where?
24:31She said, you've got to go over to the house with me.
24:33Well, who knows who put the sheets in the washing machine.
24:36That was just one of the strange things that happened at Reeves' home.
24:39For example, George's fiancée, Lenore, returned to the scene after the police split.
24:44It was later discovered that Lenore Lemon had broken the seal to go in the house to
24:48get food out of the refrigerator and booze out of the home.
24:52And also, traveler's checks that George had written in his name for them to use on a vacation.
24:58Lenore's little escapade wasn't the only bizarre happening following the death of Superman.
25:02The police investigation seemed to be bungled from the beginning.
25:06No photos of the crime scene have ever been found.
25:08And Reeves' body was embalmed before the autopsy was performed.
25:12George's mother, Helen, was irate.
25:14She was also determined to salvage her son's reputation.
25:18Private investigator, Marlos Berriglio, worked on the Reeves' case.
25:21He remembers Helen's determination to prove her son was murdered.
25:25She had his body frozen.
25:27It was put in a train back to their hometown.
25:32At that point, a second autopsy was performed, and it was concluded during the second autopsy
25:38that there was a probability of homicide.
25:41A probability, but no hard proof.
25:44There were those who believed that Eddie Mannix, Tony's husband, used his power as an MGM executive
25:49to put a lid on the police inquiry.
25:51The last thing Mannix wanted was to have his wife involved in a scandal.
25:55Hey, money talks, especially in Hollywood.
25:57It was one of the sloppiest investigations ever.
26:01Back in those days, they wanted to protect celebrities, particularly the studios.
26:07They were very powerful in Hollywood at the time.
26:11So Tony Mannix's name stayed out of the newspapers.
26:14But her involvement with Reeves certainly wasn't over, as Jack Larson discovered when
26:17he and Tony went to George's house just a few days after his death.
26:21I saw and recognized that there was old blood of George's, and I began to get a bit sick.
26:27And at that point, I heard a tap, tap, and tap, tap.
26:31And she was tapping up these blessings on the bullet holes.
26:35Go figure.
26:36Although her behavior was strange, there was no evidence to connect Tony Mannix to the
26:40death of George Reeves.
26:42I believe that Tony Mannix would never, in a million years, have killed George Reeves.
26:52If Tony was going to get rid of anybody, it would have been Lenore Lemon, and she really
26:56hated her.
26:57Now, Reeves' other lady love, Lenore Lemon, is another story.
27:00She split town without even attending his memorial service.
27:03Classy gal.
27:05I think she looked on George's death, to a large extent, as a huge inconvenience in
27:10her life.
27:11One day, we were talking back and forth, we were actually arguing, and she told me, do
27:14you want to hear that I killed George Reeves?
27:17I says, well, only if you did.
27:19Okay, I killed George Reeves.
27:21Are you satisfied?
27:22And she hung up on me.
27:23Sounds like a confession to me, but we'll never really know.
27:26No one, not even Lenore Lemon, was ever brought in for questioning.
27:30Smells like a cover-up.
27:31That's the $64,000 question.
27:34Who knows who pressured who to do what to cover this up?
27:37I felt the police were amateur time in Dixie.
27:42And poor Tony Maddox.
27:43The woman could never let go of George's memory.
27:46Edward Losey befriended Tony in her later years.
27:49He remembers the bizarre prayer session she held for George twice a week in her home.
27:53Usually on Tuesdays and Friday nights, we would actually kneel down together and hold
27:58hands, and she would start a prayer ceremony, a liturgy to him.
28:03Okay, it does make you wonder how old George would like to be remembered after all these
28:11years.
28:12Not as Superman.
28:15I think George would like to have been remembered as just a decent human being, a fun-loving,
28:23kind, generous, decent human being, which is what he was.
28:29I'm sure George would like to be remembered as Honest George, the people's friend.
28:35I always remember him as a southern gentleman, and he was so kind, such a gentleman, as opposed
28:45to so many people in this business, and he just couldn't be sweeter.
28:49George's impact on pop culture will forever be remembered here at the Superman Museum
28:53in Metropolis, Illinois, home of the superhero.
28:56The people stop the longest to see the George Reeves exhibit, to see the costume, which
29:01to a lot of fans of the show is like the Holy Grail.
29:04To this day, in this museum, the 200 people a day that come in here, the original, the
29:10real Superman is George Reeves, and will always be.
29:15Who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised
29:21as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending
29:26battle for truth, justice, and the American way?
29:33Truth, justice?
29:34Well, we'll probably never know the truth or whether justice was served, but George
29:39Reeves in Superman will always be synonymous with the American way, forever remembered
29:43as our favorite superhero, Superman.
29:46I'm A.J. Benza.
29:47Join me the next time our paths cross on Mysteries & Scandals.