The Peculiar Truth about Superman’s Death

• July 16, 1959: At 2 am, LAPD officers responded to a call of a shooting at a home in Benedict Canyon. They found a 45-year-old man dead in his bedroom from a gunshot wound to the head. The call was made by Leonore Lemmon, the dead man’s fiancee. She and two neighbors had been drinking downstairs since 10 pm. Then came a shot from upstairs at around 1:30 am. The police instantly ruled the death a suicide.

• The deceased was an actor named George Reeves. For years, he had portrayed Superman.

• The strange circumstances of his death gave rise to conspiracy theories.

• He was born George Keefer Brewer in 1914. His parents split within months of his birth, and his mother raised him in Pasadena, CA.

• His controlling mother pushed George into acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. With his chiseled appearance, he hoped to make it in movies.

• 1939: At age 25, he made his most memorable film appearance as one of Scarlett O’Hara’s suitors in Gone With The Wind. Warner Brothers then signed him to a contract.

• One year later, Reeves married. He and actress Ellanora Needles were a childless couple who stayed together for almost ten years.

• Reeves joined the military in WWII and was assigned to make training films. After the war, Hollywood forgot about him. He acted in dozens of forgettable motion pictures with no leading roles. Divorced and with few prospects, Reeves’ life hit bottom.

• Television became wildly popular in the 1950s. Reeves had small roles in over a dozen TV shows from 1950-51, but most actors like him believed TV to be a career graveyard. Then he took the job that changed his life.

• Superman and the Mole-Men (1951) was an hour-long movie that was a test run for a proposed TV show. He only did it for the money.

• The Adventures of Superman became a semi-weekly series that ran in syndication - never on a major network. Reeves appeared in over 100 episodes from 1953-58.

• He hated it. But the public identified him as Superman.

• Reeve’s private life was far from the all-American Clark Kent image. For years, he maintained an open relationship with an older married woman named Toni Mannix. Her husband was a notorious fixer for MGM Studios.

• When celebrities got in trouble, Eddie Mannix cleaned up their messes - affairs, public intoxication, wife beating, any seedy scenario that the studio execs wanted kept out of the newspapers.

• Toni, his wife, was no shrinking violet. She had money and spent it on her paramour, George Reeves. She bought him his house on Benedict Canyon Drive. She paid for everything in his life so long as he stayed with her.

• Eddie didn’t care. He had his own side pieces.

• 1958: The television series had run its course. So did Reeves’ affair with Toni Mannix. He found a new woman, Leonore Lemmon. They were going to be married.

• Toni wasn’t happy. Reeves got a restraining order - even though she owned the house he lived in. Toni stopped paying his bills.

• Reeves grew depressed. He broke, middle-aged, and his career seemed over. Worse, he was engaged to a woman as controlling as his mother.

• Three days before their wedding, Reeves and Lemmon had cocktails with friends in his home. He excused himself to go to bed. The party continued without him. At 1 am, he reappeared, miffed that they were still partying. He went back upstairs. Lemmon jokingly said he’d probably gone “to shoot himself.”

• Ten minutes later, they heard a gunshot. Lemmon supposedly said, “See? He shot himself.”

• But it was no laughing matter. George Reeves was found on the floor with a Luger between his legs. He’d taken a bullet to the temple. However, the shell casing somehow got underneath his body.

• Police did almost no investigation. Neither did the LA coroner. It was declared a suicide. The end.

• But Reeves’ elderly mother felt otherwise. She refused to believe her son would take his own life. Few of George’s friends believed it, either. Why would he? They suspected Leonore Lemmon had him killed. Maybe Toni Mannix.

• No conclusive evidence ever materialized, though. The case was closed.

• Twenty years passed before Christopher Reeve portrayed the character. But to people of a certain age, George Reeves will always be remembered as the first Superman.