George Reeves
My father was an electrical engineer, and enamored of all things electronic. Thus we bought our first television set so that he could play with it. He changed tubes, souped it up, motorized the antenna so it could be turned from inside, and managed to bring in -- albeit somewhat snowy and fuzzy at times -- the only two stations on the air within range of our house -- WAFB in Baton Rouge, and WDSU, in New Orleans.
The year was 1953, and the very first program that graced that little black and white screen in our house in Brookstown was The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves. Presented by Kellog's, that program, with what are now extremely cheesy special effects and awful scripts, guaranteed that I'd be glued to the screen when it aired. As a reader even then of Superman comic books, I was presold. Until then, we listened to the radio. After that, television ruled -- well, after books, for me.
I think they were already shooting in color the second season, even though there weren't any color TV sets to speak of. In black-and-white, it had a very noir look, epecially the first season.
(My father, who hunts down antique radio and TV tubes and restores old sets for collectors as a hobby, still has that old unit in his family room. Big, blonde wood cabinet, little screen. Last time I looked, it still worked.)
I can still recite the opening narration for the Superman show word-for-word. And for those men of my age, George Reeves is the only Superman, just as Sean Connery is the only real James Bond ...
Last fall, there was a movie in theaters, Hollywoodland, which is the story of George Reeves's mysterious death in 1959.
I remember that still, the shock. Suicide? What, did he use a kryptonite bullet ... ?
I meant to see the movie when it came out, but life got in the way and I didn't. It's on DVD and Pay-per-view now, so I finally caught it.
Hollywoodland -- which for those who don't know, is what the world-famous Hollywood real estate sign said before part of it blew down -- stars Ben Affleck as Reeves; Diane Lane as his married girlfriend -- amusing the name, hey? -- and Adrien Brody as the seedy private eye who snoops around after the cops close the case as an obvious suicide. Affleck is perfect as an actor that everybody knows will never be a star except himself; Lane, as his older mistress and wife of a mob-connected studio boss, plays the just-over-the-hill fading rose dead on. Brody's turn as the sleazo hard-drinking L.A. private detective is -- speaking as somebody who used to be one -- done right. Bob Hoskins plays the hard-as-nails studio boss, Mannix, and trots out his letter-perfect American accent once again.
Not a clunker in the cast.
There are glorious bits: Hoskins, Lane, Affleck and Ayumi Iizuka, who plays Hopkin's Japanese mistress, all have dinner together, the height of a civilized open-marriage. Lane's Toni Mannix wants to buy a house. "A good investment," her husband says when she asks him for it. He looks at Reeves. "Don't you think?" He knows who she's buying it for, and he doesn't care that she's sleeping with Reeves. When Reeves ventures a comment to Mannix's mistress, he said, "Don't talk to her." A beat, and then, "She doesn't speak English."
Later, Robin Tunney's Lenore Lemmon, Reeves's eventual fiance, says to a girlfriend when meeting Reeves in New York, "Superman wants to get laid." and then promptly does just that.
There's a scene where a small boy in a cowboy suit, supposedly based on a real event, approaches Reeves at a personal appearance with a real revolver and wants to shoot him to see the bullet bounce off, and Affleck shows Reeves's real fear as he tells the boy that the richochet might hurt somebody and they wouldn't want that ...
The movie explores the theory that Reeves didn't kill himself, and that one of a couple people had reason to off him. I thought it was well-done and balanced, even though it took a few liberties, it also had a lot of well-researched material in it. People looking for an answer to the question, murder or suicide? won't come away with an answer, but it made some good points about Reeves, as a man and as an actor, and for those of us who were kids when he ruled the skies over Metropolis -- with the L.A. Municipal Building standing in for the Daily Planet -- it's a fascinating movie.
Everything I have read indicates that Reeves did himself in. On the night he died, he was drunk, on pain medications, depressed, and there was a family history of suicide. He had money -- the residuals on the show were enough to pay the rent and then some, and he had a job lined up as a director on a movie. He was also about to start another season of Superman, which had been cancelled in 1958, but which had such a demand it had been picked up again to start filming in 1960. But he hated the role and thought it was beneath him, and he had to know his chances of working in front of the camera in anything else were slim. His role in From Here to Eternity was mostly cut, after preview audiences laughed when he appeared on screen: Look, it's Superman!
If you were ever a fan of the TV series, you'll probably enjoy seeing Hollywoodland.
The year was 1953, and the very first program that graced that little black and white screen in our house in Brookstown was The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves. Presented by Kellog's, that program, with what are now extremely cheesy special effects and awful scripts, guaranteed that I'd be glued to the screen when it aired. As a reader even then of Superman comic books, I was presold. Until then, we listened to the radio. After that, television ruled -- well, after books, for me.
I think they were already shooting in color the second season, even though there weren't any color TV sets to speak of. In black-and-white, it had a very noir look, epecially the first season.
(My father, who hunts down antique radio and TV tubes and restores old sets for collectors as a hobby, still has that old unit in his family room. Big, blonde wood cabinet, little screen. Last time I looked, it still worked.)
I can still recite the opening narration for the Superman show word-for-word. And for those men of my age, George Reeves is the only Superman, just as Sean Connery is the only real James Bond ...
Last fall, there was a movie in theaters, Hollywoodland, which is the story of George Reeves's mysterious death in 1959.
I remember that still, the shock. Suicide? What, did he use a kryptonite bullet ... ?
I meant to see the movie when it came out, but life got in the way and I didn't. It's on DVD and Pay-per-view now, so I finally caught it.
Hollywoodland -- which for those who don't know, is what the world-famous Hollywood real estate sign said before part of it blew down -- stars Ben Affleck as Reeves; Diane Lane as his married girlfriend -- amusing the name, hey? -- and Adrien Brody as the seedy private eye who snoops around after the cops close the case as an obvious suicide. Affleck is perfect as an actor that everybody knows will never be a star except himself; Lane, as his older mistress and wife of a mob-connected studio boss, plays the just-over-the-hill fading rose dead on. Brody's turn as the sleazo hard-drinking L.A. private detective is -- speaking as somebody who used to be one -- done right. Bob Hoskins plays the hard-as-nails studio boss, Mannix, and trots out his letter-perfect American accent once again.
Not a clunker in the cast.
There are glorious bits: Hoskins, Lane, Affleck and Ayumi Iizuka, who plays Hopkin's Japanese mistress, all have dinner together, the height of a civilized open-marriage. Lane's Toni Mannix wants to buy a house. "A good investment," her husband says when she asks him for it. He looks at Reeves. "Don't you think?" He knows who she's buying it for, and he doesn't care that she's sleeping with Reeves. When Reeves ventures a comment to Mannix's mistress, he said, "Don't talk to her." A beat, and then, "She doesn't speak English."
Later, Robin Tunney's Lenore Lemmon, Reeves's eventual fiance, says to a girlfriend when meeting Reeves in New York, "Superman wants to get laid." and then promptly does just that.
There's a scene where a small boy in a cowboy suit, supposedly based on a real event, approaches Reeves at a personal appearance with a real revolver and wants to shoot him to see the bullet bounce off, and Affleck shows Reeves's real fear as he tells the boy that the richochet might hurt somebody and they wouldn't want that ...
The movie explores the theory that Reeves didn't kill himself, and that one of a couple people had reason to off him. I thought it was well-done and balanced, even though it took a few liberties, it also had a lot of well-researched material in it. People looking for an answer to the question, murder or suicide? won't come away with an answer, but it made some good points about Reeves, as a man and as an actor, and for those of us who were kids when he ruled the skies over Metropolis -- with the L.A. Municipal Building standing in for the Daily Planet -- it's a fascinating movie.
Everything I have read indicates that Reeves did himself in. On the night he died, he was drunk, on pain medications, depressed, and there was a family history of suicide. He had money -- the residuals on the show were enough to pay the rent and then some, and he had a job lined up as a director on a movie. He was also about to start another season of Superman, which had been cancelled in 1958, but which had such a demand it had been picked up again to start filming in 1960. But he hated the role and thought it was beneath him, and he had to know his chances of working in front of the camera in anything else were slim. His role in From Here to Eternity was mostly cut, after preview audiences laughed when he appeared on screen: Look, it's Superman!
If you were ever a fan of the TV series, you'll probably enjoy seeing Hollywoodland.
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