OUR HERO

[W. Gray]

 

He was our hero. Our generation loved him and many adults found him exciting as well. He was the first super hero we had after Hoppy, Gene, and Roy. We faithfully sat in front of our small black and white television every week to see his amazing exploits. He became so popular that his filmed program was one of the first to go color although none of us had ever seen a color TV. His character never smoked and never drank and he encouraged us not to. He could do no wrong in our eyes and he always corralled the bad people with very little violence.

   What we did not know was that he was not a good role model off the screen. He drank heavily. Every day he began drinking on the set in the morning and continued until retiring at night. He had a ravenous appetite for alcohol but his film crew and friends reported he was always alert and never appeared drunk. He was also a heavy chain smoker. His handlers had to caution him about lighting up in front of children on promotion tours, something he was loathe to do as he did not care appearing before the little imps. He was well liked by his fellow actors but had an inclination to be naughty on the set.

   We did not know he was a kept man. He had an older sugar momma that bought his house for him and gave him an expensive car. Because of his spend everything life style, he could not afford those items on his own. She also footed his enormous liquor bills. When he wrecked the car, she gave him another. If he needed more money, he got it, no questions asked. In front of their friends, she delightfully called him "the boy."

   He got his starring role because of sugar momma's influence. Prior to him becoming our hero, he was a red headed Tarleton twin in Gone With the Wind and was a bit actor in several other movies including From Here to Eternity. Once he saved Lucille Ball from disaster on I Love Lucy. His film role as our hero paid him only $2,500 per week for thirteen working weeks each year. The rest of the year, he cavorted while trying to find other work. His salary was not much for a huge star and he used it all to escort numerous women in lavish style when his sugar momma was not around. After all, she was married to someone else and had other duties to perform. Dark rumors persisted among fellow actors that he might even have one or two close male friends.

  Then one day, our hero announced to sugar momma that her days were over. He had met a much younger woman and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. She was enraged and bitter especially after providing him with so much. She swore revenge but there was not much that could be done about the house and car; they were in his name only.

   Television was not news oriented in those days. Other than fifteen minutes of national news in the evening followed by fifteen minutes of local news, there was nothing else. The important news came from newspapers and radio.

   And so it was, one morning a radio news bulletin said our hero was dead. We could not believe our ears. Even though we were older now, some of us were on the verge of tears. Younger kids were in tears. Grownups were in disbelief. "Say it is not so" was the cry of the day. Our hero was dead of a gun blast--a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Our hero committed suicide at two o'clock in the morning in his own house. How could it be?

   We did not know it at the time but people around him were saying it was not suicide. They said it was murder. Police found him lying nude on his back with the weapon pinned underneath his body. Rumors had his new girlfriend killing him. Other rumors had his former sugar momma killing him through mafia connections. Only one bullet was fired from the suicide weapon but there were three bullet holes in the room where he was found. There were reports of no fingerprints on the weapon, no powder burns on his head, and no gunshot residue on his hands, which authorities acknowledged. Regardless, police ruled suicide and refused further investigation. More rumors reported the mafia was paying off the police.

   It was June 16, 1959. Nothing could ever bring the man of steel back. George Keefer Brewer, aka George Reeves, our generation's Superman, was dead at age 45.

[Janet Harrington]

Now, that is something I did not know.  I watched Superman on TV when George Reeves played Superman.  What I find ironic is that the actor who made Superman movies was Christopher Reeves. 

[W. Gray]

Kirk Alyn played Superman in motion pictures in the late forties.

These movies though were fifteen chapter cliffhanger serials played in chapter sequence each week at the theater. Each chapter was around fifteen minutes long. If the chapters were strung end to end, each movie would be almost four hours long.

When the first Steve Reeves Superman movie came out in 1978, Kirk Alyn along with the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen characters in the TV Superman program were passengers sitting together on the train that the young Clark Kent was racing on foot.

In 1941 and 1942, Paramount pictures created Superman cartoons. Each was around ten minutes. They apparently competed with Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry for screen time. I have seen some of these on television and they are very well drawn. These cartoons were of animated people rather than of animals such as Mighty Mouse.

I stopped watching after Steve Reeves Superman.

There was a Bollywood Superman released sometime in the 1980s. Bollywood is the Indian equivalent of Hollywood.

There may have been one or two continuing TV programs.

       There was 2006 Superman movie and another scheduled for 2009.

[Teresa]

That was very interesting. So sad how things like this will never have the truth come out.
But the mafia still today runs the world. and there are all levels in all places.

[larryJ]

I don't know if anyone remembers, but I used to go to the saturday afternoon movie.  Of course, there was the cartoon and then the serial prior to the movie.  What was funny was a car chased by the police on a winding mountain road and goes off the edge right at the end and then the next saturday the car was still on the road!!!!  Talk about cliffhangars, no pun intended.  larryJ

[W. Gray]

In one Batman serial chapter, Batman got his foot caught in a railroad switch. He pulled and pulled but could not get his foot out. A steam train was bearing down on him all this time and just as the engine was about to hit him, the picture went to freeze frame. A title came screaming on the screen to come next week and see what happens.

The following week, he pulled on his ankle a couple times and it came right out. The steam engine is nowhere as near to him as it was the previous week.

George Reeves appeared live before children in his Superman suit as a way of promoting the television series. He hated it. One of the reasons was that he received no pay. Another was that he constantly ran a gauntlet with the kids.

Many of them tried testing his man of steel properties by poking him hard with scissors, sharpened pencils, or anything else that had a point. On one occasion, however, a little boy sneaked his father's loaded revolver into a promotion gathering. He went up to Superman and told him he was going to shoot to see if he would live. Astounded adults froze fearing that if someone rushed the little boy, he would start shooting. George Reeves calmly asked the reluctant kid to give him the pistol. The boy would not.

Reeves then told the little boy that if he pulled the trigger, the bullet would do no harm to Superman He quickly followed up saying that if he did shoot, the bullet would bounce off him, hit, and possibly kill the little boy or any number of the other kids present. The little boy handed over the revolver.

I saw the above scene in the motion picture, Hollywoodland. I wondered if that occasion were true and found the book titled Hollywood Kryptonite. It was.