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In the 1950’s, there was one television star that was almost always recognized: George Reeves. Oh wait, he wasn’t recognized by his real name but by his character on television. He’s none other than the Man of Steel, Superman! The superhero was praised and the t.v. show became a smash hit. But then the man who was supposed to be faster than a speeding bullet was found dead of a bullet to the brain; apparently he wasn’t fast enough to escape that one. The local police ruled it a suicide because George suffered from depression. But why would a man so on top of the world, cause his own world to crash down around him? Can depression be that strong? Maybe, or maybe not…

The facts surrounding George Reeves’ death seem to contradict the suicide claim. As Superman started to take off, George became involved with a married woman by the name of Tony Manics. She was the wife of a high figure at General Motors. But the unique part about this relationship is that Tony’s husband encouraged her to see George. In fact, Tony took care of George with her husband’s money. The house and the car that George had were bought with Tony’s husband’s money. So with Tony, George lived an extravagant life. But, as time passed, George didn’t want to be with Tony any more and ended their relationship. Tony’s husband was more upset than Tony and no one knew exactly why. George didn’t stay single for long as he started dating Lenore Lemon, who was much younger and wilder than Tony. With Lenore, George went out partying and often hosted parties at his house. This was how his death came about.

On the night of June 16th, 1959 at about 1:30 a.m., police were called to George’s house, only to find him sprawled across the bed, lying on his back, with a bullet hole in his right temple. During that evening, George and Lenore were hosting a party. That party, Lenore thought, was to announce to the guests that George was going to marry her. As the night dragged on, it became apparent that this wasn’t the case. George wasn’t very talkative because he was depressed that he hadn’t filmed an episode of Superman in two years and without Tony’s money, the bills began to pile up. At around 11:30 p.m., all the guests had left. But then around midnight, two of George’s neighbors came over looking for a party. George was rude to them and Lenore seemed to get angry over this. All the theories from this point on all point to the fact that George was murdered and not that he committed suicide. Other than that, they all lead in different directions.

One theory (also the most likely) is that Lenore excused herself from the neighbors whom she allowed to stay and went to talk to George. It is then said that the two lovers got into an argument over the whole marriage thing and that Lenore either accidentally or purposely shot George and went downstairs to tell the neighbors and to come up with matching stories to tell the police (who weren’t called until thirty minutes after George had been shot). When the police arrived, everyone agreed that George was alone in his room and that they were in the living room talking and that they heard a gunshot.

The other theory is that Tony’s husband was so bitter over George and Tony’s break-up, that he used his high-ranking status to have George killed.

Both theories do make sense if you look at the evidence. Police found no fingerprints on the gun (Perfect reason to believe that the murderer took their gun and planted another gun there to make it look like a suicide.) Another intriguing fact is that police found the fatal shell casing underneath the body. If George has shot himself, the casing would have expelled upward. Also, there were no powder burns on his heads or head, so the gun had to have been placed far enough away from his head. The bullet entered his head about an inch above the right ear and exited his skull about one and a half inches above the left ear, so this means that his head was tilted. (Who tilts their head when they shoot themselves? Not many people as far as I know.)

With this compelling evidence, there’s reason enough to try and pursue the theory of murder. Yet, the only people who believe this are conspiracy theorists like myself. No one will really know how George Reeves, also known as Superman, died because the only people who know how he died are now dead.

So was The Man of Steel so far into depression that he killed himself? Or was this a case of a bitter lover’s revenge? I don’t think we will ever know, unless they re-incarnate some people…

-Matt

[Note: If you do any further research on this you might want to try some variations on the names of the women because I’m not exactly positive of the spellings. George Reeves is correct though.]

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