The Superman Curse and the Death of George Reeves

In 1951, comic book writer Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, was living in poverty while DC Comics grew rich from his creation. As part of the original publishing deal, Siegel and artist Joe Shuster had signed away ownership of the character for a one-time payment of $130. Furious, Siegel wrote DC a letter: "As long as I live and afterwards I shall haunt you and yours. Before God I put a curse on you." Over the following decades, tragedy struck several actors who played the Man of Steel—most famously Christopher Reeve, who was left paralyzed after a horse-riding accident, and George Reeves, the star of the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman, whose death was officially ruled a suicide but immediately questioned by those close to him.

The Man Behind the Cape

George Reeves was a working actor who landed the role of Superman in 1952, and 35 million people watched each week as bullets bounced off his chest. But in Hollywood's Golden Age, television was considered a step down from film. Reeves dreamed of being a movie star, yet every job offer seemed to reinforce his typecasting: guest spots on I Love Lucy as Superman, a role in From Here to Eternity that reportedly got cut because test audiences laughed at seeing the Man of Steel in a war drama. The story goes that this crushed him, though the film's director later said his role was never large to begin with.