Warning. This episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. Tonight, join us for a discussion about the various theories behind the strange death of George Reeves. The actor that brought Superman to life in the 1950s. Was it suicide like the authorities suggest, or was he murdered by his fiancé or ex-girlfriend? This is a study of strange. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Michael May, your host. And to all of all of the things strange and weird and mysterious.
And thank you for returning for part two of this strange Death of Superman. The mystery revolving. George Reeves and his suicide. And joining me again is Sean Anthony Davis. Thank you for being on channel. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And, that was you outside my house. It's really hot. So I'm going to review a couple of the things for people that may have either already forgotten or just need a refresher on the information.
And if you haven't, listen to part one, listen to part one so you can be caught up so George Reeves, the actor who played Superman in The Adventures of Superman in the 50s, on June 16th, 1959, he went out to dinner with his fiancée, Lenore Lemon, and came home later that night. The two of them had friends over. This is again the common. The common story, as I said in part one, is that they had friends over William Bliss, Robert Condon, Carol Van Runkle, and George wanted to go to bed.
He was upset. Upset. Everybody's making noise. He came down, they argue, blah, blah, blah. He goes back upstairs. The norm mentions he's going to shoot himself, and then he shoots himself. And, George Reeves Superman is dead at 45 years old. Very sad. There are a lot of strange things in this story. For one, the police weren't called for about 45 minutes. There were. There's one bullet hole in the ceiling that was definitely the bullet that killed George Reeves.
But there were two additional bullet holes in the ground. There's no fingerprints on the gun. There's no, like, burn the powder. I think it's powder. Burns is what it's called on it, on his head. there's. Let's see what else is. There's weird stories that his brake fluid had been drained earlier when he got into a crash. His ex-girlfriend, Tony Mannix, she's married to a guy with a lot of connections to the underworld. She could have had him killed.
Lenore and him may have been fighting over the wedding. Or maybe they didn't want to get married or whatever. Which was coming up in three days. That's one of the other main theories there, and I feel like I'm forgetting some of the odd, strange things. No fingerprints. Yes. So, yeah, there's just a lot of things that don't add up in this story.
And one of the main theories is that Lenore killed him, whether they got into an argument and she pulled the gun out or it was planned, I can't say, but that is one of the main theories. And like a lot of things I cover on this show, Sean, not everything with that common story I told you is true, which we can probably tell because it's a little bit weird. And to be honest, we don't know what happened that night.
But I do think I've been able to piece together some things a little better than what most people hear from one the houseguests, all these friends that were over. Robert Condon was a houseguest. He was the only one that was kind of staying in the house. They were staying there in the guest room. It's actually a relatively small house.
I think it's only like 1500 square feet and there's two bedrooms and the guest house, the guest room is kind of over the garage on the front side of the house, and that's where Robert Condon is staying. The other, one of the other guest, Van Runkle. Carol. Carol van Runkle, she was married. And it's really important to note, as I clarify things tonight, that her husband was not there. And there's a reason her husband was not there. And that's because she was having an affair with, Robert Condon.
Yep. Yep. Exactly. It never changes. Never changes. Oh, Hollywood. the other person that was there, William Bliss, stopped by there a lot of the stories. And I said this in part one, a lot of stories are that Carol and William came together. They were neighbors and knocked on the door because the porch light is on. That's not the case. William came later and his wife was supposed to join him as well. They were invited by Carol. William Bliss did not know. George did not know. Lenore lemon.
Yeah. Well, it was one of those also like the porch light being on. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll explain the light right now. So the story that Lenore tells and I don't think she can fully be trusted. And also her main interview that I pulled this information from was decades later was in 1989. She has a long history of being an alcoholic. So this is 30, 30 years later.
So look, she's not going to remember everything correctly, but there are some really interesting details in her story in her interview. One is, is that she and George went to bed when they came home from dinner. They didn't hang out with people. They went straight to bed. She couldn't sleep, so she got out of bed and went downstairs and the porch light was off and out of habit.
She turned it on and that's the signal for people, as I mentioned in part one was like, hey, we're open for business, and this is somewhere she doesn't know exactly. And the other thing to know about times, everything's a guess. So even in like the accounts to the police, it's all like, yeah, roughly this. So that's important to know too. But she says it's somewhere between like midnight and 1:00 and she's a party animal, so she doesn't even think it's that late. But she couldn't sleep.
Turns on the light. Soon after William Bliss shows up. She doesn't really know him, but she's like, oh, Carol invited him. She invites him in for a drink to be hospitable. Carol and Robert Condon aren't in the living room hanging out. They're in the bedroom doing bedroom things. And, yeah. So, so, William Bliss is there. And that's when they hear a gunshot. And she claims George never came downstairs. Exactly. And this seems to be corroborated by William Bliss when he was interviewed later.
So George does not come downstairs and have the argument. And that's even in Hollywoodland. They even have, like, Ben Affleck coming down the stairs. An area. Yeah, yeah. So he doesn't come downstairs. He shoots himself. The story about her, like almost premonition sort of being, oh, he's going to shoot himself. Oh, I hear the door opening. He's getting the gun. That didn't happen.
What happened is she heard they heard the gunshot, and she was like, I think, did he just shoot himself like, that kind of moment? She also pointed out you can't hear the door open like the master bedroom is like, it's not two full floors, but there's like two sets of staircases that go up the bedroom. You can't hear the freaking drawer open up there. Yeah, a exactly. and what happened was, is the reason that the bullet went off. And we have to think about this in terms of her story.
And she wasn't trying to like one of the things I like about this is she wasn't trying to defend herself when she's doing this interview. She's just like going through her memory and like, here's what kind of happened. So when you think about the police not being called for 45 minutes once some stories say it was 30 minutes, some say again, it just kind of depends on what you read and it's not like they had a clock or stopwatch. Adrenaline's pumping. They heard a gunshot.
But definitely look, it is weird that, yeah, there's some time. but it may not have been a full 45 minutes, but between the gunshot going off, some time passed before they went to check and that's probably because you're just kind of weirded out, like, was it? What? Yeah. So some time passes. Bill bliss is the one that's like, I should go see what's going on up there. And he runs upstairs. He comes down. It's like George shot himself. He's dead.
Lenore immediately starts thinking of her friend Carol. And it's like, well, if the police come, Carol is going to be outed. Her husband's going to find out she's having this affair, so she's trying to figure out how to get Carol and Robert, like, out of the house. That's like her main thing, like, oh, shit, I got to get them out. And that was her thing. And also, there's no Uber. I don't think Carol drove herself. So she's trying to figure out how to get Carol out.
The exactly she has to call a she gets a friend of hers to come by and pick her up, and it takes time. So that's why, according to Lenore, that all this time went by before they called the cops. She claims, I don't know if I really believe her. She claims that she never even went upstairs during this whole time before the police showed up.
There's also these stories in, like, the common retelling of it all, that when the police showed up, this whole group, Carol and Robert and Lenore and William Bliss, they were all hanging out in the living room, drinking when the police showed up. I don't know if that's true or not, because there's so many discrepancies about like, no, it it's just Lenore at the house when police showed up. No, they were all there. Honestly, if they were all there, they probably were drinking.
So I wouldn't necessarily take that as, like. Yes. Yes, yes. But she's remember, she's only with. According to her, she's only with William bliss is not with Carol and Robert. But that is apparently very much corroborated and investigated thoroughly by the police. In fact, I actually I'm going to send you something, Sean. I'm going to have you read some saying. These are just these are not all in order. I'm going to have you read some quotes from one of her interviews. If I can copy accordingly.
this will be fun. This will be good. Still yeah. Okay. So I'm going to have Sean here read some quotes, and I didn't I didn't format this, Sean, so I apologize. Now whenever you don't see a quote, I'll just say whatever. Like I'll read next to interviewer and tee it up here. We'll figure it out as we go. There's no rules. There's no rules. And a study of screen. these are quotes from an interview Lenore Lemmon did in 1989, which was only a year before she passed away.
And she apparently the first one you're going to hear is she apparently called her friend Polly to call, to come pick up Condon. Go ahead and. Yes. And, this is the way she talks, by the way. She is, very kind of flighty again. Years. Years of alcohol abuse. So she. I don't think she's smoking, but she does. She does get a cocktail at the end of the of the, interview, and she takes a sip and I think she goes like, ooh la la or something weird, like, it was. It's it's amazing.
so in another part of her interview, I'm going to read some, some interviewer questions. These are not necessarily in order because these were just notes I put in, but it'll be fun. So you were having a party. There was activity going on in the other room. So this article is wrong. Then it says Lenore was surprised by his agitation because he was an angry, angry people came over. You said, is this a work or a shoot wrestling jargon? Kidding or serious?
It also says suddenly Lenore supposedly looked at Condon. His expression was vacant, and she said softly, he's going to shoot himself. So yeah. So I apologize that that's kind of bouncing around there a little bit. But the point was, is that this interviewer was reading her newspaper article. Yeah. So from, again, that quote unquote common story and all the contradictions to it. So 45 minutes goes by again thereabouts, 45 minutes before the cops are called. She tries to hustle everybody out.
Depending on the source, her friends are either still at the house. Some of them are, some of them are gone. I actually could not validate who was at the house besides her when the cops showed up. but we do have corroborating statements from these other witnesses, if you can call them that. From that night. Two police now, I one of the things I loved about that interview she gave is that she didn't even know who bliss was, like, she forgot his name.
Yeah. And that's because the the interviewer had to tell her his name and she did not really like him. Apparently. He was like, he talked a lot and she didn't know he was and blah, blah, blah. So when he reminded her the name, she was like, oh, that's it, that's it. Which for a lot of people that think that there's a cover up, like she killed Reeves and had her friends be like, tell him, tell everybody I wasn't up there. It wasn't me. It was a suicide. This made it look like a suicide.
It's kind of hard to get somebody you don't know and don't even know their name to go along with that for decades. So that's one of the things that kind of points to me, that I don't think in terms of the theory that Lenore killed him, I that rings out to me is like a, you know, something to take note of. Yeah. No, that's a good point. But to clarify that, I do think and please, listeners, if you know better, please email me a study of stranger gmail.com.
But I do think William Bliss confirmed with the cops that he was with Lenore when the gun went off. Oh, that's where you're saying okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and I will mention as well you don't see this come up very often, but apparently there was, a lot of newspaper accounts at the time mentioned $5,000 being missing after he was killed.
However, that the reason that never like, became a saying or became a big part of the investigation is because it was actually $4,000, it was in five and it was in like cashier's checks or traveler's checks or something like that. And Lenore actually had those and gave it over to the authorities and her lawyer. Yeah. So, so a lot of people. Right. And it wasn't like it was stolen or anything like it. It all went through the proper channels after something like this.
So let's talk real quick before I get to the the Tony Mannix theory that she had him killed. Let's talk about suicide. We've already kind of talked about this where, like, you never know the true state, mental state of somebody, even though he apparently was in a good mood and, you know, had potential work on the horizon. You and I know potential work on the rise in Hollywood is not that, that's solid. And we just don't know what his mental makeup state was.
We don't know if he was happy he was getting married to Lenore. Maybe they started to have a falling out. And that was adding to this or exacerbating this sort of depression. we definitely know that he had money troubles. that was a big part of his life. And his mom, his mother even confirmed that his mother, by the way, never thought he committed suicide. But she did confirm that he was having a lot of financial difficulties. And it doesn't help that he's a big drinker, big, big drinker.
And so that adds to all this as well. And I'm going to talk now about the big tease from the last episode, the no fingerprints on the gun apparently. And this police investigated this comes from the cops. It had recently been cleaned and oiled before the gunshot. And fingerprints don't stick. There's still, like, an oily residue. and the powder burns. Apparently, they never tested for powder burns.
But there is some, you know, there's documentaries and stuff about this and some some very smart person was like, well, if the gun was actually against the skin, the way the, like burn happens, doesn't it actually like burns that be something like that? Something that I didn't really fully understand, but someone very smart sold me on it. So, so so there you go. and again, we already talked about the bullet.
Being in the ceiling is weird, but he could have just been slouching, you know, when you had kind of turn. Yes. Yes. Me too, me too. And so to me, the suicide thing is a very valid thing. A lot of people that worked with him, including and I feel terrible because now I thought I'd remember the name. But the guy that played Jimmy Olsen in the series and some other actor friends, they don't believe a lot of the rumors that he was killed by someone else. They they think he committed suicide.
And those are people that knew him very well. also, there's a this amazing clip I came across from one of those. What a show that I would love to produce, but one of those like Hollywood mysteries from like the early 2000s like anthology shows, and they interview the actor Jim Beaver from supernatural. But one of my favorite actors, they interview him and he must not have been famous yet because they call him Jim Beaver, Hollywood historian. And he's talking about the case.
Anyway, that's just a fun little, thing I came across in researching. so let's dive into the final in the most, fascinating theory, which is that Tony Mannix is his old flame had him killed. And I mentioned in part one she had been calling the house incessantly. She had their stories that she had him followed. There's stories that she stole his dog. They were they were not in a good place. And she was not handling any of this well.
And I'm sure it wasn't good on her that, George and Lenore were about to get married as well. And her husband, Eddie Mannix, super tied in with the underworld and criminals and probably killers. All of that's conjecture, but it's very likely. And in his situation. And. Yeah. So she wasn't happy. She had the so-called motive that you look for in these kinds of cases. She also I'll say this people use this against Leonard's, theory as well.
when he died, most of his estate was left to Tony and Lenore. Lenore thought that in court. I believe it, but they weren't married yet, and nothing had been changed in the wheel and all that kind of stuff. So there is a there is one of these side series to Tony's story, being that she had invested all this financial, she wanted it back. Yeah. Like you're going to marry someone else. You don't love me anymore. I want all my shit back and so that goes into to this theory as well. But the truth is.
Oh, let me back up a little bit. So the theory with this is that someone could have snuck in, and there are people that suspect when William Bliss showed up, that it was actually a bit of a, what is a misdirect? And someone could have snuck in the back door or the side door and gone upstairs and killed George. They knew he had the gun because it was given to him by Eddie Mannix. Tony probably no knew where he kept it in the drawer. And so that's one of the theories. I don't believe this theory.
I think a lot of a lot of people believe it. But I think because motive is there and because they knew the right people to do it. And again, I do think there is a little bit of validity to it. But to me, when you have to create these extra steps of like, oh, William Bliss was a misdirect, I know they had to go upstairs silently. You know, they had to know where the gun was. And, they had like. Yeah. It. Yes. 100%. And that's what it comes down to.
I talk about it endlessly, and I probably annoy everybody, but the simple answer is most likely true. And you can say that in a million different ways. There's Occam's razor. Sherlock Holmes said it a different way, which I can't remember exactly right now. Is is true or. Yeah, yeah, but it comes in the same thing. And I feel like when you have to invent these little stories and you have to invent other little stories on top of stories to make something set, it becomes to me less plausible.
And I think that's what happens with the Tony Mannix thing. I almost believe Lenore and him getting in a fight in some sort of drunken argument, her shooting him. I almost believe that more than I do Tony Mannix having to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It to me as well. And, you know, I, I do. I lean more to the suicide thing, but to me, that is a plausible scenario.
And I want to add a couple of interesting stories here years later, decades later, in terms of the Tony Mannix theory, it was a publicist. I forget his name right now, but there's a publicist that claimed that he overheard Tony admit that she had George killed. She also apparently told this to other people, even, like a week after. But all the stories I heard sounds like she's doing, like, people want to blame me, so just. Yeah, yeah, I had a I had an item camp.
That's the way it's kind of coming off to me. The publicist, all these decades later, just so happened to be after everybody else was dead. And he claimed he could tell the story now because he wasn't threatened by Eddie Mannix or anything because all those people had died. But to me, it seems like someone trying to get some publicity themselves more than more than a saying of like, oh, I overheard her tell a priest that she she killed him.
and and that's where a lot of stories, in fact, the I think a lot of the, stories about George coming down the stairs and arguing, some of that comes from William Bliss's wife. She again, decades later, claim that she was also invited. So she was showing up. But she showed up late, and when she walked up to the house, she saw through the window. George come downstairs and arguing in a robe with everybody before he went upstairs.
And she was like, yeah, I don't want anything to do with this, and turned around and left. And it's like, why did you why was it, you know, 20, 30 years later that you're telling this story and why would you leave, like your husband? You don't know that there's you don't know any violence is about to happen. He's not holding a gun. He's not like, why would you turn around and walk away? So again, it to me that just doesn't it doesn't feel real. Those stories I don't believe those people.
if they're telling a truth, I apologize to you, but it doesn't ring as true to me. So, yeah. Yes, yes. Yes. And so, before we go on, I want to take a few minutes because this story with George Reeves started the so-called Superman curse. Do you? I'm sure you've heard about this. So, in your definition, what is the Superman curse? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's the that's the idea. And look, I don't put stock in curses no matter what.
because I've been an on TV show where I do talk about it and I had to believe in it a little bit just for the sake of the story. But I don't really believe in curses. But this, it is an interesting one that's kind of spread. I think it probably, honestly, it probably started when we were like kids, like. Yeah, that that kind of. Yes, yes. Yeah. Exactly. But there are some other points to it. So I'll, I'll point these out real quick.
Kirk Allen, who played Superman in the 1940s, had a similar situation of typecasting after that series ended. or I shouldn't say series. I think it's just a few movies, but Kirk Allen couldn't get work anymore after the show, and he later died. with Alzheimer's disease. I will quickly point out he lived to be 88. So, you know, that's, it's pretty long life. Lee Quigley, who's the actor? The infant actor from Superman in 1978, a movie I'm vastly. Yeah. Carlisle, died at 14.
and suffered from bullying and some other things. George Reeves, we just went over, committed suicide. May have been killed. Christopher Reeve, which sort of cemented this whole thing. I think most people are aware he he was in a horse that was horseback riding when he fell and was paralyzed. Right. And then he also died very young, which I was surprised to see today. He was only 50. I thought he was older than that, but he was in his 50s when he passed away.
It was early 2002, I think he passed away. But he he, his accident was in 1995. There's other alleged victims, which include Marlon Brando because not himself personally, but a lot of he went through a lot of turmoil with relatives and kids and some other things which I don't remember all the details of, but some nasty things happened.
Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the big franchise, she had a lot of mental issues and got into some car accidents, but she also completely writes off the Superman curse as being ridiculous. Richard Pryor tried to commit suicide with himself on fire. yeah, there's there's a bunch of even Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who created Superman. They spent decades fighting for more rights and more money and stuff and weren't treated well. After creating Superman. So that's, Oh. You know what?
You probably could add Allison Mack, who played Chloe Sullivan in Smallville. she's the. Yeah, sex trafficker. And, Yeah. So maybe maybe you can put that in there. But I will say there's a lot of people that have not had anything crazy happen to them. Yeah. Dean Cain. Here I have a Brandon Routh. Yeah, yeah, I've met Brandon before. He's a super sweet guy. Yeah. He's been around. I think he's been, I see him in some, like, hallmark movies every Christmas because my wife watches all those.
Tom welling, I think Tom welling is doing well. He was in Smallville, so, like, there's there's plenty of things to say, you know, there's no curse, but, But, yeah, I just thought that would be fun to kind of go over. Yeah. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Yeah. It's tough. It's a tough life. And also you never. You never know what other people are going through. You never do. Even people close to you. And. And I think that's why you have to treat people well.
Treat people with respect because you never know what someone else is going through. And, if George Reeves didn't in fact commit suicide, which I believe I, you know, we he was going through a lot and he was probably going through more than we realized. And maybe even he realized, too, you know, he may not have had a grasp on everything going on emotionally. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. They are. And I will say whether you believe her and trust her or not. And I don't as much as I thought.
She gave a lot of interesting evidence to me. I still don't believe everything she said just because of her own memory. And she may be covering up some stuff, but Lenore Lemon's, account of everything. She obviously claims that he committed suicide. And when she's asked why he did it, she primarily talks about money and not being able to get a role. And I think it's really important. Look, I'm an actor. I'm never going to try to stop trying to be an actor my whole life.
It is very I'm glad that I have other creative pursuits like podcasting and filmmaking and stuff, but being told you can't act anymore is devastating. And and even it could a financial yes, that's a hardship he may have been more impacted by. Sure, I can make some money here or there doing various things, but I'm literally being told I can't act, I can't play other roles. And that is like, what's the point? You know, what's the point?
And that was a thought I had after reading all of that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Well, thank you, Sean, for for taking the time to do these, stories in these couple of episodes about George Reeves. I, I have, you know, this, but I have a fascination with Hollywood and Hollywood history, and I don't I don't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean. Yeah. It is, it is. Absolutely. Yeah. It does, it does.
You mentioned three of my favorite films and Chinatown's in my top five by the way I think Chinatown is a perfect movie. yeah. well great. Well thank you so much for doing this. And we will see you soon. Oh, is there anything you want to push, promote or anything? Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. That's amazing. What? Do you have a name? So, That's so cool. I'm so excited for you, John. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again, and I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you for listening to a study of strange. And again, a special thank you to Sean Anthony Davis. Take a quick second before you go. Hit that subscribe button, rate and review wherever you watch. That's a great way to have more people be able to find our show. Additionally, you can support the show by subscribing to our Substack, which you can find through our website. A study of strange.com. There's a bunch of additional content, exclusive content.
I'm also planning to put out a bunch of articles about all wonderful sorts of strange mysteries over this summer on the Substack, because I'm not going to be able to record as much, so I'm going to steal that as much as I can. Thank you all again for listening. Good night.