Disturbing Truth Behind The Superman Movie Curse

3. The Tragic Mystery Of George Reeves

Reeves' compelling, tragic story began when he played Superman in 1951, kicking off his pained association with the character. Like Alyn, he was typecast, limiting his chances of other roles, but the Curse took more from him. On June 16, 1959, just days before he was to be married, he was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head with his own Luger beside him. The narrative of the Curse was fuelled at this point by suspicions around Reeves' death: he had been embroiled in an affair with the wife of MGM executive and Hollywood "fixer" Eddie Mannix, but ended it to get engaged, which apparently dismayed his former lover.

Mannix's first wife had turned up dead just over 20 years before Reeves' death after filing for divorce and citing her husband's violent abuse of her. She was killed in a car accident and when the suspicious circumstances of Reeves' death were revealed in 1959, conspiracy theorists had their "evidence." Add suggestions of Mafia involvement, a string of forced abortions and unsolved murders leading back to Mannix and the supposed deathbed confession of his wife (and Reeves' former lover) and it all feels almost too difficult to resist.

From there, as soon as things went bad for anyone associated with Superman - and they did repeatedly - it was pinned on the same thing that took Reeves' life. Not Mannix. Not the Mafia. Not a spurned lover. The Curse.

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