First the JFK Conspiracy Curse, Now the Superman Curse!

[esquirecomics]

Came across this while doing research on the legal battles of Siegel and Shuster.

 

The Express

 

July 13, 2006 Thursday

U.K. 1st Edition

 

SECTION: NEWS; 20

 

LENGTH: 1441 words

 

HEADLINE: THE CURSE OF SUPERMAN;

They've gone bankrupt, committed suicide, endured breakdowns and lived in obscurity. So, as a new film of the comic strip hero is released, just why have so many people been damned by the Man of Steel?

 

BYLINE: By Polly Dunbar

 

BODY:

 

 

FOR six years in the Fifties George Reeves was one of the biggest stars on the planet.

 

Every Monday at 7pm the entire country stopped to watch him as the ultimate superhero - his majestic red cape billowing, muscles bulging under his body-hugging blue suit and his strong, manly features set in an expression of heroic determination.

 

As the Man of Steel in TV's phenomenally popular Adventures Of Superman, Reeves beat the likes of Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart hands down as the man women most wanted to rescue them.

 

Yet as soon as the series ended in 1958 so did his once-illustrious career. He found himself rejected from role after role and even those he did manage to win served him little better. His scenes in the classic From Here To Eternity ended up on the cutting-room floor because test audiences could only recognise him as Superman.

 

Reduced to performing as a wrestler in his costume to make ends meet, he turned to drinking to forget his troubles. By 1959 he had had enough and in the end, the man millions had watched flying faster than a speeding bullet, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

 

This weekend the king of the superheroes flies back into British cinemas in Superman Returns. It's set to catapult its star, the unknown actor Brandon Routh, straight into the upper echelons of the movie elite but he could be forgiven for wondering if, in return for fame and fortune, he has signed on for the riskiest job in Hollywood.

 

Will he, like Reeves and so many others, fall victim to the sinister curse of Superman?

 

Reeves's untimely death is just one in a string of bizarre misfortunes to befall those involved with the superhero and rumours that Superman is jinxed have grown with each passing decade.

 

Since Reeves, there have been plenty of disasters to fuel the superstitions, from the original Superman Kirk Alyn, whose career stalled after donning the cape, to Christopher Reeve, who died two years ago after being paralysed in a riding accident.

 

Although the fate of these people can be dismissed simply as a series of grim coincidences, the curse could actually be the very real result of the bitterness of the two men who first dreamed up the boy wonder from the planet Krypton back in 1938. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel were the two self-confessed comic-book geeks who sold their idea for Superman to DC Comics.

 

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

Their creation should have earned the pair a fortune over the past 68 years but instead they lived in poverty after selling the rights to the character for the paltry sum of GBP 75. They were paid just GBP 5 a page for drawing their cartoon strip and when they demanded a pay rise the publisher responded by firing them.

 

They spent the rest of their lives fighting and losing endless court battles to regain ownership of Superman.

 

In 1975, when they heard that Warner Bros was planning to make the first major Superman movie, from which Siegel and Shuster would receive nothing, Siegel decided to take public revenge.

 

In a letter printed by newspapers across America he claimed that Superman's original publisher Jack Liebowitz - by then on the Warner Bros board of directors - had "killed my days, murdered my nights, choked my happiness, strangled my career". He declared: "I, Jerry Siegel, the cooriginator of Superman, put a curse on the Superman movie." Although Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder scoffed whenever they were asked about the curse, Siegel's statement would echo through the years as they and others involved in the film suffered personally and professionally after the blockbuster's 1977 release.

 

Outside the Superman franchise, neither Reeve nor Kidder had another hit film.

 

Plenty of producers tried to give a break to Reeve, who played Superman in all four movies, but he turned down lead roles that brought huge success for other actors and made a score of turkeys, including Mortal Sins and The Great Escape II: The Untold Story.

 

Eventually most of his work was in obscure theatre productions and he met his future wife, actress and singer Dana Morosini, at a theatre festival on Rhode Island. But when in 1995 he was thrown from his horse, breaking his neck and putting him in a wheelchair, the curse seemed to have struck with a cruel irony and he died in 2004.

 

Even Reeve's wife Dana might have been touched by the curse. She died earlier this year of lung cancer, despite never having smoked a cigarette. The year after Reeve's accident Kidder, who played Lois Lane, was declared bankrupt. The stunning brunette, who was earning more than GBP 50,000 a week at the height of her fame, had a car crash in 1990 which left her partly paralysed and in a wheelchair for two years. She couldn't work and, without health insurance, she had to pay her medical bills herself.

 

She fell into a deep depression and was discovered sleeping rough in Los Angeles 10 years ago after suffering a mental breakdown which led her to believe the CIA were chasing her. She hacked off her hair with a razor blade and was found dazed and dishevelled, hiding beneath a bush and accusing strangers of trying to kill her.

 

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Kidder, now a 57-year-old grandmother living in Montana, still doesn't believe in the curse of Superman. "I think the curse is nonsense, " she says.

 

"The reality is if you get any group of people, X number are going to have some sort of calamity in their life because that's what life is." The calamities which have befallen the Superman stars far outstrip what most of us experience, though.

 

Comedian Richard Pryor is another cast member for whom the curse appears to have worked its voodoo magic. He earned more than GBP 2million playing crook Gus Gorman in Superman III, the highest appearance fee a black actor had ever received in Hollywood. He died in December last year after a 20-year battle with multiple sclerosis, his last years spent in a wheelchair, unable to wash, dress or even feed himself.

 

Marlon Brando was also paid a fortune to appear in Superman - GBP 500,000 for every minute he appeared on screen as Superman's father Jor-El. He appeared for less than 10 minutes but it appears to have been long enough for him to fall prey to the curse. In 1995 his 25-year-old daughter Cheyenne, who suffered from schizophrenia, hanged herself. Five years earlier the star's son Christian was convicted of murder for shooting dead Cheyenne's boyfriend.

 

EVEN the infant who played Superman as a baby did not escape the curse. Lee Quigley was 10 months old when filming began.

 

At 14, though, he died from solvent abuse. And is it paranoid to wonder how Superman producer Pierre Spengler ended up bankrupt, despite making four films which made around GBP 300million?

 

Attempts to transfer Superman back to the small screen have not fared well.

 

John Haymes Newton and Gerard Christopher, who both played Superboy, have since made a career out of TV bit parts in shows such as Melrose Place.

 

The hit Nineties TV series Lois And Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman catapulted Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher into the global spotlight.

 

Cain was so alarmed by the curse that he insisted studio bosses took out a GBP 12million insurance policy to cover him in case he, too, became a victim.

 

After the series finished, Cain sank without trace, while Hatcher spent nearly a decade in the acting wilderness. In that time she landed only one major film role, in Tomorrow Never Dies. She broke up with her husband, actor Jon Tenney, and was forced to bring up their daughter on her own. Then came her salvation: Desperate Housewives. But Hatcher is still plagued by doubts and uncertainty about the future, saying: "I'll probably be a has-been again next week." Unsurprisingly, when it came to casting the new Superman film, producers reportedly had a great deal of trouble finding anyone willing to fill the Man of Steel role. Many established stars, including Nicolas Cage, Josh Hartnett, Brendan Fraser and Keanu Reeves, turned it down and Ashton Kutcher openly admitted he'd been put off the part because of the curse.

 

But Superman Returns star Brandon Routh refuses to believe there is a dark cloud hanging over the films. "My response is, 'what curse?' I don't think curses exist. I trust in my talent as an actor that I can become other characters. But whatever the role entails I suppose I am ready for it." Only time will tell whether the curse will strike again, or whether the new film will bury it for ever.

[bluechip]

Came across this while doing research on the legal battles of Siegel and Shuster.

 

The Express

 

July 13, 2006 Thursday

U.K. 1st Edition

 

SECTION: NEWS; 20

 

LENGTH: 1441 words

 

HEADLINE: THE CURSE OF SUPERMAN;

They've gone bankrupt, committed suicide, endured breakdowns and lived in obscurity. So, as a new film of the comic strip hero is released, just why have so many people been damned by the Man of Steel?

 

BYLINE: By Polly Dunbar

 

BODY:

 

 

FOR six years in the Fifties George Reeves was one of the biggest stars on the planet.

 

Every Monday at 7pm the entire country stopped to watch him as the ultimate superhero - his majestic red cape billowing, muscles bulging under his body-hugging blue suit and his strong, manly features set in an expression of heroic determination.

 

As the Man of Steel in TV's phenomenally popular Adventures Of Superman, Reeves beat the likes of Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart hands down as the man women most wanted to rescue them.

 

Yet as soon as the series ended in 1958 so did his once-illustrious career. He found himself rejected from role after role and even those he did manage to win served him little better. His scenes in the classic From Here To Eternity ended up on the cutting-room floor because test audiences could only recognise him as Superman.

 

Reduced to performing as a wrestler in his costume to make ends meet, he turned to drinking to forget his troubles. By 1959 he had had enough and in the end, the man millions had watched flying faster than a speeding bullet, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

 

This weekend the king of the superheroes flies back into British cinemas in Superman Returns. It's set to catapult its star, the unknown actor Brandon Routh, straight into the upper echelons of the movie elite but he could be forgiven for wondering if, in return for fame and fortune, he has signed on for the riskiest job in Hollywood.

 

Will he, like Reeves and so many others, fall victim to the sinister curse of Superman?

 

Reeves's untimely death is just one in a string of bizarre misfortunes to befall those involved with the superhero and rumours that Superman is jinxed have grown with each passing decade.

 

Since Reeves, there have been plenty of disasters to fuel the superstitions, from the original Superman Kirk Alyn, whose career stalled after donning the cape, to Christopher Reeve, who died two years ago after being paralysed in a riding accident.

 

Although the fate of these people can be dismissed simply as a series of grim coincidences, the curse could actually be the very real result of the bitterness of the two men who first dreamed up the boy wonder from the planet Krypton back in 1938. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel were the two self-confessed comic-book geeks who sold their idea for Superman to DC Comics.

 

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

Their creation should have earned the pair a fortune over the past 68 years but instead they lived in poverty after selling the rights to the character for the paltry sum of GBP 75. They were paid just GBP 5 a page for drawing their cartoon strip and when they demanded a pay rise the publisher responded by firing them.

 

They spent the rest of their lives fighting and losing endless court battles to regain ownership of Superman.

 

In 1975, when they heard that Warner Bros was planning to make the first major Superman movie, from which Siegel and Shuster would receive nothing, Siegel decided to take public revenge.

 

In a letter printed by newspapers across America he claimed that Superman's original publisher Jack Liebowitz - by then on the Warner Bros board of directors - had "killed my days, murdered my nights, choked my happiness, strangled my career". He declared: "I, Jerry Siegel, the cooriginator of Superman, put a curse on the Superman movie." Although Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder scoffed whenever they were asked about the curse, Siegel's statement would echo through the years as they and others involved in the film suffered personally and professionally after the blockbuster's 1977 release.

 

Outside the Superman franchise, neither Reeve nor Kidder had another hit film.

 

Plenty of producers tried to give a break to Reeve, who played Superman in all four movies, but he turned down lead roles that brought huge success for other actors and made a score of turkeys, including Mortal Sins and The Great Escape II: The Untold Story.

 

Eventually most of his work was in obscure theatre productions and he met his future wife, actress and singer Dana Morosini, at a theatre festival on Rhode Island. But when in 1995 he was thrown from his horse, breaking his neck and putting him in a wheelchair, the curse seemed to have struck with a cruel irony and he died in 2004.

 

Even Reeve's wife Dana might have been touched by the curse. She died earlier this year of lung cancer, despite never having smoked a cigarette. The year after Reeve's accident Kidder, who played Lois Lane, was declared bankrupt. The stunning brunette, who was earning more than GBP 50,000 a week at the height of her fame, had a car crash in 1990 which left her partly paralysed and in a wheelchair for two years. She couldn't work and, without health insurance, she had to pay her medical bills herself.

 

She fell into a deep depression and was discovered sleeping rough in Los Angeles 10 years ago after suffering a mental breakdown which led her to believe the CIA were chasing her. She hacked off her hair with a razor blade and was found dazed and dishevelled, hiding beneath a bush and accusing strangers of trying to kill her.

 

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Kidder, now a 57-year-old grandmother living in Montana, still doesn't believe in the curse of Superman. "I think the curse is nonsense, " she says.

 

"The reality is if you get any group of people, X number are going to have some sort of calamity in their life because that's what life is." The calamities which have befallen the Superman stars far outstrip what most of us experience, though.

 

Comedian Richard Pryor is another cast member for whom the curse appears to have worked its voodoo magic. He earned more than GBP 2million playing crook Gus Gorman in Superman III, the highest appearance fee a black actor had ever received in Hollywood. He died in December last year after a 20-year battle with multiple sclerosis, his last years spent in a wheelchair, unable to wash, dress or even feed himself.

 

Marlon Brando was also paid a fortune to appear in Superman - GBP 500,000 for every minute he appeared on screen as Superman's father Jor-El. He appeared for less than 10 minutes but it appears to have been long enough for him to fall prey to the curse. In 1995 his 25-year-old daughter Cheyenne, who suffered from schizophrenia, hanged herself. Five years earlier the star's son Christian was convicted of murder for shooting dead Cheyenne's boyfriend.

 

EVEN the infant who played Superman as a baby did not escape the curse. Lee Quigley was 10 months old when filming began.

 

At 14, though, he died from solvent abuse. And is it paranoid to wonder how Superman producer Pierre Spengler ended up bankrupt, despite making four films which made around GBP 300million?

 

Attempts to transfer Superman back to the small screen have not fared well.

 

John Haymes Newton and Gerard Christopher, who both played Superboy, have since made a career out of TV bit parts in shows such as Melrose Place.

 

The hit Nineties TV series Lois And Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman catapulted Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher into the global spotlight.

 

Cain was so alarmed by the curse that he insisted studio bosses took out a GBP 12million insurance policy to cover him in case he, too, became a victim.

 

After the series finished, Cain sank without trace, while Hatcher spent nearly a decade in the acting wilderness. In that time she landed only one major film role, in Tomorrow Never Dies. She broke up with her husband, actor Jon Tenney, and was forced to bring up their daughter on her own. Then came her salvation: Desperate Housewives. But Hatcher is still plagued by doubts and uncertainty about the future, saying: "I'll probably be a has-been again next week." Unsurprisingly, when it came to casting the new Superman film, producers reportedly had a great deal of trouble finding anyone willing to fill the Man of Steel role. Many established stars, including Nicolas Cage, Josh Hartnett, Brendan Fraser and Keanu Reeves, turned it down and Ashton Kutcher openly admitted he'd been put off the part because of the curse.

 

But Superman Returns star Brandon Routh refuses to believe there is a dark cloud hanging over the films. "My response is, 'what curse?' I don't think curses exist. I trust in my talent as an actor that I can become other characters. But whatever the role entails I suppose I am ready for it." Only time will tell whether the curse will strike again, or whether the new film will bury it for ever.

 

Careful Mark, as the guy who sold an action 1 for a record price last year, maybe you don't want to go tempting the curse demons to come after you.

[Aman619]

I know you love conspiracy theories like JFK, so your mind is wrapping itself around this as a possible companion obsession.... but, if I went to IMDB and checked the careers of every other person involved with the film, Im sure Im gonna find plenty of happy millionaires to balance out these well-known sad lives.

 

Connections and coincidences abound in EVERY case. They pile up and begin to sound convincing, but taken in context, they are just that. A series of interesting coincidences.

[rjpb]

Many actors who achieve fame in a movie franchise or a television series find that that was the highpoint of their career, and have difficulty finding work afterwards, but come to realize that even humiliating themselves on reality shows beats waiting tables.

[Dano]

I know you love conspiracy theories like JFK, so your mind is wrapping itself around this as a possible companion obsession.... but, if I went to IMDB and checked the careers of every other person involved with the film, Im sure Im gonna find plenty of happy millionaires to balance out these well-known sad lives.

 

Connections and coincidences abound in EVERY case. They pile up and begin to sound convincing, but taken in context, they are just that. A series of interesting coincidences.

 

Gene Hackman.

 

Dan

[Ze-man]

I know you love conspiracy theories like JFK, so your mind is wrapping itself around this as a possible companion obsession.... but, if I went to IMDB and checked the careers of every other person involved with the film, Im sure Im gonna find plenty of happy millionaires to balance out these well-known sad lives.

 

Connections and coincidences abound in EVERY case. They pile up and begin to sound convincing, but taken in context, they are just that. A series of interesting coincidences.

 

Gene Hackman.

 

Dan

 

Watched Crimson Tide the other day, and realized I sold it short the first time through. It really is a solid action film.

 

Sometimes watching a movie when you didn't really intend to is the best way. I happened to catch it while cooking lunch the other day , and sat there in the kitchen till the credits rolled.

 

The Silver Surfer reference didn't hurt either.

 

Ze-

[esquirecomics]

Careful Mark, as the guy who sold an action 1 for a record price last year, maybe you don't want to go tempting the curse demons to come after you.

 

 

Fortunately I think it just applies to those in the industry!

[esquirecomics]

I know you love conspiracy theories like JFK, so your mind is wrapping itself around this as a possible companion obsession.... but, if I went to IMDB and checked the careers of every other person involved with the film, Im sure Im gonna find plenty of happy millionaires to balance out these well-known sad lives.

 

Connections and coincidences abound in EVERY case. They pile up and begin to sound convincing, but taken in context, they are just that. A series of interesting coincidences.

 

Actually I usually spend my time debunking conspiracy theories.

[action1kid]

Quote; Fortunately I think it just applies to those in the industry!

 

 

Dam, I sure hope so !

[topofthetotem]

Quote; Fortunately I think it just applies to those in the industry!

 

 

Dam, I sure hope so !

"Zorox stock has tanked and it's missing CEO was found desheveled and rambling in the gutter."

"Apparently he was eating his comic collection to stave off hunger".

[Rocketeer]

...there might be something to this curse,..I took my girlfriend to see Superman II back in 1980 and she broke up with me that very night,...coincidence?...I don't think so,...

[Ze-man]

...there might be something to this curse,..I took my girlfriend to see Superman II back in 1980 and she broke up with me that very night,...coincidence?...I don't think so,...

 

You are not supposed to show her your monkey till the third date you maroon.

 

 

Ze-

[djpinkpanther67]

Wow, so THIS is where the Madden curse came from...

[ashrael]

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

I had never thought about this before.

[goldust40]

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

I had never thought about this before.

 

A lot of Jewish journalists and writers espouse the theory that Superman's story is drawn from exclusively Jewish folklore - an alien avenging Golem-like figure, discovered in a field and brought up by foster parents (like Moses).

[Aman619]

thats right. Truth Justice and American way came later, with the radio show marketing I think. Originally, back in ther teenage homes in Cleveland, two Jewish sci-fi/pulp nerds pasted together the original Superman mythos of an avenging Golem righting wrongs and helping the oppressed.

[chromium]

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

I had never thought about this before.

 

A lot of Jewish journalists and writers espouse the theory that Superman's story is drawn from exclusively Jewish folklore - an alien avenging Golem-like figure, discovered in a field and brought up by foster parents (like Moses).

 

Michael Chabon

[goldust40]

The concept - a Judeo-Christian allegory involving a child sent from the heavens to save mankind and uphold the values of truth, justice and the American way - caught on immediately and within a year Superman was selling around a million comics a month.

 

I had never thought about this before.

 

A lot of Jewish journalists and writers espouse the theory that Superman's story is drawn from exclusively Jewish folklore - an alien avenging Golem-like figure, discovered in a field and brought up by foster parents (like Moses).

 

Michael Chabon

 

Good call, but in England it's Guardian columnist Howard Jacobson who has been trumpeting said notion along with other members of the left-wing literati....

[Silver Surfer]

Saw that movie about Reeves with Ben Affleck but fell asleep and missed the ending.