Dark City

29. HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS: The Fallen Star & The Superman

• Dark City Productions • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Los Angeles, CA | Was Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle a scapegoat or a villain? Did George Reeves take his own life, or was there something more sinister at play? In this episode, we dive into two of Hollywood’s most infamous tragedies—Arbuckle’s scandalous trial that destroyed his career and Reeves’ mysterious death that still fuels conspiracy theories. Decades apart, both cases captivated the public and left behind more questions than answers. And even though Arbuckle received an official verdict and Reeves’ death was ruled a suicide, both stories remain unsettled to this day.

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Speaker 1:

Hi friends, this is Leah and this is April. Today it's easier than ever to make and publish a podcast, but that also means it's never been harder to stand out, especially as an indie podcast. We absolutely love creating Dark City episodes for you, so to make sure the show is a success, we need your help. Easy ways to do it. Number one rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Number two click that share button and send a link to friends and family you think might also like the show.

Speaker 2:

And number three follow us on social media at Dark City Pod. That's Dark City Pod on Instagram, facebook Threads and TikTok.

Speaker 1:

So remember one rate and review, two, share with family and friends, and three follow us on social media.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, and we got rain in LA today.

Speaker 1:

Yay, actually, we started getting it a couple of days ago, which is good. The good news is we got rain in LA today, Yay, Actually, we started getting it a couple of days ago which is good, but it desperately, desperately needs it and I think we are slowly moving through the stages of grief.

Speaker 1:

I didn't say this on the last episode when I did a rundown of the fires, but I personally had I can't remember if I told you this, but I had these weird coincidences with fire in the days leading up to the actual fire. So the book I was reading, I had just started reading, was fire this time because we were going to cover the race riots. We pushed that episode out a little bit farther, but the book was called Fire this time. And then a friend of mine sent me a case that was potentially it was a fire, that was potentially an arson, because now I'm the repository for all things macabre. And then I was reading the book the Shining. I was reading the book the Shining. I got to the end like the day before or two days before the fires and the whole hotel blows up in the book. I don't remember it didn't do that in the movie, I don't remember.

Speaker 2:

I feel like Dr Sleep is more fresh in my mind.

Speaker 1:

I haven't read or seen that movie yet I have not read it.

Speaker 2:

I gave my husband Dr Sleep one year for Christmas. The movie is very good. Okay, I think it is fairly close to the book.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all I remember is, of course, jack Nicholson's frozen face from the end, and I don't remember. Oh yeah, I know it's morbid, but it blows up in the book.

Speaker 1:

And then also, when I was going through old pictures I came across way back when we were researching the Griffith Park episode I went to the museum in the park had an exhibit on Griffith Park and then just a bunch of other exhibits related to LA, and they have these really cool boards where it's like art you can be a part of I think is the idea so they'll put a question on the board and you can fill out your answer on a post-it and put it up there, and the picture I came across was it was an exhibit on fire and it was when you think of fire.

Speaker 1:

what do you think of when you think of fire? I wrote down death and birth. It was just so weird coming across all of those things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And before we dive into the episode itself, I just have to say the Shining was amazing. His work is so much more than just haunted hotels and people that get buried in cemeteries and come back as bloodthirsty zombies and killer clowns. Right, it was deeply psychologically complex get buried in cemeteries and come back, as you know, bloodthirsty zombies and killer clowns. Right, it was deeply psychologically complex, and I think I've said this on the podcast before, but I find the living so much more terrifying at times than the dead. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to Dr Sleep, but I don't really read a lot of Stephen King because they're so heavy and especially when the fires happened, I had Dr.

Speaker 1:

Sleep queued up to start and I thought I'm going to just pause on that for a little while.

Speaker 2:

You need a little bit lighter reading to counteract that heaviness of the day-to-day. Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Exactly the episode today. We're going to go back to old Hollywood, because I realized we're covering LA and we haven't really covered that much of Hollywood. There are so many cases that we could have picked. The ones we picked for today represent Hollywood's darker side during two distinct eras. One is the case of Roscoe, or he was called Fatty Arbuckle, from the 1920s silent film era, and then the George Reeves case. George Reeves played Superman in the 1950s that's the television age as it was getting going and both deaths are really interesting because, despite being so heavily investigated and having official determinations heavily investigated and having official determinations they're still. They still, even after researching, they still feel unresolved. There's still questions where it's like I don't know Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I'll start with the case of Roscoe Arbuckle, as I mentioned, also known more commonly as Fatty Arbuckle, and I'm going to note this upfront. He really did not like being called Fatty and I don't like that name, regardless of whether or not he did this crime, I just don't like it. So I'm going to call him Roscoe throughout this episode, but Roscoe is Fatty Arbuckle For those of you that's probably all of you If you know of him. That's how you know him.

Speaker 1:

I had listened to Morbid the best podcast ever. It's okay if you leave us for that A few episodes, but Ash led that case. She's one of the two co-hosts but she had noted that up front that he really did not like the name. He was a bigger guy, which is why he was called that, though he was also really nimble and graceful, because he was a trained dancer on top of being an actor, which we'll get into that in a second here. Roscoe was born Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle on March 24th 1887. Roscoe was, I saw in one source, he's one of eight kids. Then I read in another source that there were eight kids before him. All I know is that sounds like six or seven.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sorry, oh, my gosh Back then I mean women had so many babies.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you kind of didn't really have a choice back then.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I know, and then also too, like people could die from what's now vaccine preventable diseases. Oh yeah, oh yeah, or you never know. Roscoe, when he was born sources waver between okay, imagine this anyways, but in 1921, he weighed anywhere between 13 to 16 pounds.

Speaker 2:

Did his mother have gestational diabetes? You get really babies. When you, I had gestational diabetes the first time.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my gosh, I don't know, but it did permanently. It permanently gave her body a lot of problems, which is understandable. But also the rest of his family were just. They were normal weight and because of that his father insisted he could not be his kid and treated him terrible because of that. So that is just so heartbreaking. We'll get into what he was accused of. If he was really not guilty, my gosh, this poor guy suffered. But if he really was guilty, then I still think that's not right and probably, having that childhood, certainly that's not going to put you on a good trajectory in life.

Speaker 1:

He started his career as an entertainer very early. He was on stage by the time he was eight years old and he came of age, touring the country, acting and dancing According to age touring the country, acting and dancing. According to smithsonian magazine, quote the experience taught arbuckle how to play any kind of scene or situation, from rube to aristocrat, rural, rural rural.

Speaker 2:

One of the last names in mine is brewer, and when I was reading carl brewer I was like carl burr oh my gosh, oh god what movie is that? Is that black sheep when he's like rural or rural?

Speaker 1:

I totally don't know. Or was it a saturday night?

Speaker 1:

live skit okay right in we'll figure it out after this episode. I'm sorry, that's okay. So he could play any kind of scene or situation, from Rube to aristocrat, rural slapstick to melodrama. He knew what made a joke work, what endeared characters to theater goers and how far he could push a gag. Like the best screen comedians, arbuckle knew how to make anyone laugh in a manner so effortless that seemed magical, which is a really cool gift to have. Absolutely In his career, he would not just star in a wide range of films, he would also build his own company, oversee his scripts and become a director. At one point he was paid more than any other actor in Hollywood. In 1921, the same year that the scandal we're about to talk about went down, he signed a deal with Paramount Pictures worth what is about $16 million today. Later in his career, he developed this attraction to a Hollywood star by the name of Virginia Rappe.

Speaker 1:

Virginia was born on July 7, 1891 in Chicago, and she did not have an easy childhood either. Her mom passed away when she was 11. She never knew her father, and after her mom passed away she was raised by her grandmother. But despite all of those hardships, she started a modeling career early, at the age of 14. And she was one of the first women to actually make a living from this new profession. Eventually she became a silent film actress and also a fashion designer. She was very feminist and ahead of her time and I think later people had a problem with that and it made it so much worse for her in the press, unfortunately. She posed in men's clothing as a way of asking for equal clothing rights with men.

Speaker 2:

We're more modern. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I'm sure it was scandalous back then.

Speaker 1:

So before I go into the scandalous event that is at the center of this story, first let me just give you a picture of 1920s Hollywood. It was a center of extravagance of 1920s Hollywood. It was a center of extravagance, glamour and scandal. The tragedy I'm about to describe is one of the major public scandals that got a lot of media and public attention early in the industry, and it's all happening in a broader context. There's prohibition. It's the jazz age Also and this is crazy to think of today women were just getting the right to vote Crazy.

Speaker 2:

I know, our brains are so small.

Speaker 1:

I mean, how many hundreds of thousands of years have homo sapiens been?

Speaker 2:

They just still haven't developed to the 1900s.

Speaker 1:

I know, I know, 300,000 years later, women finally are determined to be able to be competent to vote. So it's not surprising too, when I think of Virginia Rappe and just how out there she was with stuff that today is completely not a big deal, but also just her independence and her strength. I can see how later on, when we get into how the press handled this whole scandal, how it really just tore her apart and it is really too bad because she was gone at that point and she couldn't even speak for herself. The events at the center of this story occurred over Labor Day weekend in 1921. So Roscoe, along with a few friends, drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco to throw a party at the St Francis Hotel and it sounded like your typical Prohibition-era party. It's got the bootleg alcohol beautiful women era party. It's got like the bootleg alcohol, beautiful women. I saw one picture on the website. All that's Interesting and it's basically like the furniture is smashed up to the point where it's not even recognizable. I think Motley Crue had more respect for their hotel room. It was just insane on its own.

Speaker 1:

Roscoe's love interest, virginia Rapet, was also at the party on September 5th, with a lot of drunkenness and debauchery. The only thing that can really be said for certain was that both Virginia and Roscoe were in the same hotel room together at one point, and when Roscoe left the room she was lying on the bed in obvious distress and crying in pain. As to the specifics from there, I mean, we will probably never, ever know the full story Now. The pain Virginia was experiencing continued for three days until finally she went to the doctor, who originally thought it was alcohol poisoning from the bootleg liquor. But it wasn't alcohol poisoning. It turned out that she had peritonitis from a ruptured bladder, and she ultimately died on September 9th 1921 after several days of suffering.

Speaker 1:

That sounds awful. It sounds like one of the worst ways you could possibly die this type of infection. It causes intense inflammation. It makes your abdomen so tender that even if someone tries to just slightly touch you, it's horrible, horrible pain. From what I understand, it's like the worst stomach pain you've ever had, multiplied by like a thousand, and it also causes severe nausea, which is the symptoms that they saw, which also is a symptom of being incredibly drunk and potentially having alcohol poisoning. But beyond that there's fever and then just an overwhelming feeling of illness as the infection spreads and your body tries desperately to fight it off. The question is what caused the ruptured bladder, and that would be the central question in this case. Now, warning this is going to be really, really rough.

Speaker 1:

One of the partygoers, maude Delmont, reported to authorities on September 9th that Roscoe had violently sexually assaulted Virginia, and it was the crushing force of his weight that caused her bladder to rupture. In a blog post on the San Francisco Bar Association website, maude is quoted as saying I could hear Virginia kicking and screaming violently and I had to kick and batter the door before Mr Arbuckle would let me in. I looked at the bed. There was Virginia, helpless and ravaged. When Virginia kept screaming in agony at what Mr Arbuckle had done, he turned to me and said shut her up or I'll throw her out a window. He then went back to his drunken party and danced while Virginia lay dying.

Speaker 1:

Also and this is deeply disturbing and beyond infuriating another party guest, al Semnicker this guy he is one of Roscoe's friends and Virginia's manager Now. He claimed that Roscoe not only raped Virginia but also used a piece of ice to rape her, and not clear it was either roscoe or al. He was joking about this the next day with some of the men at the party. Needless to say, she was in such bad company at the time she died outside of it just being a terrible death it was. It was not among good people. Plot spoiler Roscoe does go to trial and we'll get to that in a second here. But later Al recanted this in court and he said that the prosecution had pressured him to say that.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that is like a bombshell revelation. It just makes you wonder how much of any of that story is true.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's the thing is that the trials and their trials, as in plural. You have so many cases where even Roscoe goes back and forth on what actually happened. Even from there, they're all so drunk. So, even some of the fine details, they do actually kind of matter in terms of timing and you just never know.

Speaker 1:

The whole thing was just a drunken mess, no matter how you slice or dice it. Now Roscoe was charged and ultimately tried three times for the crime. It sounds like okay, so if what Maude Delmont had said to the police was true and it was substantiated, which we know was not, or people went back and forth so many times on it. First and foremost, though, Maude had serious credibility issues, so she had an extensive record of extortion and fraud, specifically with blackmailing wealthy male celebrities who attended parties with various women where there would be claims of rape or wrongdoing, so that they could extort money and things from them.

Speaker 2:

I mean this just sends up like your antenna is up for BS.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. And not only that, her doing that in and of itself is just a terrible, terrible thing to do, but if what happened to Virginia is actually really true, you're essentially like the boy who cried wolf Nobody gonna believe you. Yeah, and understandably so, in fact. So her stories were so inconsistent and included such blatant lies that ultimately, she was completely omitted from the witness list for all three trials. They wouldn't even put her on the stand which is like a horrible tragedy.

Speaker 2:

If your friend is trying to speak out against something that really did happen, she's a horrible person, I know.

Speaker 1:

It's just bad. Here's the thing, too, with Maude. She sent a telegram to two acquaintances a couple of days before Virginia died. That said quote we have Roscoe Arbuckle in a hole here. Chance to make money out of him, though the rape could still have happened. It could have. Yeah, right, and we'll talk about this. It is actually still possible that both things are true, that he did do this to her, but that also. This horrible person is also trying to use the tragedy to make money. This horrible person is also trying to use the tragedy to make money. In the preliminary hearing before the first trial, the presiding judge, judge Sylvain Morris, decided to hold Roscoe on manslaughter charges, even though he said the evidence against him was weak and he likely didn't commit rape. He said that the trial was about broader social morals rather than just the defendant's actions. I disagree. You can't put a person on trial for broader social morals. That's like, sir, are you okay? Did you miss judging 101?

Speaker 2:

He's just making an example out of him. For what? For everyone else in society to be afraid.

Speaker 1:

I don't even feel like you need to know what the law says. I feel like this should just be a very logical thing.

Speaker 2:

Yes, this has nothing to do with his case.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and also it pretty much guaranteed a second trial because of fair due process of it all.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

According to the case presented by the prosecutors in the first trial, during this wild party, Roscoe dragged Virginia into room 1219 at the hotel. In the trial, the prosecution made the case that Roscoe wouldn't even answer the door until finally one of the party goers kicked on it when Roscoe opened it up. This is so chilling. If he really did do this, he was wearing a bathrobe and one of Virginia's hats if he did those things and then was wearing her stuff in a mocking way.

Speaker 2:

That's not funny.

Speaker 1:

It's very likely. When he did open the door, people saw her in pain and it's like what are you doing? Just fooling around while she's right In so much pain and so much pain? According to the prosecution's case, Virginia was on the bed when this happened, with her clothes ripped and clearly in distress, and said that Roscoe did this to her. Roscoe told Ma Delmont to remove Virginia from the room and then he just headed out and continued to party.

Speaker 1:

But when the defense questioned the prosecution's witnesses, there were a lot of inconsistencies, as I mentioned, and that created a lot of doubt. Also, the treating physicians varied in their official diagnosis. While the official cause of death was peritonitis from a ruptured bladder, there were conflicting medical opinions at the time about what actually caused the bladder rupture. Some medical experts suggested it could have been due to a chronic condition or previous infection rather than trauma. At that party the defense presented evidence that indicated she had complications from gonorrhea and abortion and also that she had chronic inflammation. One of the nurses who treated Virginia also testified that Virginia told her that she had been having internal pain for six weeks prior to the party.

Speaker 1:

Roscoe's version of events they changed a bit trial to trial, but more or less the story he told is he found her sick in the bathroom and carried her to a bed. He assumed it was just too much alcohol. He asked someone at the party to help and also asked for the hotel's physician to check her. The first trial ends up in a deadlocked jury with 11 to 1 voting to acquit the second trial, also deadlocked, only this time the split was 9 to 3 in favor of conviction. The key difference seems to be between the first and second trial is that Roscoe was not put on the stand to testify in the second trial, so whatever he had to say or his performance in the first was really influential. Then again, it's like are you listening to the testimony of someone who is very clearly communicating in a way that shows they're not guilty? Or is this just a trained actor?

Speaker 2:

Either way, you're fighting for your life, whether you did it or not, probably.

Speaker 1:

He is an actor by trade. So, of course, when yes, if this is like the difference between freedom or not, of course I would put on the best act possible. I wouldn't have done any of these things and be in that. In the third trial, roscoe was put on the stand and the defense strengthened their presentations, doubling down on the damaging detail on Virginia's background and medical history. Also, there is a ton of bad press saying she's an amateur call girl and she dabbled in sex work and had five abortions. I mean, it's the classic victim shame, yeah, victim shame Along with, too, though. Fair enough, though. If he didn't do it, you would want to know if there were certain not to mock her, but if they did create certain conditions. That would be the real reason why she died.

Speaker 2:

You'd want his defense attorney You'd want supporting evidence?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but it was so much more. It was a smear campaign. It wasn't just that. Of course it was. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Any woman that doesn't live that prim and proper life back then is going to get annihilated in the media.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And in the courtroom, yeah, even today, still today, yeah. And in the courtroom, yeah, even today Still today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, maybe not quite as bad, but yeah, it's still there. Also, they got several witnesses to admit that the DA threatened them to testify, so like Al, for example, was one. And then not only was Roscoe acquitted, the jury went so far as to issue a written public apology. Acquitted, the jury went so far as to issue a written public apology. Wow. But I still don't think this is so straightforward, because there's a few other details. When they did the autopsy, they found bruising on her legs and they also found bruising looked like it's like fingers digging into your arm, it was claimed. Well, it was because when she was so sick, they tried to pick her up and put her in the tub when she was sick. But then my question is is why in the world would you, why would you pick someone up that way when she put your hands underneath them? That doesn't seem logical.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean a lot of times when people help somebody up, that's like elderly they'll grab their arm. I've had it many times and then you're like you're going to dislocate their shoulder or something but like that's how people do it all the time, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, yeah, no, so I could. I mean, I guess in that case, and I could see how that just it means, yeah, they were, they were not being safe about how they moved, or very obviously logical.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've seen it in public and at work Also the doctors that performed the autopsy.

Speaker 1:

They both noted internal injuries, but there was significant disagreement among medical experts about what caused them. And I don't know Interesting among medical experts about what caused them and I don't know Interesting Exactly the nature of what exactly defines internal injuries. And even if I did, I wouldn't have the medical knowledge to be able to say here's the possibilities of what that could be, of which rape is just one. The defense brought in their own medical experts, from what I understand, who argued that Rappay's internal injuries were consistent with her history of chronic cystitis and other pre-existing medical conditions. Then also, too, another factor to consider the medical examination capabilities I'd imagine in the 1920s were probably fairly basic compared to modern standards. Yeah, I would imagine so. So doctors could observe obvious external trauma and maybe some internal injuries through physical examination, but they didn't have a lot of the diagnostic tools that we have today. You definitely can't do DNA testing.

Speaker 1:

Right, there's no rape kits as we know of them today and also really limited abilities to even document injuries with precision. So again it all goes back to we'll just never really know. This trial marked one of Hollywood's first major controversies. It's a case that demonstrates the power of the press. Even if a person is acquitted not once, not twice, but three times in the court of law, they can still be successfully convicted in the court of public opinion. There were examples of like preachers and editorialists condemning Roscoe and, in a broader sense, hollywood and its movies. I mean, it really was. It wasn't just putting him on trial, it was putting the whole industry on trial. Many felt that Roscoe needed to be tried and convicted of something just to fight back for what was the perceived immorality of the Jazz.

Speaker 2:

Age, which again like kind of goes along with what the judge was trying to do in that first trial. I know.

Speaker 1:

Only the judge should absolutely know better. If there is any winner in this story, it's, of course, the press. Like we saw with the murder of Elizabethizabeth short, the three-parter we just finished, crime sells newspapers like crazy. William randolph hurst said that this story sold more copies than the sinking of the lusitania, which was a huge story. Random note because when I read that I was like oh, that reminds me of just to lighten it up for a second here Eric Larson, you know, who wrote Devil in the White City? Yes, yeah. So he wrote this book called Dead Wake and it was so good and that was on the Lusitania.

Speaker 2:

The Lusitania yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, by the way, I never knew and never knew. I wanted to know so much about U-boats and how miserable it must have been to be in one of those. Oh gosh.

Speaker 2:

They're so tiny, oh, I would get claustrophobic. I can't. I don't think.

Speaker 1:

I could be on a submarine.

Speaker 1:

So this story outpaces the Lusitania and, when you think of it, all the ingredients that would grab attention. You've got a famous actor previously seen as upstanding. You've got this bold woman that society is truly not ready for, that dies a tragic and brutal death. Sexual deviance, jazz age immorality all set around Hollywood. It had all of the ingredients. Roscoe Arbuckle, regardless of his innocence or guilt, lost everything. His name would forever be linked to sexual assault and murder. And in the court of public opinion, guilt lost everything. His name would forever be linked to sexual assault and murder. And in the court of public opinion he was guilty. The studios blacklisted him in an effort to clean up their debauched image and the trials bankrupted him. His legal bill was 700,000, which, adjusted for inflation, is around 11 million today.

Speaker 2:

That is a lot of money, holy cow, I know. Even if you had a decent amount of money to start with. That's a lot in legal fees.

Speaker 1:

I cannot appraise what is a fair legal fee in 1920, but I'm like did they actually bribe witnesses?

Speaker 2:

That's so much money, that is so much money.

Speaker 1:

Years and years later, he would get another chance at a Hollywood career. He was about to sign on to and do some really important work, but then he died in his sleep, and that was the end this whole story is tragic.

Speaker 2:

It really is. If he didn't do it and he got blacklisted and then he finally gets that job in the end. If he did do it.

Speaker 1:

It is too bad that he didn't get jail time, but his life was pretty destroyed, which goes to too is like. I mean, at the end of it it's like, even if you but back to, if you're not guilty, though, you're going to a prison of some sort, of some sort yeah, yeah, you're going to pay for it one way or another.

Speaker 2:

And he paid monetarily and with his livelihood, right, right.

Speaker 1:

So that is the tragic case of Virginia Rappe and Roscoe Arbuckle, fast forwarding a few more decades to the 1950s, the television age.

Speaker 2:

That's where we're going to pick up the mysterious death of Superman star, george Reeves. The iconic Superman character in comics, tv series and movies embodied perfection with strength, justice and morality. Winning the Superman role in television's first adaptation of the comic book hero in 1952 seemed like the golden ticket. But playing the perfect person on screen is not at all the blessing, it might seem. You might be surprised to hear that to him it felt like more of a curse. Behind the scenes, george was entangled with Hollywood figures whose values were worlds apart from the hero that he portrayed. That's why, when his death in 1959 was ruled suicide, many raised their eyebrows and still wonder today if it was actually a murder that was covered up as suicide. George Reeves was born George Kiefer Brewer in Woolstock, iowa, in January 1914. The name George Reeves came from Warner Brothers.

Speaker 1:

Later in his acting career, his mother, helen Basolo divorced George's father, a man named Carl Brewer, soon after he was born, or like brewery, if you say it too many times you said it great, okay, so carl brewer was his father I don't think you have to say his name again, because he's out of the picture pretty quickly all right, so they were divorced.

Speaker 2:

soon after george was born, george's mom remarried another man, frank Frank Basolo, and they told George that he was his real father. Now, after 15 years of marriage, helen decided to divorce Frank. When they were officially separated, george was away visiting relatives. Instead of telling George they were divorcing, she told him that he had committed suicide. That is horrible, isn't that awful you could?

Speaker 1:

of all the things I just so you lie to your son about who his birth father is. And then this other guy. And then also too, that means then did. Did Frank not want to see George ever again, because you can't see him? If he thinks that you're dead, you're dead right, I would, oh, George. Isn't that so sad?

Speaker 2:

I'd probably be like watching that child from a distance, or like slipping notes into their unzipped backpack or something like trying to catch him somehow.

Speaker 1:

Because you can never see him.

Speaker 2:

You've raised him from a baby, you know.

Speaker 1:

Assuming that he cared.

Speaker 2:

I mean, he may not have been someone Maybe most people have at least a little bit of a heart, you know, I think it'd have to be an extreme case but you'd have to be very much a psychopath, but yeah.

Speaker 2:

Also, I don't know, was it like the shame of having a second divorce that she like didn't want to tell him and George would eventually find out the truth about his real father, carl Brewer. George is quoted as saying in the New York Sun from 1943, it was during spring housecleaning, with everything all turned up, that I came across a picture of a good-looking guy, a big fellow, and idly asked who that was. Mother said oh, that's your father. And then stopped dead when she realized what she'd said. George moved with his family to Pasadena when he was a young boy. This is where he trained for his acting career and started boxing as a teenager. He was very talented and he even competed in the 1932 Olympics. George could also sing and play guitar, so he just had all of these natural talents.

Speaker 2:

I always think that's so amazing because I'm not anywhere near that talented. A notable milestone in his acting career was in 1939. He was cast as one of Scarlett O'Hara's suitors in Gone with the Wind. He would later serve in World War II, and initially he kept his acting career private and performed standard duties like other soldiers. But one of the men saw him in a picture and found out he was given special duty work as an actor, which required him to perform in a show at night, but this was more of a punishment, really than anything, because he was required to do this on top of all of his other typical duties. Ultimately, though, he had the military decide which one they wanted him to do, because it was too strenuous to do both. So good for him.

Speaker 1:

My body spoke up for himself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, george married another stage actor in 1940 named Eleanor Needles, but the marriage didn't last. Pay in an entertainment career is far from predictable and they had a lot of issues with money. After 10 years of marriage, eleanor left him for someone more financially secure and he never spoke to her again. In an interview she gave after his death, she had nothing but positive things to say and felt badly about how she had left the marriage.

Speaker 2:

That's also, first of all, big mistake, girl, but I'm glad that she made it, because you deserve better than that when the role for Superman in the new television series Adventures of Superman opened up, george could not have been more perfect for it. Adventures of Superman opened up. George could not have been more perfect for it. He was good looking, over six feet tall and had a muscular build from years of judo and wrestling. George was not excited for the role, but he needed the money, so he took it. The series, though, was a success, running from 1952 through 1958 in 21 countries, and had an audience of 35 million people. The emperor of Japan even wrote to tell him how much he enjoyed the show.

Speaker 1:

That's so interesting. You know, we take it for granted that because they got the role and they generally wanted to be an actor that that's the role that they wanted.

Speaker 2:

And not just the one that they took yeah or had to take yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Because I mean acting roles are incredibly diverse. If you think about, it's not the same to be like a comedy actor versus an actor in like a kid's film or a horror movie.

Speaker 2:

These are very distinctly different types of jobs In a quote he gave to TV Radio Life, george said Our idea is to give the children good entertainment without all the guts and blood and gore. We think the series should teach them something too. That's why I decided to do this In Superman. We're all concerned with giving kids the right kind of show. We don't go for too much violence. Once for a big fight scene we had several of the top wrestlers in town do the big brawl. It was considered too rough by the sponsors and producers so it was toned down. Our writers and sponsors have children and they are all very careful about doing things on the show that will have no adverse effects on the young audience. We even try in our scripts to give gentle messages of tolerance and to stress that a man's color and race and religious beliefs should be respected. Oh, how things have changed.

Speaker 1:

I know that sounds like such a, he sounds like such a nice guy and that was a nice he does yeah.

Speaker 2:

George would participate in a lot of public appearances as Superman during the series and after the series ended, including at children's hospitals and orphanages. Despite all of the praise and admirable qualities of the show, George did not enjoy the work. It was strenuous and involved jumping off of ladders, out of windows, things like that.

Speaker 1:

I feel like Tom Cruise would have been perfect in that role because he does all his crazy stunts because he doesn't age Hold on 1952, he was born, so he's like 37, 38 playing this role, doing all these things.

Speaker 2:

That's really impressive for tom cruise, because he's older than that no no, or for george.

Speaker 1:

I'm like it is impressive, tom cruise does a lot more and he's way older than 37, 38 when tom cruise did this role, he's actually like a hundred.

Speaker 2:

He's probably going to look just as good.

Speaker 1:

I know it would be believable, Like Tom Cruise did this role. So that would make him like like a hundred and a vampire or something. No, I'm serious. I think that guy drinks the blood of children and one day we're gonna have to talk about he does not drink the blood of children yes, he does.

Speaker 1:

I would like to make a correction he does not in fact drink. That would actually make him 111 years. I'm sorry, I just I can't let bad math slide. Yeah, it's okay. Okay, go ahead. I promise no more bloody syringes. It's warm now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, take it all out. Back to George. George wanted more serious adult roles and felt trapped in a children's show Another aspect of the job that was really difficult. Even off screen, people expected him to be perfect. When he got into a car accident, one of the headlines read Superman is hurt like other mortals. Privately, george enjoyed partying, but there was still this expectation that he would be straight laced in public. Honestly, I feel like that's kind of unfair, because you're not the same person as your character.

Speaker 1:

No, I know that's so true, but unfortunately too, sometimes the audience just can't, they can't forgive Separate yeah, can't separate it, and I think people are afraid then, if they cast them in certain roles, they won't be as believable and they won't get as much of a turnout, which is actually. I mean, I don't agree with it, but it's definitely true, like wasn't it when we talked about what was it, sunny and Cher, how they had to keep living together, even though they were divorced because the studio was like you have to keep up this, like image people have bought into this myth of sun and water Right the

Speaker 2:

two of you. Yeah, and they were miserable Well, supposedly miserable like that, living in separate wings, and all of that In 1958, either after or as the Superman TV series was ending. George met and would later get engaged to Lenore Lemon. George met and would later get engaged to Lenore Lemon. Lenore was from New York and was well known in quote New York cafe society circles. So basically she was a party girl.

Speaker 1:

New York cafe society circles. That is hilarious. I wonder who came up with that?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. She was a former actress but had not worked for several years. By the time she met George she had been married twice before, including to a Vanderbilt heir, so I guess she kind of did. You know pretty well for herself. She also had a spicy side allegedly the only woman thrown out of a certain establishment for getting into a fistfight.

Speaker 1:

Well, I like that she stands up for herself and maybe I don't know if you'll like her so much.

Speaker 2:

Later, george and Lenore, despite being engaged, were known to have a rocky relationship. The same week that George died, in June 1959, they had planned to get married in Tijuana. George's life in general was really difficult at this time. After the Superman series ended in the year prior, he found it really hard to get another job and it seemed to have typecast him, which, you know, narrowed his opportunities.

Speaker 2:

On the evening of June 16th 1959, George and Lenore went out with Richard Condon, a writer working on a piece about George Reeves. It was reported that George and Lenore were overheard arguing at dinner. Afterward they went back to George's house in Benedict Canyon. Benedict Canyon is a neighborhood tucked away in Beverly Hills in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a secluded neighborhood with winding roads where Hollywood's elite live. George's house is modest compared to some of the other estates in the area and it was rumored that his house was actually bought for him by another woman, but we'll get to that in just a minute. Ooh, plot thickens.

Speaker 2:

They had a party that night at the house and, according to guests, george was in a really bad mood. He went up to bed around midnight but then came down later to complain about the noise. He made himself another drink before going back up to bed around 2 am. According to a piece published in the Los Angeles Times the day after his death, lenore told guests he's going to shoot himself. They then heard a noise in George's room and Lenore said see, he's opening the drawer to get the gun. Then they heard a shot and she said see, there, I told you he shot himself. One of their neighbors, william Bliss, went upstairs to find George lying naked partway on the bed and a nine millimeter Luger pistol at his feet. There was one single fatal wound at his temple, and then nobody calls the police for about 30 to 40 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, there's a lot of problems here, right.

Speaker 2:

Who says.

Speaker 1:

that's not even with a lot of alcohol. It's not normal to say, oh yeah, my fiance is going to go, he's going to go commit suicide. What yeah, he's probably going to go shoot himself right now. No, no, nothing about this is okay.

Speaker 2:

If you did in fact know that is horribly. There's so much wrong with it on so many levels, but it's insensitive, it's irresponsible, it's like do you not care about this person at?

Speaker 1:

all I know and a lot of these cases, I always think we don't really know these people, we only have accounts of them, right. But there are certain things that you read or you hear about where it's like yeah, that's pretty, I don't really need a backstory on that.

Speaker 2:

When they go upstairs and inspect the scene, they find a single bullet casing beneath his body, which suggests he was probably sitting on the edge of the bed and then fell backwards onto the casing. One bullet was found in the ceiling, which was determined to be the fatal bullet, but there were two more bullets that were found on the floor. Lenore told police she had been playing with the gun previously and that she was the one that accidentally fired those bullets.

Speaker 1:

Okay, lenore, are we okay here? Why are we playing with? How does one play with a gun one and then fire not just one but two bullets and then put said gun away where the fiance that you're so flip could potentially commit suicide. You know, you just put it back where you could access it.

Speaker 2:

There's so many things wrong here she told police that george had been depressed, indicating that like that would be his motive for committing suicide. She also leaves town the next day and doesn't attend the funeral.

Speaker 1:

Well, you never know how somebody's going to deal with grief. That's true. You add all those other things in.

Speaker 2:

Each time I was reading about this and something new happened. Something else happened, leah, have you seen that SNL skit Red Flag.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. Yes For those of you who don't know.

Speaker 2:

It's a commercial for a perfume and it's like she walks in the room and turns everybody's head and then she's like a society girl, a cafe society girl. When she walks up to you and whispers in your ear and you ask her what do you do? And she says I'm a dancer. And then it's like in the background, it's like red flag, oh, yeah, that's not fair, but each thing that she says is just more and more ridiculous and kind of like over the top and by the end it gets like really goofy.

Speaker 2:

But it just made me think of that.

Speaker 1:

Red flag perfume is made for this girl.

Speaker 2:

Yes, everything that Lenore does, or at least that we have an account of it's questionable. Yeah, everyone, even his mom, makes all these questionable decisions and lies and whatever around him Only a cursory autopsy was initially performed at the funeral home, ruling George's death a suicide. His mother, helen, insisted on a more thorough examination by the Los Angeles County Morgue. Toxicology showed his blood alcohol level was 0.27, which is over three times the legal driving limit. He also had painkillers in his system, prescribed after a recent car accident that left him with a severe concussion.

Speaker 2:

And there actually is something called post-concussive depression. So there's, a possibility, because those two things are linked. Maybe he was depressed, he couldn't get another job, he's a struggling actor.

Speaker 1:

His fiance is acting like she is, yeah.

Speaker 2:

While skull fracture patterns suggested a self-inflicted wound, no gunpowder residue was found at the bullet's entry point at his temple, which was unusual, and that makes it makes me wonder at a minimum, could somebody have been standing somewhere else and shot him?

Speaker 1:

This reminds me of oh how funny. It was the same episode where we talked about Sonny and Cher at the Owlwood estate, the Doheny case, where it was thought to be a murder-suicide, where, oh, ed Doheny, I think so. They thought that because there was no gun residue, it was suspicious. That's so interesting.

Speaker 2:

But wasn't it because he pushed the gun so far up to his head? They think maybe it went internally.

Speaker 1:

That was. The theory is that he might have just pushed it and so maybe because he pushed it so hard into his temple and maybe that's how they explained this here card into his temple and maybe that's how they explained this here.

Speaker 2:

Maybe Today, residue testing would be performed on George's hands and everyone's at the party, but that type of analysis didn't exist back then because they didn't have the technology for it. And the gun? You're thinking maybe there's going to be fingerprints on the gun? The gun was recently oiled and so no fingerprints were found on it, and I didn't even know that that was a thing, that you could oil your gun. Number one, and number two, that maybe you wouldn't find fingerprints because of that.

Speaker 2:

I mean maybe it would make it easier to wipe them off too. I don't know yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a lot of. I can see why this still feels unresolved.

Speaker 2:

Yes, the county again ruled George's death a suicide. But his mother was still not satisfied. She hired her own private detective and a third autopsy was performed that also ruled the death a suicide. Still not convinced, Helen would not cremate his body until three years after his death, which was shortly before her own. Helen did have reasons to be suspicious of the circumstances surrounding George's death. In addition to the details of the night of his death and subsequent investigation not quite adding up, there were other gaps. She had never met George's fiancee, Lenore, and she didn't even know about the wedding being scheduled just days after George's death. Lenore thought she knew about it because George's mom had sent her engagement ring to George. Helen said George had called her to ask her to send it, but only told her that he would tell her sometime about it.

Speaker 1:

Then again, how great was his relationship with his mom, who's lied about not just one, but two of his fathers.

Speaker 2:

Very true, like maybe they're a bit strained and maybe he doesn't quite trust her.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Right, understandably yeah.

Speaker 2:

Also, there is a third-hand account from William Bliss, the neighbor that found George, that Lenore told everyone to say she was downstairs when George died and she wasn't. My other question is did they hear two other gunshots, like all the people that were in the house, or did they only hear the one?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good question, because it's one thing to ask someone to say you were somewhere else when you weren't. Because I do honestly think in some of these cases it's just human nature, even if they didn't commit the crime. It's self-preservation. It's just human nature, even if they didn't commit the crime, it's self-preservation.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes they'll say, just because it doesn't look as bad. And let's face it, usually it's your significant other is the first person they're always going to look at because statistically it is that person. Yeah, but asking people to lie about three gunshots, though that's. I know they were all drunk, but that's like how do you miss three separate? Even if you don't count all three, you at least know there's more than one, right? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

Then again, Lenore was not the only love interest in George's life with a potential motive for murder. So here's another little twist. Prior to meeting Lenore, George had been involved in an ongoing affair with a woman named Toni Mannix since the early 1950s. Toni was an actress and dancer. Red flag.

Speaker 1:

I love dancers.

Speaker 2:

Not a red flag.

Speaker 1:

Well, in this case, I have a feeling there's a lot more other red flags.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of red flags in general in his life. Unfortunately, she and George were seen in public all of the time acting like a couple, despite the fact that she was the wife of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executive Eddie Mannix, and you know the iconic symbol with the roaring lion in front of the films.

Speaker 2:

That's an MGM film, right it's still around today, gone through ownership and structural changes over the years, but through the 1950s it was the dominant motion picture studio in Hollywood. Okay, getting back to Eddie and Tony, Eddie didn't really care about Tony and George's ongoing affair because he had his own girlfriend on the side yeah, it sounds like yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't understand why these people even bother getting married.

Speaker 2:

I don't know or why stay married, like if you're not happy. But maybe they like a certain lifestyle, they like the. I would say they like the image that they put out there, but clearly they're being seen around town with their other people.

Speaker 1:

That doesn't make sense. It's like and they have so much money, so I know it's kind of it's a pain legally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well and time consuming, I guess, but I don't understand and I don't understand. There are so many cases when I was looking through and I don't understand. There are so many cases when I was looking through. There are just a lot of cases too, unfortunately, where, like, women stay and I have to remind myself they didn't have a lot of options to make a living wage otherwise. That's true, yeah. And the cases with the women that stay, with the Hollywood star for the money I guess I'm more of a Beyonce, all my women who are independent. Throw your hands up at me.

Speaker 1:

I just don't get whatever, but it's so messy. It's like whatever you guys want to do, have open relationships, obviously, you guys all know about it, but I don't understand why you would complicate things further with that, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, in Hollywood, eddie was known as a fixer, meaning he can make the unpleasant stories about an entertainer go away, so it doesn't tarnish the reputation of the studio. The movie Hail Caesar, released in 2016, is a fictional story that follows a day in the life of Eddie Mannix, played by Josh Brolin, where he runs around covering up scandals. Gosh, when George started dating Lenore, this did not go over well with Tony. She was very possessive of George, and one source said that he had to get a restraining order on her. George was getting harassing phone calls a few months prior to his death also, and these were attributed to Tony, but nobody ever proved it definitively. One source said they were just like hang up calls. They were all traced to pay phones. When George died, though, she inherited $50,000, which was the bulk of his estate. Rumors circulated that she had hired a hitman to kill him, but nothing was ever proven.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if money, though, would be a motive for either of these women. I imagine, with his fiance being married to a former Vanderbilt, she probably had her own-.

Speaker 2:

Like alimony or something I don't know. And again with some people, it's too much never enough.

Speaker 1:

And then this woman had her own, obviously like you know her husband and their marriage and their money and yeah.

Speaker 2:

I also could see a potential motive, though, if his fiance found out, though, that the will was still under Tony, yeah, yeah, which is kind of a little bit odd to me too, that like he named her the inheritor and not his fiance. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes people don't bother to change things, but I, yeah, I don't know, this whole situation is a little bit.

Speaker 2:

I have questions.

Speaker 1:

About a lot of things. I really could see every single scenario being potentially true.

Speaker 2:

Yep Jack Larson, who played cub reporter Jimmy Olsen alongside Reeves in Adventures of Superman, recalled George lamenting he wished he knew about his adult fans that he'd quote feel better and quote be happy knowing people of all ages watch the show. It's tragically ironic. While children dreamed of being Superman, the man who brought their hero to life didn't really want the part. With everyone connected to the case now deceased, the truth behind George Reeves' death remains one of Hollywood's unsolved mysteries.

Speaker 1:

I was like it's funny when it came out or I don't know yeah.

Speaker 2:

It was a while ago. I was very young, but I was like oh, that is true.

Speaker 1:

Even heroes have a right to bleed, and dream.

Speaker 2:

I think that's in the lyric.

Speaker 1:

It's just so sad, you'd think, just because of the role and the superhero aspect of it all, but it's never that simple.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the glamour, the fame, the everything that comes with it is not always what it's cracked up to be. Stay away from the dark side, because if you don't, you may find yourself at a party with some of these red flag people.

Speaker 1:

Noted. So next time, in case you're wondering, are you guys ever moving away from Los Angeles? Yes, we are. We have a few more episodes left in the season. Then we will move to our next city, which is one that is near and dear to our hearts, but we're not going to tell you what it is quite yet.

Speaker 1:

But for the next episode, we're working on getting a special guest to come in and talk about because everything's just been so dark in LA in general lately an uplifting story about a man named Clifford Clinton who did a lot of really great things in his life and just seemed like a nice person and also fought corruption and became a target because of it. So I'm working on getting a special guest that knows a lot about that individual. We also have one coming up on the Watts riots and the Zoot Suit riots, which, by the way, in case you were wondering, the Zoot Suits riots actually happened. It was not just a song sung by a very inappropriately named band. So those two at least we might get like a couple more in. Like, I really want to talk about the curse of poltergeist, but maybe we'll finally start a Patreon and throw it up there. Anyway, lots of good stuff coming your way and we'll see you soon. Bye, thank you.