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On the
Occasion of George Reeves'
100th
Birthday
actor/author Jim Beaver
reminds us why this man is still so fondly admired and
remembered.
 January
5 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of actor George Reeves.
Those of you who know me well probably know I've been
working on a definitive biography of Reeves since somewhere
around the 64th anniversary of his birth. Those of you who know
me really well surely know the anguish with which I mention that
project's astonishing delay in completion. When I started this
labor of love, I was making about $50 a year as an actor and had
plenty of time on my hands to write and research. Little did I
dream that a few decades later, I would have had substantially
more time in front of a movie camera than Reeves had in his
entire career, or that my life would fill up so full with
blessings (and a few tragedies) that even a labor of love could
be delayed so long. I had sincerely hoped to have this book
completed and available for reading by Reeves' 100th birthday.
How happy that would have made me! Yet it isn't to be, and the
stories I've gathered will have to wait until, at long last, I
complete the task I'm committed to completing.
But I can't
let this anniversary pass unnoticed. George Reeves has been dead
for nearly 55 years, but he's not completely forgotten. As long
as baby boomers remain alive who remember tying towels around
their necks and drawing S's on their t-shirts and running home to
watch the Adventures of Superman on their black-and-white
TV's, he won't be forgotten. For a dwindling (and comparative)
few, he is their Elvis, their Michael Jackson, their John Wayne,
despite never being nearly the household name for millions that
those icons are.
I've often been asked during my
researches, even by people who knew him, "Why George Reeves?
Why write a book about him?" And the truth is, had he never
stumbled (and I use that word advisedly) into the role of
Superman at the beginning of the television era, he would surely
be no better remembered than various other handsome young men who
had minor careers in movies. John Ridgely, Rand Brooks, Robert
Lowery, Richard Travis -- all capable actors, nice-looking
fellows with substantial film credits, yet now forgotten by
everyone but Golden Age movie buffs and fans of specific films
they appeared in. Reeves could well have been one of these, but
for Superman. Or he might have been a Gig Young or a Jack Warden,
an Oscar-caliber player with a long career in the shadow only of
superstars, had Superman not sent his career (and his life) along
a different track. As it was, though, Reeves remains of interest
largely to fans of his show, to film buffs of the more in-depth
sort, and to mystery enthusiasts who wonder about the
circumstances of his death. Even his friends sometimes questioned
why I would want to write a book about him. All I know is there's
something about the man and his life that fascinates me, that
drives me to know him better, and that instills admiration.
He
was an average actor, from the evidence available. He was quite
capable of very good work, yet nothing we can see suggests the
range or depth or style of an Olivier or a Brando or a Mitchum
(nor the opportunities they got). It's said he was quite a good
stage actor, but few there are now who can attest to that
first-hand. In films, even his best director, probably Fred
Zinneman in From Here To Eternity, realized nothing
astounding from him (though, admittedly, little Reeves ever did
on film could be considered a truly meaty or artistically complex
role). Nothing makes George Reeves particularly special as an
actor. Nothing except... him. The Adventures Of Superman
was a fun show, but we're not talking Breaking Bad
here, or The Sopranos. It was a show that had some
appeal for adults but was mainly designed as entertainment for
children, who ate it up with a shovel. In all probability, the
show would have had its success even with another actor in the
title role. And yet, it didn't. It had George Reeves, for his
better or worse fortune. And he brought something to the part
that lingers, something that even his colleagues among the baby
boom's childhood heroic icons (The Lone Ranger's Clayton
Moore, Zorro's Guy Williams, et al) couldn't compete with.
Superman fans didn't just admire Reeves in his portrayal, they
loved him. More importantly, he gave them a sense that he loved
them. More than talent, more than appearance, more than any other
gift, Reeves' ability to connect through the camera to his young
audience transcends his role and the work of others in the genre.
Reeves' natural geniality and warmth, something remarked on by
virtually every single person I ever interviewed, reached out
through the lens and washed over his youthful followers in a way
that lives with them still in their older years. That warmth,
combined with the melancholy associated with his untimely death,
puts George Reeves in a very special place for an awful lot of
people now in their 60s and 70s. No, he hasn't the world-wide
absolute familiarity that still clings to Marilyn Monroe and
James Dean. But for some, maybe only hundreds or thousands rather
than millions, he is a far bigger star and a far bigger role
model.
As I've reached a point in my career where
generosity is something I'm able to offer instead of ask for, I
don't believe I've ever considered a loan or a gift without the
memory of reading in my youth how widely known George Reeves was
for his generosity. In the years since, in my research, I've
encountered hundreds of people who told me how he helped them,
privately, without fanfare or expectation. He was, once he
achieved real fame, unstinting with his time for charitable
causes. Without consciously modeling myself on him, but without
ever failing to think of him when confronted with the opportunity
or challenge to be useful, he has been a role model for my own
life. His reputation among friends and colleagues for
cheerfulness and gregariousness and loyalty colors my own
approach to people. No, he's not the only light I illuminate my
life by, but he's one of the brighter lamps. In the decades I've
researched his life, I've usually always enjoyed his work and
appreciated his talents as far as they went and as far as they
were well-displayed. But what has always drawn me to him and to
his story has been the innate goodness of the man. He could be
wild, he could be bawdy (sometimes very bawdy), he was a
two-fisted drinker and not always a responsible one. His life was
in some aspects far rowdier and profligate than the straight-up
character he's most famous for playing, yet he loved life and he
loved people and he did his utmost to show that love and to act
on it. So whether he could out-act Gielgud or whether he's as
famous as Elvis is beside the point. I started out researching
the life and death of the guy who played Superman on my favorite
childhood show, and came to realize I was really finding out some
things about how to live, through the life of a man who was
pretty good at it.
The facts of how Reeves died are just
that, facts. The interpretations are as many as there are
interpreters. There's some mystery, in the sense of there being
things no one seems to know, but even if every single thing were
known, there would always be wide division as to what "really"
happened. The circumstances of Reeves' death are important to his
biographer, and I've done wide-ranging research into them. But I
want to pause here to celebrate on a significant anniversary the
birth of a man I long ago ceased to be simply a fan of, one I've
grown to care about as a human being, one I've come to look up to
and look to for example. I don't idolize George Reeves. I admire
him. And that seems quite the right way for this old baby boomer
to see his childhood idol.
I won't deny having a little
influence on the fact that Turner Classic Movies is celebrating
Reeves' 100th birthday with four of his films, Sunday, January 5.
They're not great films, but two of them represent Warner Bros.'s
early attempts to see how George would work out as a leading man.
The final one is fun, but silly, the sort of work Reeves really
hoped to get away from and never quite did. But I'm really
grateful to TCM for setting aside this little bit of time to
honor an actor and a good man, less forgotten than some might
think, more forgotten than he should be. Here's to Honest
George, the People's Friend.
On Sunday, January 5,
2014 Turner Classic Movies presented:
10:00 a.m. to 2:30
p.m. Eastern
9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Central
7:00 a.m. to
10:30 a.m. Pacific
FATHER IS A PRINCE (1940)
ALWAYS A
BRIDE (1940)
TEAR GAS SQUAD (1940)
JUNGLE JIM (1948)
[Jim
Beaver is an American character actor, best known for his
leading roles on the TV series Deadwood (2004) and
Supernatural (2005). He is also the author of Life's
That Way.]
Posted January 5,
2014
Jim Nolt
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