June 16

George Reeves dies of a gunshot wound in Beverly Hills, 1959. TV’s Superman was first discovered at the Pasadena Playhouse in the late 1930s and was subsequently cast as one of the Tarleton twins in Gone With the Wind (1939). It was not a passport to meatier roles; three years later the actor played Pool Player #1 in a sex hygiene short. Reeves continued to act in peripheral roles―in movies like Knute Rockne All American (1940), So Proudly We Hail! (1943) and Samson and Delilah (1949)―until his television breakthrough as the Man of Steel in 1951. Speculation about his death centered around his possible depression over being stuck in his role as Superman, his long-term affair with Toni Mannix, wife of MGM executive Eddie Mannix—with Reeves as a possible victim of a murder for hire—and a bevy of houseguests who discovered his body and waited 45 minutes to call the police. With no compelling evidence to the contrary, Reeves death was ruled a suicide.