relation), star of the 1950s TV show "The Adventures of Superman." This Friday, Ben Affleck plays Reeves in "Hollywoodland," a film noir look at the mystery of how, and why, the 45-year-old actor wound up with a bullet in his head.
Reeves' 1959 death in his bedroom was ruled a suicide by police - a verdict that, on the surface, made sense, given the actor's despondency over being trapped by the blue-and-red suit.
The Superman role was at first a boon for Reeves, who struggled to find work after a brief but promising role in "Gone With the Wind" (he's in the opening scene).
When he did land the TV series in 1952, Reeves was happy - if a little embarrassed to be parading around in glorified long underwear.
But as time went on, the actor found himself pigeonholed by the part, unable to get other film roles, or separate his onscreen persona from his personal life.
"He had been in a car crash once, and kind of fainted," says Affleck, who researched Reeves. "The newspapers then said, 'Superman Faints at Sight of Own Blood.' People were very flip and snide about him. It was demeaning."
The charismatic Reeves had also been in a longtime affair with the married Toni Mannix, wife of MGM general manager Eddie Mannix.
After Reeves left Toni, "things started to go wrong," says Laurie Jacobson, author of "Dishing Hollywood: The Real Scoop on Tinseltown's Most Nororious Scandals."
"First the brakes go out in his Jaguar - not once, but twice. And once he had parked the car and left his beloved Schnauzer inside. When he came back, the dog had been stolen."
He was also getting up to 20 hang-ups a day, which he called the police about, thinking it was Toni. But when they questioned her, she said she'd been getting the same calls.
Could the instigator have been George's new girl?
Reeves had left Toni for a brash New York ex-showgirl named Lenore Lemmon, and they were planning to get married shortly. "I'm thinking, George looked around and thought, 'I'm making a big mistake,'" says Jacobson.
"He was due to marry Lenore at the end of the week, and still hadn't changed his will. He sure hadn't taken any steps to see that his fiancé would be taken care of."
Jim Nolt, creator of the George Reeves fansite "The Adventures Continue," agrees. After researching Reeves for many years, he concludes that the actor's death was an accidental murder, not suicide.
"I think it was an unfortunate accident," he says. "I think he argued with Lenore. We knew they were arguing earlier at a restaurant."
The short-tempered Lemmon could have picked up the gun Reeves kept in the bedside table and fired it during a struggle, say the murder theorists.
So why did police conclude otherwise?
Jacobson theorizes that Eddie Mannix paid off cops to protect his innocent wife from interrogation.
But officials claim there was never conclusive evidence to support the murder theories. And maybe the actor was suicidal; Jack Larsen, who played Jimmy Olsen on the show, thinks so.
We won't reveal which side the new film takes - but it seems the Reeves case is far from closed.
DEATH OF A SUPERMANA FILM CONTINUES THE QUEST TO SOLVE MYSTERIOUS
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