Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 5, 2025 | 2 comments

A BIRTHDAY SALUTE: The beloved actor was born 111 years ago, on Jan. 5, 1914…

By PETER BOSCH

For six glorious seasons, George Reeves was the magnificent title character in Adventures of Superman, and he was every kid’s hero. Regrettably, as most people know, his life ended tragically in 1959. For now, though, we want to celebrate George Reeves on his birthday (born George Keefer Brewer on January 5, 1914) by looking at his vast film career.

He was born in Woolstock, Iowa, but his parents separated and his mother took him with her to California where her sister lived. By 1920, she had remarried to Frank Bessolo and George used his stepfather’s surname. His interest in acting started in high school and he studied later at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was there that he would meet the woman he would marry.

It was also at the Playhouse that he was seen by a casting director who signed him to a role in one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. Of course, I am talking about Gone with the Wind (1939) where he played one of the Tarleton twins (Fred Crane was the other).

Reeves made more than 50 movies from 1939 to 1956. Many were in small roles to begin with, but he graduated to supporting and then starring parts. Gone With the Wind was actually one of seven movies he appeared in during 1939, when he was under contract to Warner Bros., but he seldom got screen billing. He didn’t even get film poster credit until 1940’s Ladies Must Live, and wasn’t pictured on a poster until Calling All Husbands (1940), though he can be seen on a few lobby cards.

In 1940, he was in one of the more important films from the studio, Knute Rockne, All American (1940), but again without any billing. In The Strawberry Blonde (1941), he had an amusing role as an annoying next door neighbor to James Cagney and gets into a fight with him. It would also be his last film under contract to the studio. 20th Century-Fox signed him and after a few smaller roles in “A” films, he finally got star billing in Man at Large (1941), a low-budget potboiler with Reeves on the trail of Nazis.

Fox dropped his contract and he moved over to Paramount, where he appeared in So Proudly We Hail (1943) and a few other pictures before he enlisted in the Army during World War II. In 1947, he resumed his screen career and he received star billing again in two 1948 quickies, Jungle Goddess and Thunder in the Pines, both co-starring Dick Tracy’s Ralph Byrd.

Reeves would then be reduced to supporting roles once more until he took on the title role in the 1949 Columbia movie serial, The Adventures of Sir Galahad.

However, his next film is a treat for comic book fans, with the future Superman battling Captain Marvel… or at least Captain Marvel’s fan club.

Jack Carson, the star of The Good Humor Man (1950), played an ice-cream truck driver who was in love with Margie, the company’s secretary (Lola Albright) to Stuart Nagle (Reeves), who turns out to be the secret boss of a criminal gang.

The Good Humor Man (1950) with Reeves and Lola Albright.

In addition to his ice cream duties, Carson is also the only adult member of a kids’ club devoted to Captain Marvel and the boys come to his rescue at the end of the picture. Fawcett Comics published a nifty comic book tie-in to the movie.

Jack Carson and the Captain Marvel Club kids. (Shhh, the secret password for club entry is “niatpac levram” — Captain Marvel spelled backward.)

Otto Binder, story. C.C. Beck, art.

The next film released theatrically was Superman and the Mole Men (1951), which acted as the pilot for the TV series Adventures of Superman. The series was put into production but didn’t air until September 19, 1952. At the end of the first season, the movie was broken down into two episodes and retitled “The Unknown People.”

While doing Adventures of Superman, Reeves also had supporting roles in several more movies, including the blockbuster From Here to Eternity (1953).

Reeves pictured to the left of Ernest Borgnine.

The last film in which he played a role was Walt Disney’s Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956)

Reeves, in hat and beard, is to the right of the pointing Indian.

With an actor’s death, his or her career is often forgotten, but in this case, let’s say instead, “Look! Up on the screen! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s George Reeves!”

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MORE

— GEORGE REEVES’ SUPERMAN: It Took Decades But I Finally Get What Made Him Great. Click here.

— THE GHOST OF GEORGE REEVES: A Birthday Tribute to TV’s Greatest Man of Steel. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is due in 2025. (You can pre-order here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.