Superman
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8 EVERYONE WHO READ: Author interviews with Salkind, Tom Mankiewicz, Richard Donner, and Infantino. Infantino says the Puzo script was “the worst thing you ever saw in your life.” Transcripts of meetings with Puzo show Infantino and others trying to tone down the script’s sexuality and beef up its fealty to Superman and his forty-year history.
9 NEXT UP: Author interviews with Leslie Newman and Robert Benton.
10 AGREEMENT BETWEEN NATIONAL: Agreement with Alex and Ilya Salkind, November 6, 1974.
11 NEEDED A DIRECTOR: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
12 PENDING ARREST: The warrant had to do with Brando’s role in the film Last Tango in Paris. His interest in Superman was piqued by an old girlfriend.
13 IT ACTUALLY: Author interviews with and emails from Spengler and Pollock.
14 A LINEUP: Petrou, The Making of Superman the Movie, 36–37.
15 PREP SCHOOL: Christopher said that his poet-professor father, upon hearing his son was playing Superman, assumed he meant George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. Frank Reeve, the father, says that is “a great line” apparently dreamed up by Christopher and his buddy, comedian Robin Williams. “Later,” Frank adds, “it became a line said so often he [Christopher] came to believe it.” Frank says he watched all his son’s movies except those Christopher asked him not to. “I found Superman 1 delightful and enthusiastically said so.” (Emails from Frank Reeve to author.)
16 “LIKE THE GUY”: Dangaard, “Reeve Flies to the Rescue of ‘Superman,’ ” Los Angeles Times.
17 “SHE LITERALLY”: Author interview with Donner.
18 “I’M MANIC”: Petrou, The Making of Superman the Movie, 48.
19 “IT’S AS SIMPLE”: Author interview with Donner. Christopher Reeve, in his 1978 film, was the first Superman to explain for himself that he was fighting for “truth, justice and the American way,” to which Lois, with characteristic sarcasm, replies, “You’ll wind up fighting almost every elected official in this country.”
20 “THIS PICTURE IS”: Anderson, “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Movie!” New York Times.
21 THE SOLUTION CAME: Author interviews with Zoran Perisic and Donner.
22 HIS OWN CAPERS: Spengler says Reeve would have liked to do all of his own stunts but “I had to stop him at times for security and/or insurance reasons” (Spengler email).
23 “HOW COULD A”: Reeve, Still Me, 192.
24 “WE SHOVED”: Author interview with Dave Prowse.
25 WAS SO OUTRAGED: Rossen, Superman vs. Hollywood, 90.
26 BEING TYPECAST: Sean Connery, who played James Bond in seven films, told Reeve not to worry. If the first film isn’t good, he said, there won’t be more. If you do a low-budget film next, it might hit big by the time Superman airs. And if the producers or studio give you trouble, “get a good lawyer and sue the bastards” (Davis, “Marketing the Man of Steel!” Maclean’s).
27 “FOR GOD’S SAKE”: Transcript, Studio 360, “American Icons” series.
28 MANKIEWICZ EXPANDED: Author interview with Mankiewicz.
29 “I HAD TO PRETEND”: Author interview with Margot Kidder.
30 “SUPERMAN WAS THE”: Author interview with John Williams.
31 LAST-MINUTE GLITCH: Author interviews with Donner, Semel, and Ilya Salkind; author interview with and emails from Pollock; and Blue and Delugach, “ ‘Superman’: Rare Look at Film Finances,” Los Angeles Times. Semel says that Warner Bros. sent a plane to Europe and managed to get a copy of the negative from Technicolor, the film storage people. “We called Alex in London to say, ‘Oh, by the way, the negative is here, in Burbank, we’re printing—we started printing last night—maybe we’ll see you at the premiere, maybe we won’t,’ ” recalls Semel. Tom Pollock has a different take on what happened more than thirty years ago: “Technicolor denied it, and in any case, had they [Warner Bros.] used it, it would have opened them up to lawsuits, as well as Technicolor. The letters of credit were contingent on DELIVERY by FilmExport, not by theft by Warners.”
32 CONFOUNDING NO-SHOW: “ ‘Superman’: Rare Look at Film Finances.”
33 “IT WAS EXACTLY”: Author interview with Jenette Kahn.
34 REVIEWERS OFFERED: Kroll, “Superman to the Rescue,” Newsweek; Ebert, “Superman,” Chicago Sun-Times; Kael, “The Current Cinema,” New Yorker; and Canby, “Screen: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Movie,” New York Times.
35 AND PEKING: The Peking Evening News said that Superman is not really a savior but “a narcotic which the capitalist class gives itself to cast off its serious crises.” There were no problems anywhere else in China and all this happened in 1985, when China finally was catching up with old movies from America (Mann, “ ‘Superman’ Shanghaied in Peking Screen Test,” Los Angeles Times).
36 “I TOOK MY”: Hoover, “What Women See in Man of Steel,” Los Angeles Times.
37 THE MOVIE WAS MEANT: Author interview with Mankiewicz.
38 “I GOT MAJOR”: Author interview with Donner.
39 $55 MILLION: Spengler says that “the aggregate cost of the first two movies was $109 million. The split would be approximately 75 for the first and 34 for the second” (Spengler email).
40 FILED THEIR OWN LAWSUITS: Tom Pollock says it wasn’t just Alex who was targeted in the lawsuits, but “everybody under the sun. Alex, Ilya, Pierre [Spengler], all of Alex’s companies, Credit Lyonnais Bank, Warner Brothers, etc etc etc.” (email from Pollock).
41 PRODUCTION FIGURES: That matters because the percentage payouts to Puzo, Donner, and the others specified that they were a share of the profits left after Alex recovered his production costs. No postproduction profits, no payouts.
42 “EVERYONE GOT PAID”: Author interview with Pollock. He says that Warner made more than $100 million, with Spengler adding that it was “considerably more.” Credit Lyonnais, one of Alex’s banks, “made the next most,” says Pollock, and DC Comics got 5 percent of the gross. Spengler adds in an email that DC got “7.5% domestic or 5% worldwide, which ever is greater.”
43 BIG BANG THEORY: Schwartz and Thomsen, Man of Two Worlds, 15. If Julie had asked Jerry for his response to Big Bang, the Superman creator likely would have pointed out that he already had a magazine by and for fans, Cosmic Stories, which predated not only Mort and Julie’s fanzine but Jerry’s own Science Fiction.
44 “WAS MERELY”: O’Neil, Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore, 189.
45 YOUNG PEOPLE: Schwartz and Thomsen, Man of Two Worlds, 134.
46 “I AM CURIOUS”: Kanigher, “I Am Curious (Black)!” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane No. 106.
47 “THAT’S THE”: Pasko, “The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis!” Superman No. 330.
48 “SUPERMAN DIRECTED”: Author interview with Alvin Schwartz.
49 “THE FAMOUS BLUE”: Baker, “Sad Feet in the Sky,” New York Times.
50 HE ACTUALLY PROPOSED: Author interview with Kahn.
51 MUHAMMAD ALI: It was bad karma: By the time the book came out, Ali had been dethroned as boxing champ by Leon Spinks.
52 PRICE HIKES: The price rise was even steeper if you start in 1969, when a DC comic book sold for twelve cents, and go until 1981, when it was fifty cents. The number of pages fluctuated, often rising as the price did.
53 “DREW A HUMUNGOUS”: Email to author from Levitz.
54 “TOTALLY REAL”: Email to author from Luis Augusto.
55 MOVIE-RELATED: Harmetz, “The Marketing of Superman and His Paraphernalia,” New York Times; Levin, “ ‘Protect Children Act’ Aims to Ban Cigarette Deals,” Los Angeles Times; Scivally, Superman on Film, Television, Radio and Broadway, 95; and author interview with Kidder.
56 ADVERTISING HELPED: Gabilliet, Of Comics and Men, 134–37.
57 AS A WRITER: Much of his writing for Marvel was under the pseudonym Joe Carter.
58 “JERRY SIEGEL”: Siegel, “Superman’s Originator Puts ‘Curse’ on Superman Movie,” archives.tcj.com.
59 THE PRESS: Sherwood, “Superman Still Makes
Millions, but Not His Creators,” Washington Star; Breasted, “Superman’s Creators, Nearly Destitute, Invoke His Spirit,” New York Times; and Vidal, “Mild-Mannered Cartoonists Go to Aid of Superman’s Creators,” New York Times.
60 ORCHESTRATING THE PUBLICITY: Author interviews with Neal Adams and Irwin Hasen.
61 “WE WERE ABOUT”: Author interview with Emmett.
62 ROSE SUBSTANTIALLY: In 1979, Jerry and Joe each got a check for $15,000 in recognition of the success of Superman: The Movie. The next year their annual payments jumped to $30,000. In 1981, after the release of Superman II, the pensions rose again, to $60,000, and they each got onetime bonuses of $50,000 that year and $25,000 the next. After Joanne Siegel made her first formal request for additional money in 1988, the annual payouts were increased to $80,000, with a cost-of-living inflator.
63 “JOE AND I”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 7: 5.
64 DECEMBER 1976: Most references to their marriage say it was in 1975, but public records make clear it was December 24, 1976, in Del Mar, California. Wedding pictures show each with a flower pinned to their breast, him wearing a suit and slightly raised shoes, her in a full-length gown standing before their three-tiered wedding cake. Joe was sixty-two then, Judith fifty-nine. Their handwritten notes invited guests to a reception at the Atlantis Restaurant in Mission Bay, an oceanfront oasis at the mouth of the San Diego River.
65 THE ATTRACTIVE: Certificate of Registry of Marriage, Joseph Michael Shuster and Judith Ray Calpini; and Request and Declaration for Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage, Joseph Michael Shuster vs. Judith Ray Calpini.
66 “HAS MEANT A”: “Follow-up on the News,” New York Times.
9. BACK TO THE FUTURE
1 “MORE AGGRESSIVE”: Parrott, “For Clark Kent, Wimpery Is Out,” Los Angeles Times.
2 “YOU CAN’T DO”: Melvin, “Cartoonists Explain Superman’s New Image to His Fans,” New York Times.
3 “HE USED TO”: Akers, “Bring Back the REAL Superman,” Washington Post.
4 “IF REAGAN HAS”: Kempley, “Superman: The Ramboization of the Comics’ Man of Stale,” Washington Post.
5 SUPERMAN’S HEAD: Psychologists and psychiatrists have suggested that Superman is the classic schizoid personality, although even they have trouble deciding whether Clark or Superman is the primary identity.
6 RENAMED ADVENTURES: Adventures of Superman picked up the numbering from the old Superman comic book, and a new Superman was launched with a new number one. Superman and Adventures of Superman were published concurrently from 1986 through the spring of 2006, when Adventures was killed and Superman reclaimed its numbering.
7 “WE WRITE AS”: “Dear DC Comics,” New York Times.
8 “EXCORIATED”: Email to author from John Byrne.
9 “THE COMIC BOOK HERO”: “Bring Back the REAL Superman.”
10 “MORE BELIEVABLE”: “Cartoonists Explain Superman’s New Image to His Fans.”
11 “DOUBLE-CROSSED”: Byrne email.
12 SUPERMAN’S NUMBERS: Miller, “Superman Sales,” blog.comichron.com.
13 THE PUBLISHER STOPPED: DC stopped making public its circulation figures when it stopped mailing its comic books second class, a discount privilege that carried with it the reporting requirement.
14 ADULTIFICATION: Friedrich, Austin, and Simpson, “Up, Up and Awaaay!!!” Time.
15 A SURVEY: Eichenwald, “Grown-ups Gather at the Comic Book Stand,” New York Times.
16 FULL REFUND: The black market for comics listed as destroyed was so effective that, in 1974, it was estimated that as few as a quarter of all printed comic books were actually placed for sale at retailers. Many if not most of the rest presumably were sold illicitly, then listed as destroyed so wholesalers and distributors could profit a second time by claiming a credit from publishers (Of Comics and Men, 141).
17 COUNTERINTUITIVE NAMES: Julie Schwartz later acknowledged having made a “horrible mistake” by naming the older planet Earth-2 and the younger one Earth-1. “If we knew 30 years later we’d be asked these questions,” he said laughing, “we’d have paid more attention” (Schwartz, “Dawn of the Silver Age,” Comics Scene Spectacular No. 6).
18 AMONG MILLIONS: Wolfman said his rule was “not to kill any hero who was created before I was born” (Wolfman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, 7).
19 “WHATEVER HAPPENED”: Moore, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.
20 SCHWARTZ’S GOODBYE: Julie was on the cover of Whatever Happened—with Batman, Wonder Women, and others—waving goodbye to his Man of Tomorrow.
21 “GENIUS”: It was safe to call Jerry that in the 1980s, with Jack Liebowitz no longer in charge, but wouldn’t have been in the 1960s. Author interview with Mark Evanier.
22 KRYPTONIAN PAST: Superman: The Man of Steel, Vol. 1.
23 BIRTHING MATRIX: One could even argue (and fans did) that, having been hatched in outer space or upon arriving on Earth, Superman wasn’t an alien at all but an Earthling, an American, and a Kansan.
24 MARGOT KIDDER: She says her role model for a strong-willed Lois was feminist Gloria Steinem. Author interview with Kidder.
25 “IT’S A COLLECTIVE”: Author interview with Levitz.
26 GOT INTO TROUBLE: Author interviews with Waid, Elliot Maggin, and Len Wein.
27 “I ADMIRE”: Mamet, Some Freaks, 179.
28 BIRTHDAY PARTIES: www.capedwonder.com/dc-70. Superman’s birthday, we were told as far back as 1968, was February 29. That device—having a birthday on a leap day that occurs once in four years—also was used by Orphan Annie’s handlers to playfully explain why the cartoon character aged so slowly (Wells emails).
29 BOOK OF ESSAYS: Dooley and Engle, Superman at Fifty! 12, 115, 170.
30 CLARK KISSED LOIS: Leslie Newman says she and her writing partner and husband, David, “snuck in our own love story there. When we wrote the scene we both had tears going down our faces.” Author interview with Newman.
31 “MY FEELING”: Author interview with Donner.
32 “DICK DONNER SAID”: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
33 “THE MIND BOGGLES”: Mann, “ ‘Superman’ Sequel: Flying in the Soup,” Los Angeles Times.
34 “IF I THINK”: “Margot Lois Lane Kidder,” People.
35 “TO MAKE [DONNER]”: Soderbergh and Lester, Getting Away with It, 124–25.
36 PAID TWICE: Yule, The Man Who “Framed” the Beatles, 305. Ilya Salkind says Warner Bros. kicked in only on the third film, but Spengler says the studio boosted Lester’s salary for the second and third (author interview with Ilya Salkind and Spengler emails).
37 “DECIDED NOT”: Soderbergh and Lester, Getting Away with It, 125. It would have cost them $1 million to use any of the Brando footage for Superman II, a cost no one wanted to pay.
38 “UNCONTROLLABLE DESPAIR”: Soderbergh and Lester, Getting Away with It, 130–31.
39 VILLAINESS URSA: Author interview with Sarah Douglas.
40 MEMORABLE LINES: Leslie Newman says, “We never wrote that and there’s no way on Earth that line would have gotten by DC Comics.”
41 COSTS COULD MOUNT: Schoell, Comic Book Heroes of the Screen, 45.
42 MARKETING STRATEGY: Harmetz, “The Marketing of Superman and His Paraphernalia,” New York Times.
43 “BARELY BROKE”: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
44 “CRITICS WERE SPLIT”: Schickel, “Flying High,” Time; Maslin, “ ‘Superman II’ Is Full of Tricks,” New York Times; Boyum, “One-Dimensional Flights of Fancy,” Wall Street Journal; Arnold, “ ‘Superman II’: The Plot Weakens,” Washington Post; and Gasser, “Superman, What Happened to You?” Los Angeles Times.
45 “IT WAS MAINLY”: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
46 “THE WHOLE GOOD”: Author interview with Newman.
47 SUPERMAN III AS A WHOLE: Maslin, “ ‘Superman III’; Reeve Joined by Pryor,” New York Times; Kempley, “Number III Is Not So Super, Man,” Washington Post; Reeve, Still Me, 192; and Pryor, Pryor
Convictions and Other Life Sentences, 205.
48 ADDED $1 MILLION: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
49 “MAKING MONEY”: Author interview with Ilya Salkind. Pollock, Alex Salkind’s lawyer, says that “overall, Alex made a lot of money.… None of us know the real numbers. I doubt that anyone but Alex knew the real numbers” (Pollock emails).
50 “I’M JUST OPTIMIST”: Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 158–59. Ilya Salkind says President Reagan told him the movie “was ‘very nice.’ I don’t know if he even saw the film” (author interview with Ilya Salkind).
51 NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Reeve’s mother, real-world journalist Barbara Johnson, helped found the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament.
52 “I THOUGHT”: Reeve, Still Me, 218.
53 “ONE OF THE”: Kempley, “It’s Recurred! It’s a Pain!” Washington Post.
54 “CHINTZY”: Maslin, “ ‘Superman IV: Quest for Peace,’ ” New York Times.
55 “SUPERGIRL WAS HUGE”: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
56 “I JUST WANTED”: Author interview with John Haymes Newton. Newton was replaced after the first season for what the media said was at least one, and perhaps all, of these reasons: The producers weren’t taken with his performance, he asked for a pay raise his bosses didn’t think he deserved, and he was facing a charge of drunk driving. Newton says he disputed the drunk driving charge and got it dropped, and he regrets that he left the show.
57 “HE WAS”: Author interview with Stacy Haiduk.
58 BERKOWITZ’S MIND: Author interview with Stan Berkowitz.
59 FOR PRODUCER JULIA: Author interview with Julia Pistor.
60 “THIS IS A”: Brennan, “A Family Feud,” Los Angeles Times.
61 LOOKING BACK: Author interview with Ilya Salkind.
62 HE HAD A: Author interview with Gae Exton.
63 HAIRLINE YOUTHFUL: His problem was less age-related and more a result of his alopecia areata, which caused the loss of clumps of otherwise healthy hair. He also suffered from mastocytosis, a skin disease that produces lesions and intense itching (email to author from Benjamin Reeve).