"Judo" Gene investigates the murder of "Superman" George

Legendary grappler Gene LeBell on the suspicious shooting of his good mate and student, "Adventures Of Superman" actor George Reeves, who expired from a head wound later ruled to be self-inflicted:

"It was after 1am on June 16, 1959 when a buddy of mine called me and told me that he had heard on the radio that George had killed himself. George Reeves was the last man in the world that I thought would ever commit suicide. It just didn't add up so I drove over to his house as fast as I could. I knew that something was up when I saw that there were several police cars in his driveway. I ran through the big doors of his house and found a lot of policemen there. I made my way up past some of them and into the bedroom. I noticed a rug on the ground in a place that I had never seen it before and I said, 'That rug doesn't belong there.' I kicked it aside and there were five bullet holes in the floor, but the investigators didn't seem to care. I tried to talk to the police and they told me to get out of there or else they were going to throw me in jail.

"To this day, I don't know why the police didn't really want to investigate the death of my friend George Reeves and why they were so quick to list it as a suicide. They never found powder burns on his hands, which should have been there if he had actually held the gun and shot himself with it. Whether or not the death of 'Superman' George Reeves was due to suicide or foul play remains one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries, but I have always had no doubt that he was murdered. Although I wasn't there at the time of his death, I have always had my suspicions as to who did it."

...

"Lenore Lemmon was at George's house on the night that he died. She was the only person that the police had ever really questioned but they never followed up with her on anything and just seemed to take her word about what happened at face value. A day or two after George's death, Lenore left California for Europe never to return again."

Quoted without permission but with respect from p145-146 of "The Toughest Man Alive" (2003), LeBell's ghost-written autobiography. Along with astonishing anecdotes such as this one, it presents a convincing argument for pro wrestling as a martial art and even as the forerunner to MMA. Gene's transition from judo champ to wrestler to ace stuntman is riveting stuff and he comes across as a man of principle. Buy the book or borrow it from a library and meet a true action hero.

For a speculative account of Reeves' rise and demise, see the 2006 flick "Hollywoodland".