Posted by
Scribbler on Monday, September 04, 2006 9:21:21 PM
This is the fall we find out who killed two famous Hollywood celebrities--well almost. George Reeves ,who played Superman, was engaged to a woman he was supposedly about to break up with. Rumor has it, he was about to go back with old girl friend, Toni Mannix, the wife of mobster Eddie Mannix. It all leads to a murky conjecture about the star who wasn't faster than a speeding bullet. Another story has him being buried in one of his old Clark Kent suits. This week the Superman movie comes out exploring the topic. Another new film deals with the murder of Elizabeth Short, the girl from Medford, Massachusetts who left home to try her luck in Hollywood. She lost her great love just at the end of World War II and seemed to keep men at a distance but was not above accepting a little financial help from time to time. A great beauty, she became the Black Dahlia after her horrific murder in 1947. A former LAPD detective now claims his doctor father committed the crime. It seems Doctor Hodel had one of those spooky Hollywood mansions where stars could cavort. He also had a secret room built into the house. The good doctor left for Europe after the murder and didn't return for thirty years.
When you think about it, it seems to be the good guys and gals who are always getting bumped off in Tinseltown. There was Ramon Novarro ( Ben-Hur ) who was murdered on Halloween night, 1968 by a couple of hustlers. Remember Lewis Stone the judge preaching family values to Mickey Rooney in those Andy Hardy movies? At the age of 73, he had a fatal heart attack chasing a couple of intruders from his home. Good girl, Thelma Todd died in her car from carbon monoxide poisoning. There were lots of suspects including gangsters who wanted to take over her nightclub for their gambling purposes. She said "No sale" to their offers to buy her out and they said "No dice" to Thelma living a long life. Nick (The Rebel) Adams died under unusual circumstances as well.
But there is another Hollywood murder I would like solved first. When I was a kid my favorite Saturday afternoon serial was The Masked Marvel. For 12 weeks we forked over ten cents to watch him battle Japanese spy, Sakima. Each week one of the good guy investigators was bumped off and we kept wondering who the Marvel was. My choice was the character played by actor, David Bacon. Although not much of an actor, Bacon came from a very prominent Boston family and was a graduate of Harvard. David Bacon was discovered by Howard Hughes who wanted him tested for the role of Billy the Kid in The Outlaw. Bacon didn't get the part and it went to Jack Buetel an actor whose work was laughable but no one cared ;this was Jane Russell's famous "bra" movie. Bacon played one of the investigators trying to sabotage Sakima who was trying to sabotage our war efforts. Each Saturday the gang and I trooped to the Rudy Theater, ten cents in our hot little fist, trying to guess who the Marvel might be. And each Saturday, one of the good guys got bumped off so we didn't learn his identity until the final moments of the final chapter. I guessed right; it was the David Bacon character. None of us front row screamers knew that two weeks before the serial was released David Bacon was stabbed to death. He told his pregnant wife he was going for a swim. An hour later he stumbled out of his sports car, a fatal knife wound in his back. Yes, the irony is thick and syrupy: here we were stuffing our faces with popcorn, rooting for a hero who had already been killed by the bad guys in real life!
A couple of years ago, I learned that Louise Currie, the female lead in the serial, was still with us. I sent her a letter and she graciously mailed me an autographed picture which the kid in me will always treasure. Unfortunately, I didn't think to ask her about the murder of the Masked Marvel.