If there had been laws against stalking in 1959 Toni Mannix would have been a one-woman crime wave. George had ended his relationship with Toni in late 1958 and she soon learned that George and Lenore had become engaged. According to reports from friends at the time, she was completely devastated - and enraged.
The exact date that Lenore Lemmon and George were engaged is unknown, as is the date that she moved in with George (he was shot in his bedroom on June 16, 1959). Their wedding date was set for June 18. Remember, this was the home for which Toni Mannix had provided the down payment - and likely many other expenses - again, with Eddie’s money.
Toni took to calling George repeatedly at all hours of the day and night, alternately hanging up and screaming at him. She would park across the street from his Benedict Canyon home and sit for hours watching the house.
In January of 1959 George was out running errands. When he returned to his car from a brief stop his beloved one-eyed schnauzer, Sam, was gone. Toni had been following George everywhere for weeks, had her own keys to George’s car and knew how much he loved the dog.
Interesting note: Both George and Lenore reported that on many of the hang-up calls they received a small dog could be heard barking in the background before the line went dead. Neither Toni nor Eddie owned a dog.
On April 8, 1959, George lost control of his Jaguar on Benedict Canyon Road one mile from his home, left the road and crashed into the rocks. His head injury required 27 stiches, his car was totaled and he was confined to the hospital for 5-7 days.
The authorities attributed the crash to alcohol impairment. However, there are numerous reports from castmates and friends over the years that George could drink to great excess and not appear drunk. At the time there were unconfirmed reports that a mechanic had noticed a severed brake fluid line on the Jaguar after it had been towed away from the scene. But, as with Bernice Fitzmaurice Mannix’s fatal crash 22 years earlier, no further investigation was performed.
So, who was George Reeves? He was born George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa on Jan. 5, 1914 to Helen Lescher and Donald Carl Brewer. His mother and father separated soon after his birth and Helen and young George left Iowa, first staying with relatives in Ashland, Kentucky, then moving to her hometown of Galesburg, Illinois.
Around 1920, Helen and George relocated to California to be near her sister. There, by the time George was about six years old, Helen married Frank Joseph Bessolo, a butcher and amateur boxer, who later adopted George when he was 13. For much of his childhood and pre-teen years, George lived with his mother Helen and stepfather Frank Bessolo in Pasadena, California.
Helen divorced Frank Bessolo in 1932 or 1933, with she and George staying in their Pasadena home. Helen married Harvey Maurice Overgaard , a candy salesman, in 1938.
George had a complex and often difficult relationship with his mother. She was reportedly possessive and controlling of her only child, shaping much of his early life and career decisions. For example, Helen disapproved fiercely of Reeves' interest in boxing, which was a significant outlet for George’s anger and independence during his youth. Allegedly, she went so far as to pay a retired boxer to fight Reeves before his Golden Gloves competition to discourage him from boxing and push him toward acting instead.
Helen told Reeves many untruths growing up, including lies about his biological father being dead and about his own birth date. Reeves was also prohibited by her from speaking of his stepfather, Frank Bessolo, who adopted him at age 13 but whom Reeves later found out was still alive despite Helen's claims of his suicide.
By the time George was a young adult he was working regularly as an actor and secretary at the Pasadena Playhouse and continued to live in the Pasadena/Beverly Hills area throughout his early film career.
George with his mother, Helen; Lenore Lemmon & unknown man leaving George’s home after his death
We can only speculate how or if George’s early life and relationship with his mother may have influenced his choice of relationships with two potentially dangerous women.
Both Helen and Toni were controlling and possessive of George. Lenore seemed to see George as her ticket to the Hollywood party life. George was quoted as saying that Lenore made him feel, “like a boy again”. This made sense since Lenore was 17 years younger than Toni and nine years younger than George.
In the more than 25 articles, books and reports on George Reeves that we examined for this article, we could find no castmate, associate or friend who had anything bad to say about George. Quite the opposite - George was typically described as generous, well-mannered, friendly and considerate.
It’s as if his love life, both past and present, had him caught up in a vortex of negativity the depths of which even he was not aware.
George with his mother, Helen Bessolo, and Lenore Lemmon having fun at an LA club
George and Lenore had set June 18, 1959 as their wedding date, to be followed by a honeymoon trip to Spain.
On June 15 or shortly before, George purchased $4,000 in travelers checks for the trip. As far as is known, only Lenore and George’s close friend and agent, Art Weissman, were aware of the checks.
Also, at this time George was planning to participate in one or more exhibition boxing matches with Archie Moore, the reigning light heavyweight champ. In the process, George made the acquaintance of Robert Condon, who was ghostwriting an autobiography of Moore. Reeves and Condon hit it off and George invited Robert to stay in his guestroom during his brief stay in L.A.
On the night of June 15, George and Lenore were reported to have had a “boozy dinner” at a local restaurant where they were overheard arguing.
Upon returning home, they had a few more drinks with Condon before George excused himself to go to bed around 12:00, using the excuse that he wanted to get up early and continue with his fight training.
Shortly after, two additional (uninvited) guests showed up at the door: Carol Van Ronkel (a neighbor, a friend of Lenore’s, the young wife of screenwriter and producer, Rip Van Ronkel, and who also was reportedly having an affair with Robert Condon earlier in George’s guest room); and William Bliss, who was unknown to all of them and who may have just encountered Ms. Van Ronkel out walking.
At this point, lets refer to the on-scene investigating L.A.P.D. officer, Sgt. V.A. Peterson’s report, which was reproduced in Sam Kasher and Nancy Schoenberger’s excellent book, Hollywood Kryptonite:
“At approximately 12:00 a.m., June 16, 1959, decedent retired, leaving two house guests, Leonore Lemmon [Lenore had changed the spelling of her first name, supposedly to sound more glamorous] and Robert Condon, to retire to their respective rooms [George’s modest 1,717 sq. ft. home only had two bedrooms]. At approximately 12:05 a.m., William Bliss and Carol Van Ronkel arrived and were admitted by Leonore Lemmon. The decedent came down from his upstairs bedroom wearing a bathrobe, upset and irritated by the arrival of the two guests at such a late hour. An argument ensued between the decedent and Mr. Bliss. Mr. Bliss apologized, which calmed the decedent, who later apologized for his conduct.
At approximately 1:20 a.m., the decedent excused himself as he was going upstairs to bed. Miss Lemmon at this time made a statement, “He is going to shoot himself.” Shortly, they heard a dresser drawer being opened upstairs, and Miss Lemmon commented, “He is getting the gun out now, and he is going to shoot himself.” Moments later a shot was heard and Miss Lemmon asked Mr. Bliss to go upstairs and see what happened.
Mr. Bliss entered the upstairs bedroom and observed the decedent lying nude on his back, across the bed. There was a large amount of blood on his body and head. He went back downstairs and told the rest of the guests what he had observed.
Mr. Bliss then called the LAPD and on their arrival, took them upstairs to the bedroom. There was a .30-caliber German Luger lying on the floor between the decedent’s feet. The bullet had passed through the head and had lodged in the ceiling of the room. The shell casing was found on the bed under the decedent’s body. The bathrobe was lying on the foot of the bed. No notes or messages giving reasons for his actions were found. Witnesses present stated he was quite despondent about not being able to get the type of acting work that he wanted. The guests were instructed to leave the premises and the residence was sealed by the Coroner’s Representatives.”
According to Kasher and Schoenberger’s book, the guests at Reeves’ home waited between three quarters of an hour to four hours before calling the police. Do you think they were getting their drunken story straight?
Who blows their brains out when they have house guests downstairs? With their head at such a cocked angle that the bullet lodged in the ceiling.
No fingerprints could be lifted from the gun because it had a coating of oil on it that prevented any prints from adhering. Neither Reeves’ nor any of the guests’ hands were ever checked for gunshot residue (or gun oil). It was not Reeves’ habit to sleep in the nude.
Who announces to their house guests, after their fiancé retires to bed, that, “He is going to shoot himself”? And then is able to hear the drawer open?
This story sounds like what we believe it to be: the drunken concoction of a group of heavily inebriated partiers who decided to come up with a story that only involved George and none of them.
We know that George and Lenore were arguing at dinner and we know they argued again when George came down and asked for quiet. Isn’t it at least as likely that Lenore, in an intoxicated, argumentative and combative state, followed George up to his room? Had George told her they were through? The gun typically was on top of the dresser, not in a drawer. Lenore could have picked it up, drunkenly threatened George with it and it accidentally went off.
Another theory, presented in Kasher and Schoenberger’s book, is that Toni had access to contact information for at least one of Eddie’s ‘fixers’. Early in her relationship with George, Toni had become friends with Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane in the first season of The Adventures of Superman.
Coates reported that around 4:30 on the morning of June 16, a sobbing Toni phoned Phyllis saying, “The boy is dead! He’s been murdered”.
How did Toni know any of this before the news on George’s death had been released? Kasher and Schoenberger present the possibility that Toni, with or without Eddie’s knowledge, contacted one of these ‘fixers’, possibly in another alcohol-fueled state and arranged for George - and possibly Lenore as well - to be eliminated.
With a party going on in the den, it would not have been difficult for a hit man to have entered by the back door, using Toni’s key if necessary, slip upstairs, wait for and shoot George, using George’s Luger, which Toni knew he kept on top of his dresser.
The coroner’s report stated that George had fresh bruises on his forehead and chest. Was there a struggle?
The next day Lenore, with her friend, Gwen Dailey (wife of actor, Dan Dailey) visited Carol and Rip Van Ronkel in their Benedict Canyon home as she struggled with what to do next. Rip recommended that, going forward, Lenore should keep her mouth shut as much as possible.
Instead, Lenore phoned famed New York gossip columnist, Earl Wilson, who had previously covered her NYC society antics. Among other revelations to Wilson, Lenore denied ever saying, “He’s going to shoot himself”, etc. It took less than 24 hours for Lenore’s story to change.
Along with most of his castmates and friends, Helen Bessolo found it impossible to believe that George had killed himself. She immediately travelled from Illinois to Los Angeles so she could conduct her own investigation. Helen hired famed ‘attorney to the stars’, Jerry Giesler, as well as the Nick Harris Detective Agency.
Despite finding numerous inconsistencies with witness statements and police and coroner’s reports, Giesler eventually withdrew from the investigation, warning Helen that “very bad people” were involved and advising her to drop it.
The Nick Harris Detective Agency provided Helen with findings that deeply challenged the official ruling of suicide and strongly suggested homicide. Such as:
No powder burns were found on Reeves’ face, which they argued meant that the gun had been fired at least 18 inches away - physically impossible in a conventional self-inflicted shot.
Reeves’ body was found lying on his back with the shell casing under him, contradicting normal ballistics for this suicide scenario, where recoil would have propelled the casing away.
The bullet hole trajectory suggested his head was twisted at an angle inconsistent with a straightforward self-inflicted wound.
Their investigator later stated that the agency believed an intruder entered the room, that a struggle ensued, and that Reeves was shot accidentally or deliberately during that confrontation, after which the intruder escaped unnoticed.
The Los Angeles Chief of Police at the time, William H. Parker, played an indirect but influential role in how the George Reeves case was managed and publicly interpreted. Parker and his department were under substantial scrutiny for its close, and often criticized, relationship with powerful Hollywood figures like MGM’s Eddie Mannix. Even though Parker himself did not personally appear at the death scene, the LAPD under his leadership quickly ruled Reeves’ death a suicide and was reluctant to reopen the case despite mounting inconsistencies raised by Helen, Jerry Giesler, the detective agency and the press.
Lenore Lemmon, meanwhile, had left the Van Ronkel’s with Gwen and the two drove to George’s house where Lenore cut away the coroner’s tape spanning the front door and the two entered. They went upstairs were Gwen inexplicably gathered up the bloody bed sheets and put them in the bathtub.
It is not known what else the two were up to but, upon returning downstairs, they were shocked to see Art Weissman sitting quietly in the den nursing a cocktail. He had let himself in earlier without disturbing the coroner’s tape.
Weissman reported that Lenore said to him, “What are you doing here? You have no right to be here.” To which he replied, “I have every right to be here. I am the executor of George’s estate. It is you who have no right to be here. I am asking both of you to leave.”
Lenore’s arms were laden with clothes and liquor bottles as she departed. Weissman later told researchers that the $4,000 in travelers checks that George had purchased were never found.
Lenore quickly moved back to New York and faded from the spotlight. Neither she nor Toni even attended George’s funeral.
Helen returned home to Illinois, convinced that her son was murdered until her death in 1964.
Sources and Further Reading
American Hauntings - Superman
Hub Pages - Superman got no Justice
All That’s Interesting - George Reeves’ Death
Superman Supersite - Birthplace of George Reeves
The Adventures Continue - A Tribute to The Adventures of Superman
Classic Film & TV Cafe - 7 Things to know about The Adventures of Superman
Chasing the Frog - Hollywoodland movie vs Real Life
Comic Book Historians - George Reeves Death
iamnotastalker.com - George Reeves’ Home