The Flying Hero
Superman can travel faster than a speeding bullet, he's been clocked at several times the speed of light. He can out-muscle a locomotive. He can leap tall buildings at a single bound. He can also see through any substance except lead, start fires with a glare, freeze deserts with his breath, hear a fly move miles away with his super-hearing, survive without food or rest for unlimited periods, remember anything he's ever seen, heard or read, and perform abstruse calculations that would fuse the circuits of the most modern computer. He can fly. He can shrug off bomb explosions and take sauna baths in the hearts of distant stars. He is an honorary citizen of several countries. He was born on the planet Krypton. He has entertained 62 billion people in movies, a radio program, a television series, a newspaper strip, a Broadway musical, books, records, educational reading programs and comic books. Especially comic books, currently printed in 14 languages and distributed throughout the world. And then he became the hero of "Superman: The Movie" a Warner Bros release. The film boasts the talents of a slew of Academy Award winners including Marlon Brando (as Superman's father) and Gene Hackman (as his evil adversary). He is portrayed in the screen adventure by Christopher Reeve.
History of Superman
"Superman" came into being in 1933, in the Cleveland bedroom of Jerry Siegel, a quiet, intensely imaginative teenager. As Siegel later told a reporter, he was lying awake in the heat of a summer night when "it suddenly hit me. I conceived a character like Samson, Hercules and all the strong men I'd ever heard of rolled into one. Only more so. " The next morning, Siegel ran to the home of his friend, Joe Shuster, an aspiring cartoonist, who gave the hero visible form. Superman's success was immediate. He was greeted as a modern-day myth, a stranger from a distant place who had come to aid mankind. The contrast between Superman and his assumed identity, Clark Kent, heightened the impact.
For millions of people, Superman symbolized what perhaps was really within them — nobility, strength, fearlessness and good. Over the years, Superman took on the most formidable villains in America — Lex Luther; Brainiac; the Ultra-Humanoid; the Prankster; the Puzzler; King Kobra; the Toyman; and Mr. Mxyztplk, from the fifth dimension. Time and time again, he came to the aid of his adopted country.
During World War II, he appeared in special manuals, designed to increase literacy in the Armed Forces. He worked with the Navy in a recruiting drive. He accompanied the Army on maneuvers. He raised millions of dollars in War Bond sales, and joined the Red Cross' blood donor campaign. In 1963, he participated in the national physical fitness program, at the personal invitation of the late John F. Kennedy. He was an honorary "coach" of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation's Special Olympics, helping the mentally retarded. Superman, or Kal-El as he was named, was born on the planet Krypton, the son of that society's leading scientist, Jor-El, and his wife, Lara. When Jor-El discovered that Krypton was doomed to explode, he worked against time, building a spaceship to save his infant son.
On the fatal day of Krypton's destruction, the baby Kal-El was launched through a time warp to the distant, less civilized planet Earth. To disguise his true identity, he became Clark Kent, meek, mild-mannered reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet. Even Lois Lane, whom he loves, and Perry White, the Planet's tough, no-nonsense editor, are unaware that the fumbling, bumbling Kent and the Man of Steel are one in the same. It is a secret he must always keep, essential to his continuing fight against crime and the protection of the weak and innocent. Whatever Clark Kent is doing, anywhere, at any time, he knows that he must soar into action when the call rings out for Superman!
Superman: The Musical
March 19, 1966, the Alvin Theater in New York premiered It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman."Composer Charles Strouse and Lyricist Lee Adams decided a musical of the famous super hero was in order. A year was spent on a score, and it turned out to be one of the mosre expensive Broadway shows of the 1960's. Strause and Adams approached two writers, David Newman and Robert Benton and asked them to devise a script. When the first draft was completed, it was handed to famous producer Hal Prince where it was fine-tuned and toned down to a shorter production (the original had run almost 3 l/2 hours). Bob Holiday would play the superhero, Jack Cassidy, Max Menchken of the Daily Planet, and Michael O'Sullivan as a villain attempting to destroy the world. There was too much competition on Broadway at the time, including Mame and Hello Dolly! and so the musical closed on July 17, 1966, playing only 129 performances. The beautifully recorded score is available on the Sony Broadway CD label.
Casting the new Superman
Casting the crucial role of Superman presented the film's creators with a subtle and deep challenge. First, as llya Salkind pointed out, the actor chosen would have to create two distinctively different characterizations: "Disguised as Clark Kent, a reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet, he is meek, mild-mannered and totally inept in moments of danger. His writing may some day win a Pulitzer. But alone with Lois Lane, whom he secretly loves, he is awkward and speechless. Which makes him just the opposite of Superman, who can fly, vault skyscrapers, out-muscle locomotives, start fires with a glare, freeze deserts with his breath, peer through any substance except lead and shrug off grenades, all of which he does in a never-ending battle against crime." The dual personality, adds Salkind, is what has made Superman such a great legend. "Almost all of us see something of Clark Kent in ourselves and something of what we would like to be in Superman." After months of speculation and rumor, the movie makers tapped Christopher Reeve, who was brought to them by casting director Lynn Stalmaster. Reeve's description as an "unknown" isn't quite true to the facts. At the age of twenty-four, Reeve had worked as a professional actor for more than ten years, including a stint on Broadway and on tour opposite Katharine Hepburn in the play, "A Matter of Gravity."
"Capturing that conflicting persona on screen," adds director Richard Donner, "meant threading a thin line between illusion and reality. We knew we had to avoid the trap which so many movies, sired by comic strips, have fallen into... parody or outright camp." That approach would have achieved what scores of villains, including the unspeakably evil Lex Luthor himself, have failed to do, which is to destroy Superman. "Of course, the movie is bigger than life," he continued, "but amidst the most incredible adventures, the characters have reality. Even more important, it is a reality to the characters themselves. SUPERMAN is a comedy, a love story, an adventure and its own thing. But it is not a send-up." Reeve developed not only his biceps, but his interpretation of the dual role. The caped hero, standing hands-on- hips as bullets glanced off his chest, was only one aspect of Superman. "But there is more to him than that," says the young actor. "In a sense, he is a stranger in a strange land, a solitary man with extra-terrestial powers, trying hard to fit into his adopted planet. "He has warmth and a fine sense of humor, even about his own super-human strength."
Who would play "The Man of Steel?"
The news that the Salkind Organization would make "Superman" for Warner Bros. was followed by one obvious question: who would play the title role? That, in turn, was followed by a two-year search, spiced with speculation, screen tests, trans-Atlantic phone calls, dashed hopes and false reports. At one time or another, virtually every leading man in Hollywood was rumored to have "clinched" the role. Muscle builders stopped pumping iron and built up libraries on Stanislavsky technique. Actors took up weightlifting. Sylvester Stallone lobbied intensely, but Marlon Brando had casting approval and turned him down. Also considered were Warren Beatty, James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Nick Nolte, Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jon Voight. Beatty and Redford turned it down. Patrick Wayne was offered the role of Superman, but because of his father John Wayne's bout with cancer, he dropped out. Paul Newman was offered the choice of playing Superman, Lex Luthor or Jor-El for the fee of $4 million. Newman wasn't interested in any of them.
Superman hopefuls from top l-r: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Warren Beatty, James Caan, Kris Kristofferson
Then Christopher Reeve came on the scene. Characteristically, he was in New York, acting in a play off-Broadway, when the call came in to fly to London and test for "Superman." He had already had one brief meeting with producer Salkind and director Richard Donner in a Manhattan hotel room. "But we talked about everything except Superman," he recalls. "At one point, Donner gave me his pair of glasses and asked me to try them on. Then they exchanged glances, and I knew I'd passed some sort of preliminary hurdle." Reeve's screen test was filmed at the Shepperton Studios in suburban London, one of two major studios which served as headquarters for "Superman."
Christopher Reeve was cast brilliantly as Superman
According to the "Superman" creative team, they knew the search was over even before Reeve's test was out of the lab. Warner Bros., with consultation rights on casting, screened the footage and agreed. When Reeve was announced as "Superman," words like "newcomer" and "unknown" cropped up. Neither was accurate. At the age of 24, he was a seasoned actor with ten years experience, who had co-starred on Broadway and on tour with Katharine Hepburn and played a leading role in a television series. Born in New York City on September 25, 1952, Reeve came from a non-show business family. "My father was a professor, a novelist, and a translator. My mother's a newspaper reporter and my stepfather a stockbroker." Surprisingly, though, Reeve was fascinated by acting at an early age. At fifteen, he apprenticed himself to the Williamstown Playhouse, one of the top summer stock theaters in America. During the next two years, he alternated between the Princeton Day School, a private high school in suburban New Jersey, and appearances with a professional repertory company. He also found time to become a letter man in ice hockey, serve as assistant conductor of the school orchestra and sing with a madrigal group.
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"I guess you'd call it a normal childhood," he said later when promoting his first book. When Reeve signed as "Superman," he felt that physically he was hardly typecasting for the role. "I sort of looked like Jimmy Stewart standing sideways. Most of my exercise up to that time had been mental." But playing the Man of Steel required special, arduous training. Under the watchful eye of athlete-actor Dave Prowse (who played Darth Vader in "Star Wars,") he began a regimen which would have tested a heavyweight contender. "I put on 30 pounds, all muscle," he says. "In fact, I found muscles I never knew I had." But more than Reeve's biceps were growing. So was his interpretation of the Clark Kent/Superman role. "Like most people my age, I was brought up on Superman," he pointed out. "I knew the classic stance — hands on hips, cape blowing in the breeze, bullets bouncing off his chest. That's the way seven billion people have loved Superman, and I wouldn't dream of changing it." Instead, he searched for "other dimensions" in the hero. "In a sense, Superman is a stranger in a strange land, a solitary man with incredible powers, trying to fit into his adopted planet. He has warmth and a great sense of humor. And while he has sworn to uphold 'truth, justice and the American way,' there's nothing self-conscious about him. That's simply what he believes in, in a world filled with arch-criminals and evil geniuses." Reeve dubbed Jeff East's dialogue (the younger Superman) so the voices would be similar. It is interesting to note that Bruce Jenner turned down the role of Clark Kent so he could star in the Village People musical "Can't Stop the Music," a flop.
On May 27, 1995, Christopher Reeve fell off of his horse and was paralyzed. Indeed, one could have called him a superman for the length of time he fought to walk again and regain his feeling. He wrote two highly praised books about his experience after the accident, giving millions of people with similar conditions hope. He also started the Reeve Foundation, which has raised millions of dollars for research. I am sure we can all "look up in the sky" and see Christopher Reeve pleased to see us all enjoying his beautiful work in high definition. We will do a follow-up column on Superman 2, watch for it soon.
Posted June 12, 2011 10:00 PM by Robert Siegel
