by Larry Tye
Bizarro was Superman’s twisted mirror image, built from lifeless matter and brought into the world by a scientist showing off his new duplicating ray. With a face the color of chalk and the texture of chiseled stone, the Thing of Steel got everything backward. He used dirt to wash himself instead of water, showed his respect for women by pulling their chairs out from under them, and took as his motto, “Anything Superman kin fix, us kin fix worser!” While he wore Superman’s cape and colors, he looked more like Frankenstein. Bizarro, who first surfaced in 1958, offered a compelling device for Superman’s writers: He made clear what Superman stood for—from impeccable hygiene to unmatched chivalry—but by doing so in reverse and tongue-in-cheek, he made the hero sound less preachy or self-righteous. Bizarro’s monstrous imitation of Superman would have been straight-out funny if he hadn’t had Superman’s powers, which sometimes made him deadly and always made readers glad the real thing was around to save the day and end the story.
The enemy that had posed the greatest risk to Superman since it first surfaced on the airwaves in 1943 was kryptonite, which in the pre–Mort Weisinger days was a rare element and afterward cropped up all the time. Remnants of the planet Krypton at first were red, then gray, but writers finally settled on green for the metal that in small doses weakened Superman and with prolonged exposure would be fatal. Mort, however, decided that if a little kryptonite made for a good story more would be better, and he tapped the rainbow in coming up with new plots. Gold kryptonite robbed Superman of the powers that made him super. Blue was dangerous only to creatures from the Bizarro world, while the only life that white kryptonite could take was a plant’s. Red-green was Brainiac’s idea, and the combination was a double-edged sword: It gave Superman an eye he didn’t need on the back of his head, but it provided him the extra heat vision he needed to lick the computer genius. Red-gold gave the hero temporary amnesia. Red kryptonite was Mort’s favorite threat; it was able to split Superman in two or turn him into an ant. While its effects were unpredictable, as with anything Weisinger-related there were rules: Each scarlet-tinted piece had a unique impact, it worked on Superman just once, and its fallout lasted at most forty-eight hours.
Kara Zor-El, Krypto, and the other super spin-offs made clear how popular Superman was and how determined his handlers were to cash in on his legacy. They said the new additions were to keep Superman from feeling like he was on his own. Mort also used the evolving storyline to unite his universe, bringing old books like Action in line with the stories in new ones like Superboy. Mostly the changes were in response to the dip in sales of the Superman comics in the 1950s, and they paid off, at least at first. The Superman family led the rebirth of the costumed hero the same way it had the birth. National made no effort to disguise its devotion to the Man of Steel: In its annual report, the spot typically saved for a picture of the company president was instead used for a drawing of Superman, looking statuesque with his hands on his hips and his cape flowing behind him.
But Weisinger’s innovations were taking a quiet toll on the story. Superman’s world had become so complicated that readers needed a map or even an encyclopedia to keep track of everyone and everything. (There would eventually be encyclopedias, two in fact, but the first did not appear until 1978.) All the plot complications were beguiling to devoted readers, who loved the challenge of keeping current, but to more casual fans they could be exhausting. Still, Mort pushed ahead, soliciting ideas from neighborhood kids as well as readers and, at their urging, ordering up stories on Superman serving as a fireman (super-breath comes in handy), a postman (easy when you can fly), and even a millionaire (he gave it all away). Superman got a Social Security number (092-09-6616) and an honorary passport to the United Nations, which would have come in handy since he now was appearing in thirty countries. Before executing a new plot twist, Mort would test it on his adolescent son, Hank, the same way “Jungle Sam” Katzman had on his; if Hank guessed the ending too fast, Mort would look for something more demanding.
It was easy to see the direction Mort was taking Superman’s closest pals: He was dumbing them down and softening them up. Lois was more of a glamour gal now and less of a shrew or a barrier breaker. She had gone from being a dogged reporter to being fixated on proving that Clark was Superman and on landing Superman for herself. The very name of her comic book—Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane—suggested the shift in tone, which happened just as the women’s movement was firing up. No plotlines here about Lois taking birth control pills or burning her bras. Likewise, Jimmy was less interested in covering the news than making it. He had run-ins with aliens and sorcerers, and he had an ultrasonic watch that he used to signal Superman whenever he needed bailing out, which was usually. What he didn’t do was experiment with marijuana, sex, or any of the other forbidden pleasures so tempting to teens of his generation. Even Superman himself was not quite the same. He was less of a firebrand, more of a smoothie. And while it was only in his imagination and comic strip dreams that he or Clark would marry Lois, he was affectionate enough to give little boys the shivers.
One thing neither Mort nor Jerry had trouble with was naming their characters. Both began with the premise that every name had to have two Ls, ideally at the start. Jerry had signaled where he was headed with his spelling of Superman’s Kryptonian name, Kal-L. The second-most important person in the Superman universe—Lois Lane—was the first to have the Ls take their place up front. Lois’s sister was Lucy Lane, while her parents were Ella and Samuel. Lana Lang, Superboy’s neighbor and best friend, had a father named Lewis and siblings christened Larry, Alvin, and Ronald. Enemy number one originally had just one name, Luthor, but in 1960 editors decided to soften him up by adding a given name, Lex. His sister was Lena, his parents Lionel and Letitia, and Aunt Lena helped raise him. Over the years Superman, Superboy, or Clark fell in love with Lyla Lerrol, Sally Selwyn, Lyrica Lloyd, Lal Leta, Lahla, and Lori Lemaris, whose sister was Lenora. Superboy would team up with Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass against Lightning Lord.
Why the letter L and the alliterations? Jerry never said, nor did Mort. Not even Superman was talking. When Supergirl told him that she had chosen the name Linda Lee for her disguise, he commented how, “by sheer coincidence,” she had picked the same initials as everyone else he held close. The truth was it was just for fun. The echo appealed not just to the ears of his writers and editors but to young readers, just as with fan favorites like Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Archie Andrews, Mickey Mouse, and Bugs Bunny. Once Jerry got the style rolling, Mort turned it into a game for readers, scores of whom wrote in whenever they uncovered a new one or wondered why someone as close to Superman as Jimmy didn’t have the two Ls. Mort’s answer: He did. Don’t you remember the TV episode “The Talkative Dummy,” which revealed Jimmy’s full name as James Bartholomew Olsen?
SUPERMAN AS A song-and-dance man? It sounded like one of Mort Weisinger’s imaginary stories. The Man of Tomorrow had triumphed in so many settings that a crew of theater people decided to give him a tryout in 1966. And this was not just any crew, it was Broadway’s finest. Producer Harold Prince was on the way to making Fiddler on the Roof the first musical to run for more than three thousand performances. Music master Charles Strouse and his lyricist partner, Lee Adams, nearly swept the Tony Awards with Bye Bye Birdie, while scriptwriters Robert Benton and David Newman were a year away from their blockbuster movie Bonnie and Clyde. No one had ever tried before to build a musical around a comic character, but Superman was used to being first and no one had ever lost money gambling on him.
Jack and Harry gave their blessing in return for a modest share of the profits and—to protect the franchise—a promise that the play couldn’t be called Superman. So the production was named It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman. Money wasn’t a problem either: With Columbia Records on board, Hal Prince was able to raise half a million dollars. Strouse, Benton, and their partners had come up with a doozie of a story, in words and notes: Dr. Abner Sedgwick was
convinced he had been cheated out of the Nobel Prize, not once but ten times, and he planned to make the world pay by eliminating its beloved Superman. When force didn’t work, the mad scientist turned to psychology. In order to convince the people of Metropolis that Superman couldn’t save them, he bombed City Hall while the hero was distracted, then persuaded Superman that he was a Man of Straw for doing nothing. “You’re not stopping crime,” Sedgwick insisted, “all you’re doing is catching criminals after the fact.” The logic was compelling. “Could that be true?” Superman asked. “Why must the strongest man in the world be the bluest man—tell me why?” Those were the kinds of questions Spider-Man might have asked himself, but not Superman, or at least not Mort Weisinger’s Colossus of Krypton. Before the curtain fell, Benton and Newman’s superhero recovered both his confidence and his powers in the nick of time.
The play blended the drama of the Adventures of Superman TV show with the burlesque of the comics for what looked like a winning touch of satire. Even the flying, which had stumped serial and TV producers, worked here by keeping it simple. A flying harness of light leather was strapped onto Superman’s chest, upper arms, and back. A wire attached to a wooden clip and pulleys whisked him six feet above the stage. Making this work in front of an audience was a lot to ask, but theatergoers wanted more than anyone to believe. And the producers brought in the same technical staff that had made Mary Martin fly in Peter Pan and Tammy Grimes in High Spirits.
Hal Prince and his team knew enough about Superman to realize that everything turned not on stunts or even the story but on finding the right hero. So, like Bob Maxwell and Sam Katzman before them, they launched a far-reaching search. They didn’t need a Broadway star to fit this bill; they would have plenty with Jack Cassidy, Linda Lavin, and the rest of the cast. The specs for Superman: He should stand six feet six inches and weigh 190 pounds. A seventeen-inch neck would be ideal, along with biceps of a minimum of eighteen and a half inches. Mid-thirties was the right age. Black hair was a must, along with blue eyes and legs that looked good in tights. And of course he had to know how to act, sing, and fly. Fifty-two actors showed up, including an Olympic pole vaulter and a bass-baritone from the New York City Opera. One fit the bill: Bob Holiday, a thirty-three-year-old singer and comedian on the supper club circuit. He had served overseas in the Army, spinning records for the Armed Services Network, and had been in a Broadway play once, singing the opening song. Most important, he weighed 190 pounds, stood six feet four, and had grown up as an only child in Brooklyn with Superman his favorite comic book friend. When he heard he had the part “a chill went through me. I said, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ ”
To show his gratitude Holiday visited the gym every other day for up to two hours, curling hundred-pound weights and pressing 160 pounds. Breakfast consisted of powdered protein, milk, and wheat germ. Smoking was out, which wasn’t easy for a two-pack-a-day guy, as was drinking in public. It all paid off when, after every performance, he would invite hundreds of kids backstage, letting them take their best shot at his midriff. It also helped when he fell from his harness, dropping six feet onto the stage. He bounced back up, turned to the audience as if it were rehearsed, and said, to a standing ovation, “That would have hurt any mortal man.”
The first test of what an audience thought of It’s a Bird was in February, in an out-of-town run in the historically loving city of Philadelphia. Not this time. “Is it low camp, high camp, medium camp? Is it a musical parody or a cartoon with music?” asked the Philadelphia Bulletin. The libretto, chimed in the Philadelphia Daily News, “has a form of humor but no great shining wit,” while Strouse and Adams’s songbook “only faintly recalls the animation these collaborators brought to Bye Bye Birdie.” Disappointed but not done in, the creative team went back to work. The lead song was cut and a new showstopper written. Scenes were altered, costumes revised, and when there wasn’t time to make the desired changes, outfits were simply turned inside out. Even the pricing at the Alvin Theatre was redone to give the New York opening its best shot. Prince offered the broadest range of rates on Broadway—two dollars at the bargain end, aimed at drawing a new and young audience, with the orchestra split into eight-, ten-, and twelve-dollar options, the last of which was $1.50 more than for any other musical and was meant to subsidize the cheap seats. It was equally novel to offer a third off the high-priced seats for early mail orders, and it worked: Advance sales topped those for Fiddler and Prince’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Fiorello!
It’s a Bird opened on Broadway in mid-March, with Mayor John V. Lindsay and much of the city’s establishment on hand. Reviewers were there as well, and their verdicts were up-and-down. Time called it “amiable mediocrity … capable only of inspiring benign indifference.” The Washington Post wrote that “on its appointed level of simple-minded casualness it works quite nicely.” The New York papers were more generous, with the Morning Telegraph labeling it “a musical show loaded with entertainment” and the World-Telegram and Sun saying, “You leave the theater smiling, and the smile lasts all the way home.” The biggest rave came from the highest-minded paper, The New York Times, whose critic Stanley Kauffmann pronounced the play “easily the best musical so far this season, but, because that is so damp a compliment, I add at once that it would be enjoyable in any season.”
Prince was convinced he had a smash hit until he called the box office. “They said, ‘My God, we haven’t sold a single new seat.’ ” He, like nearly everyone involved with the production, felt like a kid again doing the show, and they all assumed the audience would grow to love it. The timing seemed perfect: Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were at the height of their popularity, and nobody better defined that pop art craze than the Man of Steel. But the wave had already crested and the crowds at the Alvin started shrinking two months in. Despite an unprecedented four matinees a week and a flurry of ads in the comic books, the curtain fell for the last time on July 17, after just three and a half months and 129 performances.
Everyone had a theory on what went wrong. “It should have had a little more muscle, and some teeth politically. We should have made it about the times,” Prince says, looking back to the era when America was shipping young men en masse to fight in Southeast Asia and record numbers of draft dodgers were fleeing to Canada. To Strouse, the trouble was a combination of summer camp and “Capelash.” Some kids were away swimming and boating when the show was playing, while others were watching a superhero for free on the new TV show Batman, which was such a hit it aired twice a week. To Benton, the difficulty was the very nature of his Superman story and whom it appealed to: “It was not a children’s show and not an adult show. It sort of fell between the two.”
Prince went on to produce and direct nearly sixty plays and win a record-setting twenty-one Tony Awards. Strouse wrote the music for twenty-two plays and six movies, including Bonnie and Clyde. Benton would make his name with films like Kramer vs. Kramer and Twilight. While It’s a Bird was a mere footnote in their careers, for Holiday it was the highlight, just as playing Superman had been for Kirk Alyn and George Reeves. It had taken him onto the TV show I’ve Got a Secret, where he got to joke with Steve Allen and flirt with Miss America. He was a guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and got to recast his Superman role in stage performances in St. Louis and Kansas City. And it had brought him to Broadway, which was a memory that kept him going as he became a home builder in the Pocono Mountains. “I don’t think that the supposed ‘Superman curse’ hit me at all,” he says. “It’s still a kick to let people know that I was the Man of Steel. My doctor even hangs a picture of me in his office so that all his patients know he fixed Superman right up.”
As for Superman himself, he escaped largely unscathed. The critics blamed not him but his handlers. The handlers learned valuable lessons, which they would apply repeatedly. The first was that when people had to pay to see Superman, the target audience should be adults who hopefully would bring along the kids. It also made sense, for a wildly popular
character like the Man of Steel, to showcase him in mass media rather than a rarefied venue like a Broadway theater. Strouse and Prince say they wish they’d had a chance to put those lessons to the test. Benton and Newman did. A dozen years after It’s a Bird closed, their names were listed in the writing credits for the first major superhero feature film: Superman: The Movie.
SUPERMAN WAS EVERYWHERE IN the 1960s. Audiences hooted when the director brought him onstage for the opera Carmen in Bologna, while three hundred thousand subscribers cheered when Superman comics finally appeared in West Germany. Forty-two countries, from Brazil to Lebanon, were translating every issue of the American comic book into their native tongues, which gave the Swedes a hero called Stalmannen, the Mexicans a caped cousin named Superniña, the Dutch an intrepid lady reporter whose byline read Louise Laan, and the Arabic world an undercover male reporter named Nabil Fawzi who worked for the newspaper Al-Kawkab Al Yawmi. Andy Warhol hand-painted Superman into universal pop art fame. Superman and his family were the objects of parody in a comic called Stupor-Man, which also featured Stupor-Snake, Stupor-Rhino, Stupor-Grandpa, and Stupor-Old-Maid-Auntie. He was a star of Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes, which helped lift comic books to the status of high art even as its author prayed they would remain the lowest common denominator of America’s fantasy life. “When Superman at last appeared,” Feiffer reminisced in 1965, “he brought with him the deep satisfaction of all underground truths: our reaction was less ‘How original!’ than ‘But, of course!’ ”