Long before Christopher Reeve convinced audiences that a man could fly, and before George Reeves became television's Man of Steel, there was Kirk Alyn, a Broadway song-and-dance man who became the first actor to portray Superman in a live-action motion picture (following on the heels — or boots — of Ray Middleton at the 1939 New York World's Fair and the voice of the radio Man of Steel, Bud Collyer). His appearances in Columbia Pictures' serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950) helped bring the increasingly popular comic book character to movie theaters, but for Alyn, playing the world's greatest superhero would prove to be both a blessing and a curse.
Born John Feggo Jr. on October 8, 1910, in Oxford, New Jersey, Alyn began his career far removed from the world of comic books. A gifted singer and dancer, he worked in vaudeville and on Broadway, appearing in productions that included Girl Crazy, Of Thee I Sing and Hellzapoppin'. Those years onstage gave him a physical grace that would become an important part of his portrayal of Superman, particularly when it came to making the character's extraordinary abilities seem effortless.
Eventually making his way to Hollywood, Alyn appeared in a succession of smaller film roles and action serials. He was hardly an overnight success, but his work brought him into the orbit of producer Sam Katzman, who was preparing to bring Superman to the screen for Columbia Pictures.
Becoming Superman
As Alyn remembered it, he had already made several pictures for Katzman when the producer contacted him about Superman. At first, the actor wasn't entirely sure what to make of the opportunity.
KIRK ALYN (actor, “Clark Kent/Superman”): “I did six pictures for the same producer, and when they were going to do Superman, people from DC came out. They wanted to be in on the interview. They interviewed and interviewed and interviewed. Finally, Sam Katzman, the producer, called me up and says, ‘Kirk, do you want to do Superman?’ I said, ‘What is it? A publicity stunt of some kind? Because how are you going to get Superman on film?’ He says, ‘Well, there’s a couple of guys here from DC Comics that want to meet you. Come down right away.’ I went down and I took the shirt off, showed them the muscles and everything. I heard one of the guys from DC Comics whisper, ‘Jesus! He looks just like Clark Kent!’ And I go, ‘Oh boy. I’m in!’”
Alyn's audition became something of a show-business story in its own right. He recalled being asked to remove his shirt so the representatives could examine his physique, followed by a request to show his legs because Superman would be wearing tights. It was an unusual way to audition for a leading role, but the producers were looking for someone who could embody both the powerful Superman and his unassuming alter ego, Clark Kent.
Film and radio historian Fred Shay, who later became a friend of Alyn's, believed the actor's personality was particularly well suited to the latter.
FRED SHAY: “Actually, Kirk was a lot like Clark Kent. He was a quiet, reserved man. He was just one of the nicest people you’d ever meet.”
KIRK ALYN: “I went down to sign the contract. I knew the secretary; I’d signed many contracts with her before. She looked at me and says, ‘Oh Kirk, you don’t know how happy I am that they finally picked you. Do you know how many people we looked at before we called you?’ I say, ‘No, how many?’ She says, ‘About 125, that’s all.’ I didn’t know whether I should be hurt, because I wasn’t there first, or happy that I got the job. She said half of them couldn’t speak English; they were just musclemen and weightlifters.”
JIM HAMBRICK (Kirk Alyn’s manager; owner, Super Museum in Metropolis, IL): “He was a hoofer. He spent a lot of time on Broadway dancing with Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and all those people. He was a good dancer and it helped him maintain his balance as Superman.”
FRED SHAY: “I honestly don’t believe that there isn’t anybody that isn’t a Superman fan in some way, shape or form. And Kirk was such a fantastic actor and tried his best to make every role work for him. Plus, he had a lot of fun playing the part.”
Alyn approached the two identities as distinct characters, making deliberate choices about his voice, posture and mannerisms. He wanted Clark Kent to appear mild and unthreatening, while Superman would project complete confidence. He also questioned whether some of the familiar radio catchphrases were necessary in a visual medium, believing that expressions and physical movement could accomplish what dialogue had previously done.
A Superman Who Could Move
When Superman arrived in theaters in 1948, audiences were introduced to a Man of Steel who looked and behaved differently from the versions that would follow. Alyn brought an exuberance to the role, smiling at danger and treating criminals as little more than an inconvenience. The movie serial format demanded frequent fights, escapes and rescues, and his background as a dancer proved invaluable.
NOEL NEILL (actress, “Lois Lane”): “I think he made a wonderful Superman. He was excellent, because he was very athletic, and with his dance background, it was very easy for him to look good doing what he had to do as Superman.”
KIRK ALYN: “When playing Superman, I knew that nobody could hurt me. I welcomed five guys attacking me, because I just slapped them around. I never punched a man. I always slapped them and they went flying off to the sides. I noticed in the television show he sometimes acted like a boxer would; he punched fellows. In keeping with the character, I thought if Superman ever punched anybody, his head would fly off. Getting back to being happy, I knew they couldn’t hurt me. They could shoot guns at me, and I’d laugh at them. And that irritated the hell out of them, which is what I wanted.”
STEVE YOUNIS (editor, supermanhomepage.com): “Kirk Alyn himself obviously was a dancer, and you can see that in the way he moves around as Superman. He doesn’t have the masculinity that you would get from George Reeves’ Superman later on, but he really had nothing to go by.”
JIM HAMBRICK: “I used to tease Kirk Alyn, because I became his manager and he knew how I felt about George Reeves, who he called the imposter. He’d say to me, ‘Is he still your favorite Superman?’ And I’d go, ‘Always has been, Kirk. The serials weren’t out when I was born in ’54.’”
KIRK ALYN: “Sometimes what we were doing felt silly, but I had to make it look real. And I start laughing. I mean, there was the time I ripped a bumper off a car and tied those guys up in the bumper. I had to do that five or six times, because those guys were making funny faces, whispering to each other. If they know you’ll take it, they’ll do it to you. I worked with some jokers. I mean, that’s awfully silly, picking one guy up and throwing him, hitting the other guy, and I tear the bumper off and tie them with it. Before I got through tying them up, I was laughing like hell. The director would say, ‘For Christ’s sake, Kirk, let’s do it again.’ They’d have to straighten the bumper out and we did it again. It was lead, of course. But you had to get some laughs out of the thing, or you’d go crazy. You made some stuff that was very funny.”
Although stunt performers were available, Alyn recalled taking on much of the physical action himself. His explanation was that a double looked noticeably different in the Superman costume, particularly when running or moving in tights. He consequently found himself performing scenes that were considerably more demanding than they appeared on screen.
KIRK ALYN: “They always hire a stunt person for the leading role for fear that if the lead does anything and gets hurt, he’ll hold up production. But this guy did about two days’ work, and when they looked at the film, this guy didn’t even look like me from the back. The director says, ‘Kirk, kids won’t believe him!’ When a guy puts a hat and coat on, you can get away with it. But in tights, his legs were different and he didn’t run like me, he didn’t move like me. The director said, ‘Kirk, would you mind doing your own stunts?’ And I said, ‘Hell no. There’s nothing to it.” I explained to people at conventions that I did all my own stunts. Somebody will always raise their hand and say, ‘Did you ever get hurt?’ and I say, ‘No, I never got hurt, but I damn near got killed a couple of times.’”
One particularly memorable sequence involved Superman holding a damaged railroad track in place as a train passed. Alyn later described his alarm when he realized how close he would actually be to the moving train, an experience that made him much less enthusiastic about repeating such a stunt.
The flying scenes presented another challenge. An early attempt to suspend Alyn using wires proved unsuccessful when the equipment remained visible on film. The first serial ultimately used animation for many of Superman's flights, while the sequel incorporated different live-action techniques. Whatever the technical limitations, Alyn's performance was central to the appeal of the productions. He understood that Superman was supposed to be powerful, but also approachable and reassuring.
ROBERT GREENBERGER (co-author, Superman: The Definitive History): “Kirk Alyn as Superman was certainly a good, square-jawed hero. There was a sense of fun he brought to it.”
The Price of Being Superman
The first serial was successful enough to produce a sequel, but Alyn discovered that becoming identified with Superman had an unexpected cost. Rather than establishing him as a versatile leading man, the role seemed to make it difficult for Hollywood to imagine him playing anyone else.
He recalled visiting studios in search of work only to find that casting personnel saw Superman rather than Kirk Alyn. Even Columbia, where he had made the serials, offered little relief. By the time the second production came along, he was already considering a return to New York and the theater career he had left behind.
The experience created a complicated relationship with the character. Alyn was proud of the films and the enjoyment they brought audiences, but he was frustrated that the part had become an obstacle to other opportunities.
The arrival of television's Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, only complicated his legacy. Alyn later claimed that he had been approached about playing Superman on television but declined because of the proposed financial terms. Other historians have questioned that account, leaving the circumstances of his possible involvement open to debate.
What is certain is that Reeves became the Superman most closely associated with the 1950s, while Alyn's earlier portrayal gradually faded from public awareness.
Rediscovering the First Movie Superman
Alyn continued acting after the serials, although the leading-man career he had hoped for never fully materialized. His personal life included a marriage to MGM musical performer Virginia O'Brien, with whom he had three children. The couple married in 1942 and divorced in 1955.
By the 1970s, however, the growing popularity of comic book and nostalgia conventions helped introduce Alyn to audiences who either remembered the serials from childhood or were discovering them for the first time. He began appearing at events, discussing his experiences and celebrating the place he occupied in Superman history. He also published his autobiography, A Job for Superman.
KIRK ALYN: “When I would do conventions around the country, I’d usually get up and do an hour’s talk and I used film to show what I meant. I’d say, ‘How many of you know what a cliffhanger is?’ Very few people would raise their hands, so I would say, ‘Serials are broken up into 12 or 15 chapters and you see one chapter a week. You’ve got to come back next week to see the next chapter. The reason you’ve got to come back is because of the cliffhanger. The leading man or the leading lady or somebody gets into such a precarious position that you swear they’ll never get out of, so you have to come back next week to see how they do.”
There was another opportunity to revisit the character's world when Richard Donner's Superman arrived in 1978. Alyn and Noel Neill were reunited to portray the parents of a young Lois Lane aboard a train that encounters teenage Clark Kent. Their appearance was substantially shortened for the original theatrical release, with additional material restored in extended versions of the film.
For Alyn, the renewed attention was particularly meaningful. Jim Hambrick, founder of the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois, became his manager and helped keep his contributions to Superman history in the public eye. Hambrick recalled that the actor's feelings about being remembered could be surprisingly emotional.
JIM HAMBRICK: “Sometimes Kirk was very paranoid talking to reporters and so forth, because he didn’t want to stay typecast. But the more I got him out there with the mobile museum and he met different people, the more he liked it.”
In time, Alyn began to appreciate that the character who had once restricted his career was also the reason generations of fans continued to remember him. Hambrick recalled occasions when people would discuss the actor without realizing he was sitting nearby. After one such encounter, Alyn became emotional, recognizing that he was no longer in danger of being forgotten.
JIM HAMBRICK: “There were times when he and I would be sitting next to each other and people would start talking about him, not knowing he was right there. After they left, he started to cry. He looked at me and said, ‘You said that you were going to make sure that I was not the forgotten Superman. Now I believe you.’”
Kirk Alyn died on March 14, 1999, at the age of 88. He never achieved the broader Hollywood stardom he had sought, but he accomplished something that no actor before him had done: he brought Superman to life on the motion-picture screen. His performance remains an important early chapter in the character's history, and his personal story offers a reminder that becoming a superhero can sometimes be as complicated for the actor as it is for the character.