The biggest Superman fan in the world is definitely him!

Many years before Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman or Superman and Lois, the DC superhero was adapted for television. The Adventures of Superman, broadcast to American homes in 1952 on ABC, was a huge success. It was also one of the first superhero series.

Its host, George Reeves, began his career in Hollywood in 1939. After a number of unannounced appearances, he played one of Scarlett O’Hara’s suitors in Gone with the Wind. His film career featured many small roles, sometimes in major films such as Before There Were Men, Angel of the Damned, or Samson and Delilah. But it was with the Superman series, which ran for six seasons until 1958, that the actor passed into posterity and became the mascot of American homes.

The enraptured emperor

Among the great mass of his unconditional fans was a man who was decidedly less anonymous than the others. And not just a little. No one else Hirohito124th Emperor of Japan. After World War II, the Imperial Family was acquitted of any criminal prosecution before the Tokyo Tribunal.

Then Japan came under American supervision. By the constitution of May 3, 1947, the emperor was deprived of the role of commander-in-chief of the armies and all political power in favor of the government; Then he became a symbolic character, but whose figure remained sacred in Japanese society.

The 1950s was a golden age for American television programming, which quickly began to spread elsewhere in the world, particularly Japan, under American influence. dubbed in japanese The Adventures of Superman It was also a huge success in the country and became the most popular program in the country, quickly followed by the family comedy extravaganza Lucy.

Hirohito loved the series so much that he wrote a letter to his co-star George Reeves in 1958, referring to the series as “Ninkimono”, his favorite program. The actor was also able to measure his popularity in Japan to a large extent when he came to visit.

We can only imagine the fear and sadness of his millions of fans when his death was announced on June 16, 1959. Officially, the actor, who was in captivity of depression, killed himself. But there are many gray areas in this file: his death was never really explained, and there was even talk of murder. We also devoted an article to this issue.