Mike Siegel Son of Superman creator Jerry Siegel Passes away!

[Ares]

http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/MikeSiegel.html

by Michael San Giacomo

Just imagine being the son of the man who created Superman.

 

You'd be the most popular guy in school. Kids would come to your house, hoping to meet your supercool dad and hear stories about writing comic books read by millions of people around the world.

 

Michael Siegel's life was nothing like that. Like Superman's meek alter-ego Clark Kent, Michael Siegel hid his super-secret well. Jerry Siegel's only son lived a life of anonymity in the Cleveland suburb of Cleveland Heights. Much of his life, he lived just a few miles from where his father and artist Joe Shuster produced the adventures of the Man of Steel.

 

On January 17, he died as quietly as he lived. He was 61.

 

The funeral director who handled the services said there was no family present. He expected only four or five people at the graveside service, but was surprised when neighbors and members of the plumbers union showed up to pay their respects.

 

"He got the very last gravesite available in the Workingman's Circle in Lincoln Cemetery in Parma," said Kirk Berkowitz, who handled the arrangements. "He's laid to rest near a relative. We were glad to be able to do that much for him."

 

News of Michael's Siegel's death was kept very low key, just a tiny death notice in the Cleveland Plain Dealer announcing a graveside service. There was no viewing.

 

It's sad that Michael Siegel never allowed himself to share in the Superman mythos, especially since the new Superman movie is coming out June 30.

 

Like his father's artist, Joe Shuster, Michael never married, though he was engaged once.

 

He lived with his mother, Bella, until her death in 2002. Jerry Siegel divorced Bella in the mid-1940s when Michael was four or five years old. Jerry married Joanne Siegel in 1948 and they were together until his death in 1996.

 

There was bad blood between Bella and Jerry, and Michael likely heard few good stories about the father he barely knew. In turn, Jerry rarely mentioned his ex-wife or son.

 

Over the years, I tried to talk to Michael and his mother several times. But each attempt was returned with a stern call from a Cleveland lawyer threatening legal action if I called again.

 

One of the people who knew Michael Siegel is Brad Ricca, a 35-year-old English teacher at the prestigious Case Western Reserve University. Ricca is working on a book and documentary about the Siegels, Superman and Cleveland called "Last Son" and had been talking to Michael over the past year.

 

"I knew he was very shy, but when I decided to write the book and the documentary, I just wrote him a letter and asked for his side of the story," Ricca said. "This was after his mother died and I think he was feeling more free to talk about things.

 

"To my surprise, he answered and said he thought it was time for him to start talking about it," he said. "The one thing that surprised me is that he used Superman stationery, I found that interesting."

 

Ricca said the book is not like a Superman story where everything is wrapped up happily in 22 pages.

 

"It's not a happy story, Jerry's life was not happy much of the time."

 

"But unlike other books on the subject, this one will be a lot about Cleveland as well as Superman, Ricca said.

 

Two years ago, Michael Siegel contacted Cleveland City Hall after reading a story in the Plain Dealer about the latest ill-fated attempt to build a Superman Museum. Like the other dozen such plans, it fizzled, but Siegel offered his services to the city. He said he would serve on the board of directors as long as the museum was in honor of Superman, not his estranged father.

 

Fellow plumber Nancy Hottois of Cleveland Heights knew Siegel well in the past two decades.

 

Like others who knew him, she said he was a quiet man who was generous with his time.

 

"He was a wonderful guy," she said. "He used to teach local kids tai-kwon-do, but he never had a studio. He just did it at community centers and schools. He developed arthritis and though he loved it, he had to stop. He was devoted to his mother, who lived with him until she died. He was engaged once, but did not marry."

 

In some echoes of the Superman mythos, Hottois said Michael was a very strong child.

 

"A toy company gave his father one of those metal cars for children to ride in," she said. "It was supposed to be indestructible, like Superman. Michael very quickly broke it."

 

She said when Michael was 12 years old, his grandmother became ill. Young Michael picked up the woman and carried her through the house, across the yard and into the car to take her to the hospital.

 

Friends agreed that Michael was angry with his father who left him when he was four or five, but old friends tell of a brief period of happiness for Michael.

 

"My other sources paint the initial years of the marriage as very happy, that Jerry was very attentive to Michael as a father and even referred to him as Superboy," said Ricca.

 

A North Carolina man, who asked his name not be used, has proof.

 

He bought a box of home movies that came from an estate auction in Cleveland and was shocked to see the name "Bella Siegel" on the film canisters.

 

"Some of the films show Jerry in an army uniform holding Michael," he said. "Another was taken on Michael's fourth birthday and Jerry is pushing him in a fire truck. (Likely the "indestructible one") There is one with a man, I can't tell if it's Jerry or Joe Shuster, drawing the comic 'Radio Squad' (a very early Siegel-Shuster collaboration.) I thought these should go back to the family, but I didn't know how to reach anyone."

 

The man put the films on e-bay and said he was contacted by Laura Siegel Larson, the daughter of Jerry and Joanne Siegel, Michael's half-sister. He said that's how he learned of Michael Siegel's death.

 

"Laura was angry that I was selling films that were of her family," he said. "I sent her some stills of them and she said the man was not her father. I don't know who else they could be, considering where they came from. I think she's just afraid I'll make money on them. But I never wanted money, was going to give them to the family. I don't think I'll give them to her. I would like to donate them to a museum so people can enjoy them."

 

He said he would allow Ricca to use the films in his documentary.

 

"I wanted Michael to have them," he said. "I wanted him to see movies of he and his father happy together. I'm just sorry I didn't locate Michael sooner, they would have brought him some comfort."

 

Like everyone, Ricca was shocked to learn of Michael's death.

 

"I didn't hear about it until three weeks later," he said. "He had some knee surgery done at a hospital and apparently there were complications from which he did not recover."

 

Ricca said when Michael started to poke his head out of his shell after his mother's death and started to talk about his association with Superman, even on the Internet. He was quickly discouraged.

 

"He was very hurt when some people said he was looking for money," he said. "It was unfair, he had a tough life and Jerry apparently gave him nothing. In his defense, Jerry was eating beans out of can much of his life, too. Mike used to say that he could have capitalized on his name by shilling at car dealerships, but he never did. So when people accused him of being out for the money, it hurt."

 

Siegel's widow, Joanne, and their daughter, Laura Siegel Larson, and Michael Siegel took advantage of a change in U.S. copyright law that allowed them to reclaim copyright rights signed away in 1938. The ongoing legal battles between the Siegels and DC and its parent company, Time-Warner, were taken behind closed doors. Neither side will discuss the status of the case over the Superman name, which has generated billions of dollars.

 

"It is sad his whole story may never now be known, but maybe we know all we need to," Ricca said. "We can best know him not as the abandoned son of Superman's famous creator, but as an honest, hard-working Clevelander who didn't get easy breaks, but filled his life with work, family, faith, and local activities that helped kids feel better about themselves.

 

"In the end, that's more real a life than any fictional character in tights and a cape can ever have," Ricca said. "That's not only how Mike Siegel would want to be remembered, but what we can learn from him. He was one of us."

 

For more of Ricca's book and film, visit: www.lastson.greendoorfilms.com

 

 

A LITTLE HELP HERE: I'm writing a piece for The Plain Dealer editorial department on the political leanings of Superman. I'm looking for any references to politics or political figures from the comics. We know he is anti-death penalty, even though he has killed. We know that he revealed his secret identity to President Kennedy. There are 2-3 stories where Superman joined or work with the army.

President Luthor is a good one and of course there is the presidential whipping boy Superman from Dark Knight.

 

Can anybody remember any other political themes in the comics?

 

Didn't Nixon and Reagan appear in separate stories, or am I crazy? Anyone remember any other politicians making an appearance? Please cite with issue number if you can.

 

Thanks,

Mike

[esquirecomics]

A sad tale.

 

That documentary sounds interesting. Hope it can be finished and published.

[comicdonna]

Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

[Darthdiesel]

$$$

[Ares]

$$$

$$$ For who?

[Norrin_Radd]

Can anybody remember any other political themes in the comics?

 

Didn't Nixon and Reagan appear in separate stories, or am I crazy? Anyone remember any other politicians making an appearance? Please cite with issue number if you can.

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

Ronald Reagan appeared a few times in DC's 1986 miniseries Legends, as did George Bush.

 

 

 

 

There are a bunch more listed here.

 

 

 

 

In Action #663, Superman, stranded in the past, did the retro thing and met Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in reality had been President when the Man of Steel made his debut.

 

 

 

No American president has appeared with the Superman Family as often as John F. Kennedy. The Supergirl story, from Action #285, also features Jacqueline Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

 

[Aman619]

a sad tale. The more I learn about Siegel and Shudter's lives, the worse it sems to get.

 

 

as for Superman's politics? Well, you can fins lots of referneces in the nearly 70 years of stories...but they wont amount to any particular slant since they were written in 6 different decades by dozens of writers, editors etc. Overall, he stands for Truth, Justice and the American way. He's a hero, a vigikante, and an alien from outer space. nuff said.

[esquirecomics]

$$$

 

And this is intended to mean, what?

[sckao]

 

It's tough to hear about people eating beans out of cans when their creation has generated billions of dollars.

 

I understand in the 70's Warner awarded Siegel and Shuster $35,000 a year each for the rest of their lives. Did that figure go up with inflation?

 

Using this inflation calculator, $35,000 in 1976 to 2005, you get these results:

 

What cost $35,000 in 1976 would cost $120,161.64 in 2005.

 

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1976,

they would cost you $35,000 and $10,194.60 respectively.

 

 

http://money.howstuffworks.com/framed.ht...u2/inflate.html

[benz]

sad and interesting tale

[infinite_comics-migration]

http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/JoanneSiegel.html

 

To Whom It May Concern

 

By Joanne Siegel

 

This past year I have been extremely busy with litigation and pressing personal matters that prevented me from responding until now to the misrepresentations and twisted facts about my deceased husband Jerry Siegel and about me in both editions of Gerard Jones' book and the surprising, unfounded, unprovoked attacks on the internet based on comments made by Michael Siegel. My attorney's advice was to not dignify the attacks with a response, so I did not reply at the time. But I cannot help wondering how people claiming to be Superman fans - who supposedly admire the truth and justice that Superman stands for - have been so eager to accept the terrible things said about Jerry and me without one shred of proof.

 

As in Michael Siegel's case, it is not unusual for a child of a first marriage to resent the second wife of a divorced parent and to be angry at his parent for going on with his new life even though the child and his mother can and should move ahead with their lives. This resentment was overblown in Michael because his mother Bella did not begin a new life for herself and Michael but tried to hang onto the old. Her hostile refusal to accept the end of her relationship with Jerry after their divorce added to the problem.

 

I will not go into the details of how she harassed us continually after Jerry and I were married, for that will be in my book, but her behavior was unnatural. This, and her jealousy that Jerry had married someone else, rubbed off on Michael. She was especially jealous of my close ties with Jerry since I had been the model who posed for Joe Shuster when he sketched the Lois Lane character. This was in the mid 1930's, before Superman was published and before she married Jerry. She and Michael seemed to believe that denying the truth would make it go away.

 

As for Michael's disparagement of his father, apparently after Michael read what Jones had written, he angrily wrote to Jones that he had not been quoted accurately when Jones wrote Jerry did not pay child support. His half sister Laura (my daughter) has copies of Michael's letters in which he wrote that he never said Jerry did not pay one cent in child support. He also wrote he did not say his father bought jewelry for prostitutes - that Jones exaggerated what he said - and that he did not hate his father (which was a surprise to me as many of his statements were harsh.)

 

The truth is that Jerry paid child support until he was so broke he couldn't pay our rent. Then he cashed in his small life insurance policy and from that he sent $200 to Bella as child support that Michael acknowledged and of which I have proof. As for prostitutes, that wild story had to have come from Bella and is completely untrue. Michael never had proof of any kind to back up his accusations.

 

After a hostile and expensive divorce, Jerry was without a home or car and had very little money left. He was not working on Superman any longer and his new comic book, Funnyman, became a flop just months later. This left him flat broke. Anyone who knows the history of Jerry's career problems knows this, as Michael did when he verbally attacked his father and me. Michael's attitudes towards his father grew out of Bella's rage over the end of her marriage. She had agreed to the divorce so Jerry was confused and angry with her unreasonable behavior afterward - especially since he had given her everything she wanted - an attractive, completely paid up, furnished home in a nice neighborhood, a car, jewelry, furs, other possessions and most of his savings, leaving him in a bad financial situation. Michael grew up in the house completely paid for by his father. He and his mother never had to pay rent - ever - and were comfortable while Jerry suffered in poverty, a blackballed writer, unable to get work in the comics industry he pioneered.

 

As for Michael's accusation that his father never visited him after the divorce, that was also false. Jerry did make visits but whenever he asked for private time with Michael, Bella refused unless he also spent special time with her. Years later, when Michael was an adult, a chance meeting with one of Jerry's nieces turned ugly with Bella refusing to let Michael look at or speak to her because she was related to Jerry. Therefore, knowing that Bella's hostility toward him had never died and that Michael, who lived with Bella his entire life, undoubtedly shared his mother's continuing hostility, Jerry did not contact Michael, believing that he was an adult and if he wanted a relationship with his father, he would initiate it. But Michael never did contact his father.

 

I believe that by going public with the myths his mother told him, what Michael thought he would get was public attention. But Michael, just as we, learned that writers twist facts and misquote what people say and that just because something is in print, it does not mean it is true. He acknowledged this when he wrote to Gerard Jones and other writers that they did not truthfully report what he had told them.

 

Michael and my daughter Laura wrote to each other for nearly ten years about both personal and business matters. Although she told him the truth about Jerry and me and even sent him proof that what he had been told by his mother was false, Michael still refused to acknowledge the truth and that there are two sides to every story. (For example, Michael wrote to Laura that his mother told him that Jerry didn't take one photo of Michael with him after the divorce but Laura sent him a large batch of photographs Jerry had of himself with Michael.) Neither he nor Bella could produce one shred of evidence to prove their accusations. Even so, when Bella died in November 2002, Laura and I sent Michael our condolences. He was friendlier to Laura for a while, then went back to ignoring what Laura had revealed to him, and finally, to our surprise, went public with his mother's unsupported claims. Michael passed away on January 17th from complications following heart surgery. Michael's attorney did not notify one member of the Siegel family, not even Laura, that he had died. His obituary was printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on January 19th. Laura learned of his passing from a relative who just happened to read the paper and contacted her on January 20th, a few hours after Michael's funeral had taken place. Michael was 61 years old, never married, had no children, lived with his mother until she died, and was buried next to his mother. Laura had written to Michael, asking him to explain why he had launched a public smear campaign against Jerry and me although she had explained the truth to him in her letters. He never answered her questions.

 

I hope this throws more light on the speculations in this matter. Laura and I were closer to Michael and the situation than the people who have been writing about him and we are the only people who have first hand knowledge of our side of the story. As far as we are concerned, it was and should remain a private family matter on which the book is now closed.

 

Joanne Siegel

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

It's just disgusting how their lives have been dragged into the public spotlight in this manner, but then again, this is what our society does with everyone who has a brush with fame.

[Darthdiesel]

$$$

$$$ For who?

 

 

Primarily, I was thinking of Ricca and how conveniently the "Son of Supes" had just opened up completely to him a short time before he died. Then again no matter where you look in this story, every party mentioned has an angle to capitalize or suppress someone else's attempts to profit. Thus the is appropo as I'm tiring of seeing these financial disputes. It's a tragic introspective on (sub)human nature.

[esquirecomics]

$$$

$$$ For who?

 

 

Primarily, I was thinking of Ricca and how conveniently the "Son of Supes" had just opened up completely to him a short time before he died. Then again no matter where you look in this story, every party mentioned has an angle to capitalize or suppress someone else's attempts to profit. Thus the is appropo as I'm tiring of seeing these financial disputes. It's a tragic introspective on (sub)human nature.

 

Gotcha. Would've helped if you explained that in the first instance!

[Darthdiesel]

$$$

$$$ For who?

 

 

Primarily, I was thinking of Ricca and how conveniently the "Son of Supes" had just opened up completely to him a short time before he died. Then again no matter where you look in this story, every party mentioned has an angle to capitalize or suppress someone else's attempts to profit. Thus the is appropo as I'm tiring of seeing these financial disputes. It's a tragic introspective on (sub)human nature.

 

Gotcha. Would've helped if you explained that in the first instance!

 

Then, the comment would have lost its pithy charm

[maxstuf]

Darth what happened to the comment about her being callous? Did you delete that one?

[Darthdiesel]

Darth what happened to the comment about her being callous? Did you delete that one?

 

Yeah it was over the top (let's just say if you've had your dad leave your mom for another woman, you'd probably stand by that "callous ..." comment I made, but probably not if you've divorced a woman yourself) but I think for her to make comments that can't be refuted by dead people is somewhat in poor taste and futile in supporting her side of the issue. She's got free reign now to insinuate whatever she wants without someone to challenge her take on the "facts". How convenient that she decides to speak out inspite of her lawyer now when the affected parties are dead.

[maxstuf]

I am glad you decided to take it down.

[Darthdiesel]

I am glad you decided to take it down.

 

Glad I thought it thru after re-reading it Another divisive thread avoided

[OldGuy]

I am glad you decided to take it down.

 

Glad I thought it thru after re-reading it Another divisive thread avoided

 

You suck. I hate you.