A Creator Erased From His Story

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Imagine creating something that the whole world falls in love with. And then watching the world fall in love with it without you. Imagine being erased from your own story while your story keeps growing bigger than anyone could have imagined. That is what happened to the man who created Superman. And underneath that history, there's a quieter human story about identity, about being unseen, about what it costs to hold on to yourself when life keeps trying to rewrite who you are.

Meeting Jerry Siegel Through New Sources

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hi, and welcome back to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm your host, Yosef, and this is the space where we slow down and talk about what real life actually feels like. The parts most conversations skip over. Today I'm joined by William Birdhart to talk about the life of Jerry Spiegel, the man who created Superman. And what his story still has to teach us about creative identity, being unrecognized for your work and the long, quiet fight to hold on to your sense of self. We are not just looking at history tonight. We are looking at the human cost of being person behind the legend and what any of us can carry from that. So if you've ever felt invisible inside your own story, this one is for you. With that, I welcome my guest William to the show. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Absolutely. So William, before we get into the bigger story, I'm curious, when you first started learning about Jerry Spiegel's light, was there a particular moment in this story that stayed with you, the kind that made you realize that this was about so much more than a comic book?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yes, I I think there are a couple of them. Uh there's a lot of correspondence that Jerry wrote in 1951, which has not appeared in previous uh history of biography work that is very illuminating about his mental state at that time. And uh I also got to speak to his, you know, his family, his daughter Laura, his grandsons, who have not spoken on the record before. And those two things really helped bring the story to life to me. I knew a little bit about it before, but until I really started digging into everything that happened, uh, I didn't really know the story. I don't think anybody knows the story, you know. You may think you do, but y this story is just endlessly fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah. And I want to start with something I think most people get wrong. When we hear the name Superman, we picture

The Deal That Took Superman Away

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power, fame, success. Right. But the man who created him lived a very different reality. What was his life? Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Well, Jerry Siegel grew up in Cleveland, uh, not, you know, as a poor family, uh big family, uh, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. And uh he was determined that he was going to be a writer. That was his dream. Like when he was one digit age, he was talking about being a writer and very precociously putting things in the mail, aggressively trying to get published. He was in the 11th grade when he comes up with the idea for Superman, and he's so excited he runs across town to and meets with his best friend Joe Schuster, who's the artist, and together the two of them put together the Superman feature. And he spent years trying to get it published, only to find when he finally did get it published that he had lost control of the character, that the company owned it, not him. And that just leads to decades of dispute and unhappiness.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Okay. And uh why do you think we collectively struggled to hold both things at once, like brilliance of what he created and the painful human story behind it?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Right. Well, Jerry and Joe were very young. Like I said, he was an 11th grader. His father had passed shortly before when he was 17. Uh, he had no business experience, no agent, no lawyer. Joe's father was an elevator operator at the hospital. They had no one who could advise them, you know, and they did make mistakes. Jerry signed an agreement that he later regretted. You often hear this story that uh Superman's creators sold the character for $130. That's not really true. The truth is they sold it for nothing. They got $130 for the first story. They got $10 a page for a 13-page story. But unfortunately, the release they signed also included a clause that said the rights to all the characters go to the comic company. They got nothing extra for that, but they lost uh the courts ruled that they'd lost control of the character. And uh when Jerry began to fight about it, the company got mad, they fired him despite having a 10-year employment agreement. Uh, you know, they eliminated his income and to my mind, worst of all, removed his and Joe's names from the feature. You know, we could argue about contracts and legalities all night long, but taking an artist's name off their work, that's just wrong. That is morally and ethically wrong.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

And Jerry Siegel was not just fighting a contract or a corporation, he was fighting a kind of erasure, watching his own creation become someone

Erasure, Abuse, And A Broken Partnership

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else's property. Like his story rewritten without him. So, from a human standpoint, what does that kind of long invalidation actually do to a person over the years?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, it hurt Jerry in the worst possible way. His frustration mounts all throughout the late 30s and 40s. You can see that in the correspondence, some of which is in the book. You know, he's talking to uh a man named Jack Lebowitz, who's in charge of the day-to-day operations of the comic company. I might add that Jerry thought he was signing on with a whole different owner, but shortly before Superman came out, new people with mob connections and shady, you know, connections to mob and rub running and uh two indictments for pornography, suddenly they're in charge of the company, and Jerry doesn't get along with them, and particularly Jack Liebowitz at all. So we've got about 10 years of correspondence from Jack where he absolutely is abusive to Jerry, taking advantage of his youth and naivete, insulting him, threatening to fire him constantly. I don't know what the point of an in of an employment agreement is when the boss is constantly threatening to fire you, but basically he's just trying to keep Jerry in his place. And then in 1943, Jerry is drafted for World War II, goes overseas to serve his country for a couple years, and that's when the company, now realizing what a cash cow they have in Superman, seizes control of the whole operation, even hires away Joe Schuster. And Jerry comes home to find he's been marginalized and he's got a lot of debt, and somebody else is in control of Superman. So Jerry becomes the first American writer to sue his publisher, you know, the first to stand up to power and say, I'm not going to take this anymore. Unfortunately, in the short term, it did not work out well. The case went against him, and he ended up, like I said, his name's off the feature, he's fired, he's scrambling for work just at the point where he needs it most. Meanwhile, Superman makes millionaires out of the guys who own the company, but not Jerry and not Joe.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Wow. Wow. And do you think the fight he carried on for decades was really about money, or was it something deeper that he was trying to recover?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah. I th I I mean it was a clear obsession with him. You can, you know, there are things things you could criticize about the way Jerry went about things, but the one thing I admire is that he never gave up and he never stopped fighting, even when the chips were down and all the odds were against him. He's even when it might not be to his best, you know, it'd be better to be quiet and take a little bit of money, but he did not do that. He stood up for what he believed were his rights to control the destiny of his own character. In 1951, just a few years after he's been fired, he and his new wife, Joanne, have a child, their daughter, Laura. And you can feel his frustration in the correspondence, which I totally get. I'm a daddy with daughters too. You want to do everything you possibly can for your girls. And Jerry found that he couldn't because he was in such poor financial straits. And he starts sending uh a bunch of letters in 51 and also in 53 that, as I said, most people have never seen before, some of which is really extreme, really out there, not Jerry at his best, but he felt desperate. I think, you know, if this happened today, we would say Jerry Siegel had a nervous breakdown, because I think that's really what's happening in 1951. He's so

Desperation, Family Pressure, Mental Collapse

SPEAKER_01 10:14

frustrated by his inability to take care of his family, to get control of this fantastic character he's created. He invented the superhero. Superman was the first. He, you know, he gave a big shot in the arm to this baby industry called comic books that probably wouldn't have survived without him. So he's benefiting a lot of other people, but can't get the benefits from himself. He admits in later uh chorus in later uh he tried to he he started an autobiography and he admits in it that uh he he felt suicidal at times. If it hadn't been for his wife, uh I I have my doubts that Jerry would have even survived these dark days.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Wow. Um Wow and what happened? What was the end of the story? What was the end of all the legal confrontation that he illustrated?

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Well, I'm glad you asked that because I think this points to two of the main themes of the book, which really, you know, everybody loves Superman, I think, but whether you're into comic books or not, this is a story that I think has universal appeal because it's basically about how we treat our artists. It's about this eternal conflict between art and commerce, which commerce always seems to win, you know? And and that's not right. If we want to continue to have art, you know, characters like Superman that bring joy around the world, we've got to start taking better care of our artists. Otherwise, you know, all that's gonna go away. Jerry went through decades and he wasn't sitting around griping either. He was constantly hustling, finding work, wrote more than 300 stories in, you know, even not for Superman, but for other comic book characters, even after he'd been fired by Superman's now owners, but could never really get ahead. Eventually, by the 70s, he's taken a civil service job in California where he lives. You know, he's sorting mail and typing other people's junk and wearing a little name tag that says Jerry on it. I mean, this is not where the creator of Superman should be. And Jerry finally just gets fed up with it and again turns to his typewriter. That's where he always went when he was angry, I think, and writes what he called a press release. Some people would call a nine-page rant. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And yet, you know, when you check any

Fans Force A Late Reckoning

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of the citations in it and check it back to the correspondence, they're all dead on. It's accurate. He knew what he was talking about. So he made a thousand copies of this press release and sent it out and got back crickets. You know, nothing. Nobody's interested until finally he starts getting a response, not from the mainstream media, didn't get any help from courts or lawyers or corporate America. It's the fans who stand up for Jerry. Because by the 70s, we have a growing community of adults, you know, grown-ups who still love comic books and are interested in the creators who wrote and drew these stories and take it seriously. And some are publishing what they called fanzines, amateur publications covering comics. And that's where his story first started to get some, you know, some air. And that happens and that happens again. And eventually the Washington Post picks up the story, and then others do. And then pretty soon they're invited to appear on television. And that leads to very late in 1975, the comic book company finally agreed to give these guys a small pension, $20,000 a year. Which let me just say that if if you're thinking, well, that's the end of the story, it is so not. That is just where the worm starts to turn a little bit, but there's still 50 more years of story. And that's all recounted in this book, really for the first time, because the litigation only ended a few years ago. So this is the first biographical or historical work that's been able to present the whole picture of what happened with Superman and Jerry Siegel.

Art Versus Commerce And A Model

SPEAKER_00 14:42

So, William, do we can uh for people who want to connect with you or want to read the whole story of Jerry Siegel and the Superman, where can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Well, the book is called Superman Wars. I think it's available any place uh you get books. Uh, since this podcast is going out all over everywhere, I'm gonna recommend go online, go to Amazon or some other online seller. I checked Amazon number one uh this morning. I've still got a number one new release flax, so the book must be doing okay, you know. So look for the Superman wars. You can also find out more about me in the book at my website, which is predictably WilliamBernhart.com.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes, so just go and check those. All right. William, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, I would like to say, you know, I talk about the litigation and I talk about all the conflict and uh uh all the negative things that happened to Jerry, but I don't want people to think this is going to be a depressing read. It's really not. I think it should be an inspirational story about not only this guy, Jerry Siegel, who fought, but how his family came together and rallied around him, how his readers and fans came together, and all together, because you know we're stronger together, this these people stand up to power. And eventually, well, let me just say this if anybody picks up a comic book today that has Superman in it, you'll see his credit has been restored, except now it says Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family. That's because the family stood together and fought for their rights. And I think it's a model for artists and families and people everywhere to, you know, fight for what they're entitled to have.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Wow. Jerry, thank you so much. William, thank you so much for coming here and sharing this beautiful struggling. And you it is one of those stories that can not specifically

Where To Find The Book

SPEAKER_00 17:02

connect with you in a direct version of how Jerry was facing. But you know, we all live a particular version of it. We feel invisible maybe for our work. Someone takes our credit. We feel invisible when someone gets promoted for something that we did in our work. But in all those moments, what I learned, what I am taking from this conversation is that you have to stick with your people. You have to fight for it and take back what you deserve.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

That is that is so true. And uh, you know, I'm a writer, so obviously I'm sympathetic to writer. That's uh writers, that's why I chose to focus on the writer. I'm not casting any shade on Joe Schuster, but I get writers. I get what it is to be a young kid trying to get published, because I've been there, so I can completely empathize with Jerry Siegel's struggles, uh, and I think it's a powerful story.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

If this conversation reached you tonight, thank you for staying with it. Maybe you s you saw a piece of yourself in Jerry's story. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

The only difference is that I came like 50, 60 years later, actually, uh, into publishing, I mean, and I had an agent. The whole publishing world, the whole comic book world might have been different if young Jerry Siegel had had an agent or a lawyer to represent him, but he didn't, and the consequences were disastrous, unfortunately. In the short term, it does get better. There is a happier ending in sight.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

And to everyone listening, don't disappear inside your own life. Stay the author of it, even on the quiet days. This was Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm you so take care of your mind, and I'll see you in the next one.