What it's like to audition for the Coen Brothers

But perhaps in all the time he worked at MGM, from the Twenties to the Sixties, no scandal was more convoluted, sinister or lastingly open-ended than the one in which Mannix himself was an unofficial suspect. In this story, Mannix does more than run a movie studio: he is a match for Superman.

In the early hours of June 16, 1959, two police officers arrived at 1579 Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. They found a few drunken houseguests and a body on a bed, shot through the head by a bullet that had left a hole in the ceiling and its casing beneath the victim’s back. The Luger lay between his feet, which were still on the floor, as if he’d been sitting on the edge of the bed before falling back. He was naked, a burly 6 ft 2 in, and his blood was spreading across the sheets beneath him like a billowing red cape.

It didn’t take the officers long to identify the deceased as George Reeves, the 45-year-old actor who had become famous for playing the only bulletproof character on television: Superman.

Though Superman – as played by Reeves on echoing sets and in black and white – had become one of the most adored figures in America, the actor himself had always railed against the role. Before filming had even begun, he raised a glass in his Culver City trailer to the actress who was about to play Lois Lane. “Here’s to the bottom of the barrel, babe,” he said, then held up production daily while he slept off the booze.