Toni Mannix
Toni Mannix (born Camille Bernice Froomess; February 19, 1906 – September 2, 1983) was an American actress and dancer in the early talkies. She became notorious for an extramarital relationship with actor George Reeves during her marriage to MGM studio head Eddie Mannix, who himself had previously been having an affair with her.
Toni Mannix | |
|---|---|
| Born | Camille Bernice Froomess February 19, 1906 New York City, United States |
| Died | September 2, 1983 (aged 77) Beverly Hills, California, United States |
| Other names | Toni Lanier |
| Occupation | Actress, dancer |
| Spouse(s) | |
Early life
Mannix was born in New York City. Her father, Charles, was a French immigrant, and her mother, Elizabeth, was a French Canadian Roman Catholic. The large family would ultimately include 11 children: seven boys and four girls. The children were raised in their mother's faith. Mannix's father was a department store window decorator in Rochester, New York, and her mother was a homemaker.[1]
Career
For a time, Mannix was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, and appeared in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer biography of Florenz Ziegfeld's life, The Great Ziegfeld (1936).
Personal life
Mannix subsequently met MGM's general manager Eddie Mannix. She later lived with him as his mistress, and then as his wife, until his death in 1963. Shortly after her marriage to Eddie Mannix in 1951 and shortly before the launch of Reeves as the star of the successful television series Adventures of Superman, Mannix met and began an affair with Reeves, with the acquiescence of her husband, according to Reeves' co-stars Noel Neill and Jack Larson.[2] The affair was ended by Reeves in 1959. His death by gunshot wound to the head five months later was officially ruled a suicide, although questions have been raised about the circumstances under which he died. Kashner and Schoenberger's partially fictionalized biography Hollywood Kryptonite states as unsourced fact that Toni, via her husband Eddie's criminal connections, ordered Reeves murdered.[3] This theory was endorsed by publicist Edward Lozzi, who stated in 1999 that he had witnessed Toni's deathbed confession.[3] Although the 2006 film Hollywoodland uses her husband's complicity as one possible solution to the Reeves mystery, the film remains ambiguous about the truth. In any case, Mannix was devastated by Reeves' death and remained dedicated to Reeves, reportedly building a shrine to him in her house.
Later years and death
Mannix, wealthy following the death of her husband in 1963, developed Alzheimer's disease when she was in her seventies. She died in 1983 in Beverly Hills, at the age of 77, having neither remarried nor had children.
She was portrayed by Diane Lane in Hollywoodland and by Alison Pill in Hail, Caesar!.
See also
References
- 1920 U.S. Census
- Ward, Larry Thomas. Truth, Justice, & The American Way: The Life and Times of Noel Neill, The Original Lois Lane, Nicholas Lawrence Books, 2003. ISBN 0-9729466-0-8. p. 83
- Who killed Superman?, John Patterson, The Guardian, November 18, 2006