After finishing the show in Atlantic City, we returned to California. I had learned that Robert Shayne, the actor who portrayed Inspector Henderson, was living in Thousand Oaks, California, so I sent him a fan letter, saying that I had an interesting story to tell him. To my great surprise and delight, I received a phone call from Bob. I was thrilled. After telling Bob my story, I suggested that my wife and I would love to meet him and take him and his wife out to dinner.
We arranged to meet them on a Friday. Two nights before we were to meet Bob and his wife, I awoke at exactly 3:05 a.m. I looked out in our hallway and there I saw George Reeves standing there in his Superman costume with his arms folded across his chest! I stared at him for about seven minutes. He appeared just as a ghost would appear in the movies, with kind of a fuzzy outline, but clearly recognizable as Superman.
Then, from where George's head was, I saw these large balls of light coming toward me. Then there appeared the left profile of a man's head wearing a fedora hat, coming at me, getting bigger and bigger. It was Robert Shayne as Inspector Henderson wearing the fedora hat he always had on in the show. It was as if George was saying to me, "Say hi to Bob when you see him."
Shortly after that, George faded away. I walked out to the spot where I had seen him, and when I reached the spot, an icy chill ran down my spine. I felt as if I had stepped into a freezer. I got back in bed and nudged my wife. I said, "I saw something, honey." She said, "Tell me about it in the morning." I went back to sleep.
About an hour and a half later, she woke me up. "Get up, I saw something," she said. "Before I tell you what I saw, what are the colors in George's costume? Are they red, yellow and blue?"
"Yes," I said. She had just seen three busts of George in his Superman costume, one on top of the other. The one in the middle was all in color and the other two were in black and white.
George is always there
A few years later, while I was working on a cruise ship, I went to a show in Nassau with the magician and his wife. While we were waiting to enter the showroom, I told the magician about my experiences with George. After telling him the story, we decided to go to the men's room. On our way there, as we walked down the hallway, I smelled the sulfur, rotten egg odor. It was so bad that I was shocked that none of the other people walking around us smelled it. When we got into the men's room, the magician turned to me and said, "Did you smell that?" When we got back to the ship, we were walking along the pier and the magician asked me if I thought George might turn off any of the lights on the pier? I said, "You never know." Sure enough, he turned off lights as we walked under them.
Since then, I've had continual contact with George, mainly through street lights turning on and off and every so often a burning sulfur, rotten egg odor. The lights seem to be most frequent when something very special is happening in my life. The night my wife went into labor with our son, he turned about six lights on and off as I drove to and from my gig that night. The night I learned about a show I'd be doing in Atlantic City, which would last for six months, he turned about 15 or more lights on and off.
It's gotten to the point now where I can quite often predict when he will turn a light on or make a light go off. Many a night as I make my way home from a late-night gig, I see the lights going on and off and I know that George is with me. It's such a comforting feeling, especially when you're dog tired or not feeling so good.
That's my story. It's all true. It really did happen and I thank my lucky stars everyday that it did happen. I know that when we leave this life, the spirit goes on. You'd be surprised how many people have ghost stories to tell after they hear my story. I think many people have had ghostly experiences, but may be reluctant to talk about it, fearing that other people might think they're a little crazy. This doesn't bother me because to be a comedian, you have to be a little crazy.
