"How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon" by Jake Rossen. Foreward by Mark Millar. Published by Chicago Review Press, Inc., Chicago, Ill., 2008.

    By Stephen Pytak 

     If you like reading about drama behind the scenes, you'll have 
trouble putting down this 339-page history of "Superman" on TV
and cinema.
     Fun tales about insane story ideas --including Producer Jon
Peter's dark take on the character in the 1990s -- and steak
knives and attempted murder -- yes, this happened to the
creative consultant on "Superman: The Movie (1978)," will
 keep you turning the pages.
     I found out about this book by chance. For fun last week,
I typed "Superman" into Google news. A bit about this new
book came up. There were some good reviews. Since I'm a 
"Supes" fan to some degree, I was curious and ordered it
via Amazon.com.
     While I was fighting a cold this week, this thing kept me 
company.
     Author Jake Rossen's effort impressed me in many ways.
For starters, this thing is thorough, following the efforts radio,
TV and movie producers made to feature The Man of Steel from
his introduction in Action Comics #1 in 1938, right up to Bryan
Singer's "Superman Returns (2006)."
     As Rossen suggests in his subtitle, the stars of the book are the
producers, directors and writers who have fought, bickered, 
threatened and sued over their visions and presumed rights to
the character.
     Along the way, Rossen also offers tidbits of information about
Superman's creators -- Siegel and Shuster -- and their legal battles
for compensation. In his prologue, for instance, he states while
Warner Bros. was boasting it made over a billion by licensing the
character in the '70s, Siegel was making $7,500 a year as a clerk, 
and Shuster was legally blind and sleeping on a cot next to a broken
window in Queens, N.Y.
    At least a few hundred eyebrow-raising stories follow. Some are
about the the actors and actresses who've populated these 
productions, like Marlon Brando.
    Paid $3 million for, like, 15 minutes of screen-time in Richard 
Donner's "Superman" epic, "The Wild One" was hired for his status 
and name recognition. He brought with him a few other eccentricities.
    Just ask Sara Douglas, who played "Ursa," one of the three 
Kryptonian villians at the start of the show. Rossen claims Brando 
wrote his lines on cue cards, instead of memorizing them. Then he 
would tape them around the perimeter of his scenes. He even put one 
on Douglas' forehead. Then, Rossen said, Brando fondled her, but
she was too "starstruck" to charge him with sexual harassment.
    I mentioned the steak knife incident. That happened to Donner's
creative consultant, Tom Mankiewicz. Berta Dominguez, mother of 
Ilya Salkind, came at Mankiewicz with the knife, when the consultant
said he didn't have time to read script revisions she made. Brando
had to restrain her. 
   Rossen, who penned a cover story for Wizard magazine on the long,
strange development of what would become "Superman Returns," 
conducted extensive interviews with producers, screenwriters, cast and
crew, according to the back cover text.
     His book shines a light on that sticky, shadowy side of the production
process no studio ever likes to talk about. But, boy, is this stuff sure fun
to read.