Jinxes & Curses

There is a sinister legend that Superman is a cursed role. Blood chills at the thought of it. Has every actor associated with the character of Superman, in addition to various performers and artists associated with The Man of Steel, suffered some strange disastrous fate after completing his or her work? Let's examine the evidence. Most tragic is the case of George Reeves, the beloved Superman of '50s television who was the victim of a bizarre and unexpected suicide (or was it murder?). More recently we find Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. In 1995, Reeve was paralyzed in a freak equestrian accident which eventually led to his early death, and Kidder, by some sensational accounts, went mad.

Was it the curse? Less well-known is the unfortunate case of the first live-action Superman, Kirk Alyn. The legend goes that after a promising start, Alyn's career spiraled downhill almost immediately after appearing as filmdom's first Superman. His only role of note following this was a brief cameo in Superman: The Movie, some 30 years later. Did playing the Man of Steel make his subsequent career a super-washout? Some claim that Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were cursed with hardships after selling their billion-dollar concept to DC Comics for a mere $130. Does a heinous curse, perhaps associated with man's hubris or unnatural "worship" of false gods known as superheroes befall those who attempt to mock the natural order by playing the role of Superman?Not really. Among all of the actors who have played Superman over the years, (nearly a dozen by my count), only two, Reeves and Reeve, encountered serious misfortune. And it must be said that Christopher Reeve turned his misfortune into an act of heroism that has been an inspiration to millions. This was an unforeseen obstacle that was met with true bravery and grace...

By Andrew Mann

Macbeth was written in the early 1600's (most likely sometime between 1604 and 1606) by William Shakespeare. According to legend, it was performed at Hampton Court in 1606 for King James I and his brother-in-law, King Christian of Denmark, and was clearly designed to appeal to King James. Not only was Banquo, who just happens to be a part of the Stuart family tree (as was James), portrayed favorably, but the play itself was fairly short, probably because King James preferred short plays. Most importantly, James himself had previously published a book on witches and how to detect them. Because of this, Shakespeare decided to give his play a supernatural twist in another effort to please the King. For the opening scene of Act IV, he reproduced a sacred black-magic ritual in which a group of witches danced about a black cauldron, shouting out strange phrases and ingredients to be thrown into it. The practitioners of rituals such as this one were not very amused by Shakespeare's public exposure of their witchcraft, and as punishment they decided to cast their own spell on the play Macbeth that still haunts it to this day.

Supposedly, saying the name "Macbeth" inside a theater will bring bad luck to the play and anyone acting in it. The only exception is when the word is spoken as a line in the play. In order to reverse the bad luck, the person who uttered the word must exit the theater, spin around three times saying a profanity, and then ask for permission to return inside. There are several other variations of this ritual that involve spitting over your shoulders or simply letting out a stream of cuss words. Some say that you must repeat the words "Thrice around the circle bound, Evil sink into the ground," or you can turn to Will himself for assistance and cleanse the air with a quotation from Hamlet. Whatever steps that you choose to take, failing to do anything to prevent the curse from taking effect will ensure that you will in for some trouble...

Some 34 years ago Peter Tandy, a young curator at the Natural History Museum, happened upon a jewel while working among the great lines of mineral cabinets. From a scientific perspective, the stone was nothing special, though its setting was rather bizarre, bound by a silver ring decorated with astrological symbols and mystical words with two scarab-carved gems attached. It was a typewritten note that accompanied the jewel, an amethyst known as the Delhi Purple Sapphire, that caught Tandy’s eye.“This stone is trebly accursed and is stained with the blood, and the dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it,” said the note, which had beenwritten by Edward Heron-Allen, a scientist, friend of Oscar Wilde and the amethyst’s last owner.

It carried a curse and had left a trail of bad luck and tragedy.Heron-Allen claimed to have been so disturbed that he had surrounded the amethyst with supposedly protective charms and sealed it inside seven boxes before leaving it to the museum in his will. His letter concluded: “Whoever shall then open it, shall first read out this warning, and then do as he pleases with the jewel. My advice to him or her is to cast it into the sea.” While they were sceptical, Tandy and his colleagues agreed to keep quiet about the curse. The jewel might have remained hidden if its remarkable story had not caught the imagination of staff working to relaunch the museum’s public mineral gallery, the Vault. On Wednesday, the Delhi PurpleSapphire will go on permanent display at the museum, complete with a label declaring its reputation as “trebly accursed”. A supernatural tale might seem to sit a little uneasily in one of the world’s great scientific institutions. But according to Alan Hart, head of collections in the mineralogy department, such narratives give the collection a cultural dimension that appeals to visitors. “People ascribe precious stones with all sorts of legends. All it needs is for one owner to declare it to be cursed or lucky and the story will remain with the stone as it is passed from person to person through history,” he says. But that the Delhi Purple Sapphire was cursed was never doubted by Heron-Allen’s family. Ivor Jones, his grandson, a 77-year-old former naval officer, refuses to handle thejewel.......

The startling sight the other day of a colossal gold statue of the Jackal-headed god Anubis sailing under Tower Bridge, heralding the return to London of Tut-Mania next month, sent shivers down my spine - but for all the wrong reasons. The boy king's glittering tomb treasures will soon arrive in London from America for a major exhibition.More than 300,000 tickets have already been sold - but I may have to excuse myself from coming face-to-face with him again, for reasons which I shall explain. The eight-metre high image of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god ofthe dead, evoked extraordinary memories.

I was one of the 1.7 million who braved interminable queues at the British Museum to view Tutankhamun's 3,000-year-old tomb treasures back in 1972.But the statue also had my mind rolling back to another astonishing discovery made more recently, in 1999, which has had extraordinary ramifications in my own life. I am a rational person, but, believe me, it has led me to question my sanity more than once, and to wonder in earnest whether I, in the 21st century, have been the victim of the legendary "Pharaoh's Curse". Of course, in the cold light of day, it sounds somewhat fanciful. Yet the "Curse of Tut" is said to have claimed the lives, fortunes and happiness of scores of people who were involved in British archaeologist Howard Carter's discovery ofTutankhamun's tomb in 1922. But though I am no fan of paranormal claptrap, I have nevertheless quaked at times when I think back over the string of disasters which have befallen me since I first handled a collection of obscure objects which had once lain buried with Tutankhamun himself. After 40-odd years of marriage, my then parents-in-law were separating. While they were packing up the house, I happened upon two battered Cognac boxes in the back of a wardrobe, crammed with the last things on earth you'd expect to see. "Just the family jewels," my former father-in-law, Michael, joked. "I'd actually forgotten they were there." Inside the boxes was a collection of dusty glass petri dishes containing textile fragments, seeds, palm nuts, food and biological samples. When I asked what oneart......