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 Sam Sloan

When I first saw the story of the curse of the Egyptian Princess of Amen-Ra and why the Titanic really sunk, I thought that it was just a funny story and an obvious hoax.I have since put considerable time and research into this and have discovered that, far from a hoax, this is a story which describes actual historical events, which really happened. In the first place, this story is not the concoction of some Internet crazed cyber-freak. The story has existed since the day the first survivors of the Titanic arrived ashore. It was told by Frederic Kimber Seward and other surviving passengers. They vividly described how a passenger named William T. Stead had told them the story of the curse of the Egyptian mummy, on the night before the Titanic sank.

They also told how William T. Stead had gone down with the ship. He had just sat quietly reading a book in the First Class Smoking Room as the ocean liner sank. In my research, I have found several errors in the most popular version of this story, which I have now corrected.The popular version states that the coffin of the Egyptian Princess was first purchased in the late 1890s. However, this cannot be, because Madame Helena Blavatsky, who is said to have personally encountered the mummy, died in 1891.

In reality, the coffin arrived in the British Museum in 1889. Thus, it is clear that the story of the coffin dates from the 1880s, not from the late 1890s.Another error is that the story says that the princess lived in 1500 BC. The British Museum, however, gives the date of her death as 1050 BC, which is 450 years later.

When you think about curses sooner or later Egypt will probably pop into your mind, and possibly the tombs of the pharaoh's. Perhaps the most famous of these curses involved the discovery of Tutankhamen in 1923.

The expedition was headed by Egyptologist Lord Canarvon and archaeologist Howard Carter. As they entered the tomb both knew about the curse which had protected the treasures within from those who would have robbed the grave since 1352 B.C when the boy Pharaoh was entombed. Canarvon had even consulted a mystic and some mediums before beginning the expedition and every single one of them told him not to open the tomb, advice he ignored at his peril. Within two months 57 year old Canarvon was dead, the victim of an infected mosquito bite. The date of his death was the 5th of April 1923. This date is remembered by the Continental Hotel of Cairo since simultaneously their electricity failed for no apparent reason and back in England Carnarvon's faithful dog was heard to bark once before dropping dead. Two days after his death when examining the face of Tutankhamen it was noted he bore a mark on his left cheek, identical to that of the mosquito bite upon Carnarvon's corpse. Perhaps this was nothing more than coincidence they concluded. That was until the other deaths began. An archaeologist by the name of Arthur Mace who had participated in opening the tomb dropped into a coma at the same hotel which had experienced the power failure and died. Doctors were unable to identity the illness which had resulted in his death. George Gould, a close friend of Canarvon went to Egypt to look at the tomb and was mysteriously found dead two days afterwards.

Radiologist Archibald Reid who examined the corpse of the Pharaoh died soon after this, as did Carnarvon's secretary Richard Bethell. By 1936, 33 people present during the opening of the tomb had met with unexpected deaths. Mohammed Ibraham, the man who agreed to send the tomb's treasures to Paris for an exhibition was run over and killed in 1966. Howard Carter died of supposed natural causes in 1939. So, by 1969, Richard Adamson was the sole surviving member of the 1923 expedition. He was quoted on saying that the curse was nothing but "mumbo, jumbo," but he changed his view after his wife died within a day of his public denouncement of his curse. He spoke out again at a later date and within days he had broken his back in a freak accident. Ken Parkinson the flight engineer suffered a heart attack every year on the anniversary of the flight from Egypt until the final one on 1978 which killed him. The flight lieutenant Rick Laurie died of heart failure two years before that, though he had been healthy before this. Anorher member of the flight crew suffered two heart attacks, another left the RAF due to unixplicable illness and the last lost his house in a fire.

The curse of the mummy began when many terrible events occurred after the discovery of King Tut's tomb. Legend has it that anyone who dared to open the tomb would suffer the wrath of the mummy. Because mummies have been associated with many magical powers throughout history, some of the mummies found from Egypt were ground into a fine powder and sold as this mystical mummy powder. It's believed the powder had magical healing powers and it wasn't until the discovery of King Tut and the hype of the media that things would change forever.

The hype began when Lord Carnarvon, the person who funded the discovery of King Tut?s Tomb, died shortly after the discovery. His death began in the spring of 1923 he was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito. During his morning shaving routine, he further aggravated the mosquito bite. It soon became infected and Lord Carnarvon found himself ill. He suffered a high fever and chills. A doctor was sent to examine him but medical attention arrived too late and Lord Carnarvon died. At that exact moment, the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out.

Once Carnarvon died the media went wild. They claimed King Tut wanted vengeance and announced a mummy's curse targeting those who had entered the tomb. Not only did the death of Carnarvon get all the people in an uproar, but other stories began to surface as well. Of the stories that surfaced, two remain prominent. One of those stories is that a cobra killed Howard Carter's pet canary after the discovery of King Tut's tomb. The other story is Lord Carnarvon's dog howled and dropped dead at two in the morning when Carnarvon died. What is interesting is that Howard Carter, the explorer who actually discovered the tomb, lived a decade after this major discovery. So, what happened to Howard Carter during all this hype? Howard Carter spent his last years logging and recording every artifact found in the tomb. Why didn't he suffer the curse of the mummy? He was, after all, the first to enter the tomb...