Superman had to go on top of a mountain, and George Reeves hated it
You think celebrity publicity stunts are wild today? Imagine what George Reeves endured while promoting Adventures of Superman. He was the strongest, most famous man in the world to children, and they wanted to test how much he could endure in every way.
Reeves hated publicity stunts. Somehow he always ended up in pain or treated like Superman was all that mattered, not the actor who played him. The book Hollywood Kryptonite:The Bulldog, The Lady and The Death of Superman by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger detailed many of these stunts and how they made George feel.
Apparently, ABC network executives planned to have Superman on location to hook up a coaxial cable tying the network from New York to Los Angeles. The televised appearance doesn't sound bad, but here's the catch: Reeves (dressed as the hero) had to be on top of a mountain where the transmitter was. As you can imagine, George hated that.
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"They had a limousine and a crew to take him up to the mountain," his co-star Jack Larson remembered. "And George was absolutely pissed in the dressing room." They didn't have space for him to change into the suit on location, so Reeves changed in his own dressing room on set before leaving and got drunk.
"He used to be particularly funny when he'd drink... I was standing outside the soundstage when he came out, and he was doing this thing with his cape, throwing it around, making curlicues in the air. I thought, 'How was this going to work out?' because he was definitely drunk. But he was very daring, and he pulled himself together to do this. It was very funny."