The latest Superman motion picture, nearing $200 million in receipts, is another super commercial success. Since 1938 when he debuted in a comic book, the Man of Steel has generated more than $1 billion in revenues from a string of films, toys, games, TV shows and more.
But the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ? then two high school students in Cleveland ? never shared in his success.
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After numerous rejections, they sold their story to Action Comics for $130 and a job drawing the stories (initially at $5 a page). As part of the deal they gave up their rights to the character.
They later tried to win a share of Superman?s licensing rights through the courts without success. Elderly and living in near-poverty, they finally won a $20,000 a year pension.
In comic book parlance, those cold-hearted corporate executives would be dubbed ?Men of Steal.?
Their experience is not isolated. In fact, it happened to a family whose story became one of the most popular musicals of all time. Surprisingly, a member of that family has lived quietly in my area of Baltimore for the past four decades.
She is Agathe von Trapp, the eldest daughter in the famed Trapp Family Singers, whose performances in concerts in 30 countries inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “The Sound of Music.” I met her several years ago when she was writing her autobiography, “Agathe von Trapp: Memories Before & After The Sound of Music.” The book, with her own drawings, is available online.
I found Agathe, 93, to be a delightful person ? soft-spoken with a warm, engaging smile. Born in Austria, she and her family left that country shortly after the Nazis invaded. Her father, a captain in the Austrian navy, rejected the Nazis and found Hitler, whom he had once seen in a Munich restaurant, to be vulgar and crude in private, said Agathe.
The family eventually came to the United States, settled in Vermont and performed throughout the country.
After her father died and the family ceased performing, Agathe moved to Baltimore, where she helped operate a private kindergarten for 35 years.
The genesis of “The Sound of Music” begins with a book published in 1949 about the Trapp Family Singers by Agathe?s stepmother, Maria.
In 1956, needing the money, Maria sold all the rights to a German filmmaker for $9,000.
Later, an American director decided to make a musical from the story, with Rodgers and Hammerstein writing the score.
“The Sound of Music,” opened on Broadway in 1959 and proved a rousing success. In 1965, the motion picture premiered. It won five Oscars, including best picture of the year.
Because Maria signed away the rights, family members earned no royalties. They also had no say in the treatment of their story.
Invited to the Broadway premier, Agathe was appalled to see their father portrayed as cold and distant.
“I sat there and cried,” Agathe recalled to me. “He was very loving to us and very gentle. I could not believe he was shown in this way.”
Over time, Agathe?s reaction to the script softened. “I came toenjoy the play for what it was, even with its changes to what we experienced,” she said.
The family eventually received less than 1 percent of the royalties from the play.
But it never received money from the motion picture.
Superman and “The Sound of Music” are worlds apart artistically, but their histories reflect what can happen when the rights of creative artists and the pressures of commercialism collide.
Artists, beware.
M. Hirsh Goldberg is president of M. Hirsh Goldberg & Associates LLC, a Baltimore-based public relations and marketing agency. He has served as press secretary to a governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore. He is the author of five books and numerous op-ed articles and columns. His e-mail address is [email protected].
