In this year’s Superman reboot, David Corenswet because the twelfth actor to portray the Man of Steel in a live action film. However, even before these twelve cinematic Clark Kents, there was an earlier actor who played the role of Superman for longer than any of his big-screen counterparts.
Bud Collyer was a radio announcer and television host who accepted the role of Superman for Fleischer Studio’s animated shorts in 1940 – they eventually saw the screen the following year. If Superman and Lois Lane seemed familiar to cinema-goers in their first screen appearance, it may have been down to the fact that Collyer and his co-star, Joan Alexander, had reprised their roles from the Adventures of Superman radio series which had debuted the year earlier.
Being charged with voicing the popular comic book character for the first time, it was down to Collyer – without the aid of visuals – to demonstrate the shift between Superman and his dual-identity of Clark Kent. In an ad-lib, Collyer experimented with lowering the register of his voice as Clark became Superman on radio, a trait which the character has retained in his appearances in media to this day.
Both Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander would continue to voice Superman and Lois respectively in radio and further animated incarnations until Collyer’s death in 1969. His final portrayal of Superman was in the third season of cartoon series The New Adventures of Superman, 29 years after he first took on the role.
