Toni Mannix

Infobox actor
bgcolour = silver
name = Toni Mannix

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imagesize =
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birthname = Camille Bernice Froomess
birthdate = birth date|1906|02|19|mf=y
location = New York, United States
deathdate = death date and age|1983|09|02|1906|02|19|mf=y
deathplace = Beverly Hills, California, United States
othername = Toni Lanier
spouse = Eddie Mannix (May 31, 1951 - August 30, 1963)

Toni Mannix (February 19, 1906 - September 2, 1983) was a minor American actress and dancer in the early talkies. She became notorious for an adulterous relationship with actor George Reeves during her marriage to MGM head Eddie Mannix.

Biography

Born Camille Bernice Froomess in New York, she was the fourth child of immigrants. Her father, Charles, was a Jewish Russian and her mother, Elizabeth, was a Catholic French-Canadian. Their large family would ultimately include eleven children; seven boys and four girls. Mannix's father was a department store window decorator in Rochester, New York and her mother a home-maker. [1920 U.S. Census]

For a time, Mannix was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, and appeared in the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer biography of Florenz Ziegfeld's life, "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), and subsequently met MGM's general manager Eddie Mannix. She later lived with him as his mistress, and then as his wife, until his death in 1963. Shortly after her marriage to Eddie Mannix in 1951 and shortly before the launch of Reeves as the titular star in the successful television series "Adventures of Superman", Mannix met and began an affair with Reeves, reportedly with the permission of her husband. The affair was ended by Reeves in 1959. His death by gunshot wound to the head five months later was officially ruled a suicide, although questions have been raised about the circumstances under which he died. Kashner and Schoenberger's partially fictionalized biography "Hollywood Kryptonite" states as unsourced fact that Toni, via her husband Eddie's criminal connections, ordered Reeves murdered. [http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1950705,00.html Who killed Superman?] , John Patterson, "The Guardian", November 18, 2006] This theory was endorsed by publicist Edward Lozzi, who stated in 1999 that he had witnessed Toni's deathbed confession. Although the 2006 film "Hollywoodland" uses her husband's complicity as one possible solution to the Reeves mystery, the film remains ambiguous about the truth. In any case, Mannix was devastated by Reeves' death and remained dedicated to Reeves, reportedly building a shrine to him in her house.

Later years and death

Mannix, wealthy following the death of her husband in 1963, developed Alzheimer's disease when she was in her seventies. She died in 1983 in Beverly Hills, at the age of 77, having never remarried or had children.

ee also

*"Hollywoodland"

References

External links

*imdb name|id=1036645
*Find A Grave|id=7875

Persondata
NAME= Mannix, Toni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Froomess, Camille Bernice; Lanier, Toni
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Actress, dancer
DATE OF BIRTH= February 19, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH= New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH= September 2, 1983
PLACE OF DEATH= Beverly Hills, California, United States