Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson: The Visionary Who Founded DC Comics Part IV
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“The Old Beezer” Conversations With ANTOINETTE WHEELER-NICHOLSON HARLEY About Her Legendary Father Conducted & Transcribed by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown
I
NTERVIEWER’S NOTE: I began seriously researching the facts about my grandfather’s intriguing story around 1998. Besides archival research, I have interviewed various relatives, especially the children of the Major and his wife Elsa. The following comments from the Major’s eldest daughter Antoinette are distilled from various interviews which took place between 2001 and as recently as April of this year. Douglas Wheeler-Nicholson, the younger of the Major’s two sons (and my uncle), was present at all but one of the sessions, and asked a few questions, as well. In 2001 Aunt Toni read Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, and although it is a fictional account of the Siegel and Shuster story, there was enough factual information that caused her to reconsider her father’s story and his connection with Superman. Independently of my own research, she also did some research, including talking to comics historians and to Paul Levitz, the current president of DC Comics. —Nicky.
“For Many Years… I Couldn’t Even Look At A Comic” ANTOINETTE WHEELER-NICHOLSON HARLEY: You know, whatever information one can glean from the web or anything else is divided into the party line, which are some murky references to the old Beezer [the Major], but just cut off at various stages. DOUGLAS WHEELER-NICHOLSON: Is this a new interest of yours? HARLEY: No, I’ll tell you what triggered it. For many years, as you know, I was so turned off, I couldn’t even look at a comic. Never. I just couldn’t stand it. I remember a garage that we had in one of the houses we lived in that was stacked with “Superman” comics, a garage full of the first printings of “Superman” which [Harry] Donenfeld had said weren’t selling. You know, this business of trying to cut the old Beezer [Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson] out of the action before “Superman” emerged is just a lot of baloney. He was there. He was the one that published that originally. And they have absolutely wiped that out. I’m looking at [this] as kind-of setting-the-record-straight department. To be very blunt about it—I don’t like unfair things. The old Beezer had his warts, God knows, but he didn’t deserve this. He had a lot of guts. I remember him putting that thing [the comics] together,
The Kids Are All Right A circa-1935 pic of three of the Major’s children: Antoinette, Malcolm Jr. (in foreground), and Douglas. “When this photo was taken,” Nicky writes, “Aunt Toni was probably around 14-15, with my father 8 or 9 and Douglas 7 or 8. Antoinette as the oldest child was very close to her father and carried the brunt of much of the difficulties of that time in order to spare the younger children.” Thanks to Nicky Brown for the photo. [©2009 Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson Estate.] As Antoinette states in this interview, for some years after her father lost National/DC to Donenfeld and Liebowitz she “couldn’t even look at a comic”—but now that she has regained her equilibrium, we hope she won’t mind us running below this late-’40s publicity shot of Kirk Alyn, who portrayed Siegel & Shuster’s hero in both Columbia movie serials, perusing a copy of Superman #51 (March-April 1948). With thanks to Jim Korkis. [Superman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.]