Cast members from two 1980s Superman films paid a visit to a movie and TV collectibles auction house in Valencia on Tuesday to check out costumes they hadn’t seen in over 30 years. The costumes are set to go to auction at the end of March.
Jon Cryer got up close again to the wardrobe he wore in 1987’s “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.” Mark Pillow faced his Nuclear Man duds from the same film. And Paul Kaethler, who played Lana Lang’s son in 1983’s “Superman III,” took another look at Christopher Reeve’s “evil Superman” costume — the one from the bar scene where Kaethler’s character calls out to Superman, telling him to get better.
“What would’ve happened if evil Superman would’ve stayed evil?” Kaethler said in an interview at Propstore, the movie and TV collectibles auction house where the actors gathered to speak about the costumes they wore in their respective Superman films. “My friends in high school — or whatever — they’d say, ‘Yeah, right, forget it.’ And I’d say, ‘No, I actually saved Superman.’ Well, my character saves him.”
Kaethler played Ricky, Lana Lang’s young son, who, upon seeing evil Superman come out of a bar after causing a commotion inside, tells Superman to get better, that he’s just in a slump and that he’ll be great again. Evil Superman hears Ricky with his super hearing, and the boy’s words prompt the Man of Steel to face himself and eventually become good again.
The evil Superman suit, which is a darker blue than the blue in the traditional suit, has an estimated sale price between $200,000 and $400,000.
Cryer, who played Lex Luthor’s nephew Lenny Luthor, spoke about his costume: a leopard-face jacket with leopard eyes, and trousers styled to look like reptile skin.
“It’s wonderful to see all this stuff in person again,” Cryer said just outside Propstore after seeing the costumes inside. “It was all the way back in 1986 when we shot this. I didn’t even think they kept it, honestly. And that movie had a very troubled shoot. It has a famously troubled history. But I really love how much affection people still seem to have for it.”
Cryer added that when he and Pillow saw their costumes again on Tuesday, they both remarked how they each “maintained our fighting trim,” and, short of trying on the costumes again, thought they could still get into them. The pants, Cryer said, might be tough, but both actors thought they could pull it off.
Cryer’s costume has an estimated sale price between $7,000 and $14,000.
Pillow, who played the final villain of Christopher Reeve’s Superman films, better known as Nuclear Man, said he had fond memories of shooting the movie. He and Cryer had a good time reminiscing about it. Pillow even had an idea of which specific costume was on display at the auction house.
“You can screen match it,” he said. “And with the sequins on it, they’re all a little different. So, you can kind of go, ‘That costume was used in those scenes.’”
Pillow believed there were about six different suits that he wore in the film, and that the one that was going up for auction was likely what he wore in the Statue of Liberty scene, the scene on the streets where he’s blowing up cars and other scenes where he was doing “the naughty stuff,” he said, which is his favorite stuff.
Pillow’s costume has an estimated sale price between $3,000 and $6,000.
According to Jamie Jamitkowski, senior marketing manager for Propstore, the three Superman costumes are among about 1,600 authentic pieces of entertainment memorabilia, including items from “Star Wars,” “Back to the Future II” and “Ghostbusters,” that will go to Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction: Los Angeles Spring 2025 between March 26 and March 28 at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Many of the items, Jamitkowski said, will be available for the public to see for the first time in years. It’s not uncommon, he added, for these things to be packed away and found sometime later.
“We source all of these items through our network,” Jamitkowski said. “People reach out to us, as well. We’re very fortunate that we’re well known in the industry. So, when we have people who might have a collectible — either a collection or maybe just one — maybe they worked on a production, or maybe their spouse, their father or parent did. They’ll have it and unload it. They find something in their garage and, ‘Oh, you know, my dad used to work on “Star Trek” in the ‘60s.’ This is kind of a mix of everything.”
Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction: Los Angeles Spring 2025, which is presented by Propstore, will be live and virtual for bidders. For more information about the event, go to bit.ly/3RfDL9d.
