Toni Mannix(1906-1983)
- Actress
Toni Lanier was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl whose lasting notoriety
came not as a performer but as the wife of a high-level studio
executive and the mistress of a famous television star. Lanier appeared
in the film version of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s life, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), met MGM studio manager
E.J. Mannix, and lived with him as mistress and later wife until his death
in 1963. As Toni Mannix, she was well known for her beauty, flamboyance
and sexual appetite, the latter of which was legendary. In 1951, around
the time she married Mannix legally, she met George Reeves, soon to be world
famous as television's "Superman". She and Reeves embarked on an affair
under the approving eye of her husband, who had a new mistress of his
own. Toni and Reeves were fairly public with their arrangement, but the
press, out of respect for the clout Mannix wielded, never exposed the
relationship outside the industry. In 1959 Reeves broke off the
relationship with the eight-years-older Toni, leaving her both
broken-hearted and angry. His suicide five months later shattered her
and she remained devoted to his memory the remainder of her life (some
have speculated that she or her husband might actually have murdered
Reeves, but no credible evidence has ever arisen to support such a
theory, while much evidence credibly undermines it). Mannix died in
1963, and Toni was left wealthy and lived comfortably until the onset
of Alzheimer's Disease in her 70s. She died from complications of the
syndrome in 1983.