Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage has always been a fan of Elvis Pressley's.
Speaker 1: Cage's laconic drawl is no doubt inspired by Pressley. In
Speaker 1: Wild at Heart, a David Lynch film released in nine
Speaker 1: Cage plays Sailor Ripley, a criminal on the run who
Speaker 1: favors snakeskin jackets. Cage sings two Elvis songs in the movie,
Speaker 1: love Me and Love Me Tender. Yes, those are two
Speaker 1: different songs. Pressley, Cage said, was his hero, and whether
Speaker 1: you want to call it coincidence, fate, or something else,
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, Cage announced he had fallen in
Speaker 1: love with Pressley Lisa Marie Pressley, Elvis's only daughter. We
Speaker 1: don't get much into Cage's private life here. It's his
Speaker 1: private life, after all, and we're mostly preoccupied with the
Speaker 1: theft of four rare comics from his home in bel
Speaker 1: Air in two thousand, like any reasonable person would be.
Speaker 1: But all of this figures into it, not just Pressley,
Speaker 1: but Chrissley's town of Memphis, Tennessee. And in another bit
Speaker 1: of divine providence, this soulful city wasn't just where Elvis
Speaker 1: was reared, it was where his most prized possession Action
Speaker 1: Comics Number one was said to be lurking in a
Speaker 1: safety deposit box. Memphis would be the place where Cage's
Speaker 1: love of comics would either be rekindled or perhaps lost forever.
Speaker 1: For I Heart Radio, this is Steel in Superman. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Danish Wartz, and this is episode for the
Speaker 1: Memphis Affair. We go back and forth in time here,
Speaker 1: and I know it can be a little jarring, but
Speaker 1: so do comics. Heroes and villains chase one another, backward
Speaker 1: and forward through dimensions, through different decades, trying to write
Speaker 1: past wrongs. In the original nineteen seventy eight Superman film
Speaker 1: starring Christopher Eve, Superman sees the Lowis Lane die and
Speaker 1: he's so angry that he flies so fast around the
Speaker 1: earth he literally reverses the clock and brings Lows back
Speaker 1: to life. Anyway, we're not going far back, just to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. That's when the most prestigious auction house
Speaker 1: in America, Sotheby's, decided to take a bold step. They
Speaker 1: were going to legitimize the comic book collecting hobby by
Speaker 1: offering rare and vintage comics up for auction for the
Speaker 1: very first time in the company's storied history. Sotheby's was
Speaker 1: best own for auctions involving fine art or iconic sports
Speaker 1: cards or movie memorabilia. As a matter of fact, they
Speaker 1: may have inadvertently ushered in the modern era of art
Speaker 1: theft when one of their art auctions in eight drew
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity over the staggering prices. It alerted
Speaker 1: thieves to the potential gold mines hanging on walls. Now,
Speaker 1: people have always stolen art, but getting itemized lists of
Speaker 1: what would be best to steal certainly motivated some people.
Speaker 1: But comics comics were different. This was the early nine nineties.
Speaker 1: The industry had gotten some respectability with eighties hits like
Speaker 1: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchman,
Speaker 1: but we weren't yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe era.
Speaker 1: James Cameron's Spider Man was tangled in a web of
Speaker 1: rights issues. A Fantastic Four movie was filmed but never released.
Speaker 1: B movie King row Dger Corman made a no budget
Speaker 1: schlockfest just to avoid losing his rights to the characters.
Speaker 1: Newspapers still started comic stories with bam, zap and pop
Speaker 1: and homage to the old Adam West Batman series that
Speaker 1: hadn't aired in over twenty years. In the art world,
Speaker 1: only graffiti had less of a reputation than comics, so
Speaker 1: Yes Southeby's deigning to offer comics was perceived as a
Speaker 1: big deal, and the star of their second show in
Speaker 1: New York was Action Comics Number one, the first appearance
Speaker 1: of Superman, now and forever the most desired comic in
Speaker 1: the world, the same copy that would eventually wind up
Speaker 1: in cages hands and then in the hands of a thief,
Speaker 1: but today, in September, it could wind up with anyone,
Speaker 1: so long as they were the highest bidder. Keep in
Speaker 1: mind that there simply weren't as many hi collectors of
Speaker 1: comics then as there are now, nor were there million
Speaker 1: dollar price tags attached to rare books to entice people
Speaker 1: to part with theirs. Seeing an Action Number one for
Speaker 1: sale was a rare occurrence, like seeing J. D. Salinger
Speaker 1: in the Frozen Food Aisle. Rare, so people took lots
Speaker 1: of photographs, So did South Bees, which printed an entire
Speaker 1: catalog of all their comic book treasures. The fact that
Speaker 1: they took a very detailed, very precise series of photos
Speaker 1: of this Action number one will make all the difference
Speaker 1: in the world later in this story, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: will remind you when it's time. But in the moment,
Speaker 1: people were simply amazed the comic was here at all,
Speaker 1: not only because it was an Action number one, but
Speaker 1: an Action number one in excellent condition, bone white pages,
Speaker 1: a bright cover. A number of collectors and dealers were
Speaker 1: there in person. If you couldn't make it imp person,
Speaker 1: you could bid over the phone, but you'd come if
Speaker 1: you could, if only to get a glimpse of comic
Speaker 1: book history. I was very excited, but I was sick
Speaker 1: as a dog, and I sat in the back row,
Speaker 1: and I had dark shades on and wasn't feeling well
Speaker 1: at all. I had the flu, and I was just
Speaker 1: excited to get it and get it over with and
Speaker 1: get half of there. That's Bill Hughes. Bill has been
Speaker 1: a collector and dealer for over four decades. He owns
Speaker 1: Vintage Collectibles, a business based in Texas. In Southabies, he
Speaker 1: saw the hobby changing. More money coming in the books
Speaker 1: being sold through auction houses meant more attention, more press attention,
Speaker 1: and with more attention came more demand. The financial component
Speaker 1: of comics collecting was about to take a huge leap forward,
Speaker 1: and Bill believed he could see a quick return on
Speaker 1: his investment for an Action number one, even if he
Speaker 1: needed to make a major play. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: at that time, it wasn't like I was wealthy. Usually
Speaker 1: I would get into one big item at a time.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have the money to inventory and
Speaker 1: hang on to numerous six figure items at once. So
Speaker 1: it was a big deal for me. I mean, I
Speaker 1: kind of put that money together. I was prepared by
Speaker 1: the way to go to a d at the time.
Speaker 1: That was my limit. Now, not all auctions build up
Speaker 1: to the item that's getting the most attention. Some might
Speaker 1: even put up lots in alphabetical order. Bill's memory isn't perfect,
Speaker 1: but he thinks that's what happened with the Action number one,
Speaker 1: that it was one of the first comics upt forbid
Speaker 1: rather than the last. No, because I bought the Action
Speaker 1: Comics number seven after that as well, and some other lots.
Speaker 1: So no, I'm trying to think if it was alphabetical,
Speaker 1: because I know I bought some lots that were later
Speaker 1: on in the option for So the Action number one
Speaker 1: came up early and that was fined by Bill since
Speaker 1: he had the flu and just wanted to get out
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Here's how Southerby has described it
Speaker 1: in their catalog Action Comics number one comic book June
Speaker 1: d C Comics, featuring the very first appearance of Jerry
Speaker 1: Siegel and Joe Schuster's legendary character Superman, arguably the most
Speaker 1: imitated character of all time. Near mint condition, this copy
Speaker 1: has interior pages with slight tanning on the edges, with
Speaker 1: the center portion of interior pages creamy white minor vertical
Speaker 1: printers ink tracing lines on three interior pages, with a
Speaker 1: handcraft a lacquered custom fitbox. Historically, this is the most
Speaker 1: important comic book ever printed. It was like getting a
Speaker 1: sales pitch from a waiter on an expensive bottle of wine?
Speaker 1: Who wouldn't spend a bundle on that? When the comic
Speaker 1: was ushered out, it drew a lot of attention right away.
Speaker 1: A lot of people wanted that comic, but only a
Speaker 1: handful of people could afford to want the comic. There
Speaker 1: were several bidders. Obviously, with most options, you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of spirited bidding at the beginning, and then you
Speaker 1: know when the numbers start getting a little more intense,
Speaker 1: you know, then it dwindles and becomes a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, just headbutting between two people. On and on
Speaker 1: it went. Remember at the time, and even now, it's
Speaker 1: not coming to see an Action number one come up
Speaker 1: for sale. Bill didn't know the next time he'd see one,
Speaker 1: or what its condition might be, so he kept bidding
Speaker 1: and bidding until the amount reached seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Adrenaline was coursing through his aching bo and then Bill
Speaker 1: waited for the other better to pipe up, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: Just like that, Bill had set a world record for
Speaker 1: buying a comic book with the ten percent buyer's premium.
Speaker 1: It came to eight two thousand, five hundred dollars, and
Speaker 1: normally Bill would have loved the inevitable press attention, but
Speaker 1: not today. I was sitting with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: and I just remember we high five, and like I said,
Speaker 1: we were in the very back row and that was that.
Speaker 1: And I was feeling too poorly to even respond to
Speaker 1: media requests. There were people there that wanted to interview me,
Speaker 1: and I just said, I gotta I gotta go. I
Speaker 1: just wasn't feeling good. Well, maybe not with all the congestion,
Speaker 1: but in terms of doing what he had set out
Speaker 1: to do, Bill was feeling pretty good. He now owned
Speaker 1: an Action number one in fantastic condition, which fewer than
Speaker 1: ten people in the world can say. The question was
Speaker 1: what happens when you're in New York and need to
Speaker 1: return home, which at the time was in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: with the world's most expensive comic. You don't check it
Speaker 1: as part of your luggage, do you. I just stick
Speaker 1: it in my little briefcase and take it with me.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how I've always done it. I just
Speaker 1: took that little handful of comics with me on the
Speaker 1: plane and flew back. He didn't look for a buyer
Speaker 1: right away. This was a kind of holy grail. It
Speaker 1: was something to baskin. He wanted to let it appreciate
Speaker 1: in value. I was letting it appreciate, and I was
Speaker 1: enjoying having it, and took pictures and had some fun
Speaker 1: with it. A few years later Bill found a buyer,
Speaker 1: a fellow dealer who got it into the hands of
Speaker 1: Stephen Fishler, Cages comic book dealer. The whole story really
Speaker 1: starts right here in a South Abyes bid room where
Speaker 1: Bill Hughes Who's got the flu, grabs the action number one,
Speaker 1: which eventually finds its way to Nicolas Cage. Bill, by
Speaker 1: the way, didn't know about cages stolen comics at the
Speaker 1: time it happened in two thousand, that was still on
Speaker 1: the hush hush, But when he eventually did find out,
Speaker 1: he wasn't too surprised. It's not surprising that they were
Speaker 1: stolen from these wealthy gentlemen because these are people that
Speaker 1: like to use their highlights from their collections as conversation
Speaker 1: pieces and you know, particularly at parties and whatnot, kind
Speaker 1: of show them off. When you you know, go out
Speaker 1: of your way to share the value and show the
Speaker 1: actual item to numerous people, you know, you almost invite trouble.
Speaker 1: But Bill, who's been in the collecting game a long time,
Speaker 1: can conceive a one way they could have found their
Speaker 1: way back into the market, Like why would someone not
Speaker 1: sell it? You could deface it and change the appearance
Speaker 1: of it so it doesn't appear to be the same comic,
Speaker 1: and just sell it for a ton of money, even
Speaker 1: though a lot less than it was worth at the time,
Speaker 1: but still a lot of money. Easily and probably no
Speaker 1: one would think twice if it was defaced in some
Speaker 1: way to where it appeared to be a totally different
Speaker 1: because obviously there's quite a few copies out there altered.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. In two thousand two, Los Angeles art detective
Speaker 1: Donald Harrisik had a cold trail. He had interviewed at
Speaker 1: Cages employees and party guests. He'd spoken to dealers and
Speaker 1: kept an eye out for any sign of the books.
Speaker 1: Others had sworn they knew someone who knew something, who
Speaker 1: knew someone who had seen the Action number one, But
Speaker 1: even if they had, there was no telling whether it
Speaker 1: was cages copy. People wanted to be helpful, but the
Speaker 1: books were gone with the wind. The only thing Harresa
Speaker 1: had to go on was the fact that the sale
Speaker 1: of an Action number one would almost definitely make noise
Speaker 1: in the collector's market. You couldn't really sell a comic
Speaker 1: like that without a buyer asking a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: where did it come from, why are you selling? Who
Speaker 1: owned it before you did. It's all the stuff a
Speaker 1: seller like Southebys didn't have to worry about because their
Speaker 1: reputation preceded them by and large. You know what you're
Speaker 1: getting from a major auction house, they'll stand behind their items.
Speaker 1: That's also why it was highly unlikely cages Copy would
Speaker 1: ever find its way back to Sotheby's. The thief would
Speaker 1: be asked too many questions. If you really wanted to
Speaker 1: sell a stolen Action Number one, you try to do
Speaker 1: it as quietly as you possibly could. But being quiet
Speaker 1: can make a lot of noise. HARRESI got another tip,
Speaker 1: and this one felt different. Someone in Memphis was offering
Speaker 1: a copy of Action Comics Number one on the sly.
Speaker 1: This person wasn't looking to go through the normal channels
Speaker 1: of a Southebies or eBay. They wanted a cash transaction.
Speaker 1: How suspicious. If Sothebes represented the ideal way to legitimately
Speaker 1: sell the comic, a random dude in Memphis offering it
Speaker 1: to cash buyers represented the most bizarre. It was too
Speaker 1: peculiar to ignore. So Harresa hopped on a plane from
Speaker 1: Los Angeles to Memphis. If this was cages Copy, it
Speaker 1: made a certain amount of sense. You would never want
Speaker 1: to steal a book in California and try to sell
Speaker 1: it there. You'd want to go somewhere anywhere else. When
Speaker 1: he arrived in Memphis, Horre Sik met with detectives of
Speaker 1: the Memphis Police Department. They had a suspect in mind,
Speaker 1: who will refer to as Lex, because why not. Lex
Speaker 1: had been peddling Action Number one and other rare comics
Speaker 1: around town and via online classified sections. It certainly looked
Speaker 1: as though he had the real thing. Police had also
Speaker 1: been able to establish Lex had a safety deposit box
Speaker 1: at a local bank. This was where he had possibly
Speaker 1: shown the rare books to prospective customers. It was a
Speaker 1: very clean operation here. Sick and the Memphis p D
Speaker 1: requested a search warrant for the safety deposit box. He
Speaker 1: believed this could conceivably be cages copy and a chance
Speaker 1: to solve a theft for one of the most famous
Speaker 1: people in the country. It would mean more attention for
Speaker 1: the l a p d s Art detail, which was
Speaker 1: always criminally understaffed. Horresik had perhaps one partner at a time,
Speaker 1: and if this was the Action Number one, then Lex
Speaker 1: could possibly lead them to the others. The Detective number
Speaker 1: twenty seven and Detective number one get him in a
Speaker 1: room and sweat him out under the lamp with the
Speaker 1: adjustable arm. Maybe Lex would even get a break for
Speaker 1: telling them what he knew. Here, Sick and the Memphis
Speaker 1: p D believed they had enough probable cause to get
Speaker 1: the search warrant, and a judge agreed it was another
Speaker 1: step closer to figuring all of this out. On this
Speaker 1: fine day in Memphis, here Sick and Memphis police walked
Speaker 1: into the bank and produced a search warrant and were
Speaker 1: then led into a secure room. And while these boxes
Speaker 1: usually need two keys, the bank manager typically has a
Speaker 1: master set the whole let's open it together things, kind
Speaker 1: of theatrics. Inside of the privacy room, the key was
Speaker 1: slipped into the lock and the lid swung on a hinge.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like the briefcase in pulp fiction. Here,
Speaker 1: Sick the others peered inside. This could be it the end,
Speaker 1: and this would be a good time for a fake
Speaker 1: out that the box turned out to be empty and
Speaker 1: that the cops would be dejected. But that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: What stared back at them was in Action Comics number
Speaker 1: one case closed. Harrisik had solved plenty of art thefts,
Speaker 1: had recovered more than thirty one million dollars in art
Speaker 1: over the past several years, had found some Peanuts animation
Speaker 1: cells stolen from animator Bill Melendez seven thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: cells taken from his offices by the company handyman. He'd
Speaker 1: even found the Scarecrow's tap shoes from the Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: but this was something else, a whole new level of
Speaker 1: cultural archaeology. The cops gently picked up the book to
Speaker 1: get a closer look. It was as most rare comics,
Speaker 1: were wrapped in a plastic comic bag to protect it
Speaker 1: from dust and fingerprints. They examined the cover. It was
Speaker 1: all there, Superman hoisting a car directly over his head,
Speaker 1: people fleeing the scene. In the lower left was the
Speaker 1: infamous hysterical man, hands clasped at his temples like Kevin
Speaker 1: McAlister and home alone, beads of sweat ran down his forehead.
Speaker 1: He sure was scared, and wait, where were the beads
Speaker 1: of sweat? Now? It's possible Harrisik and the others didn't
Speaker 1: notice this right away. It might not have been until later.
Speaker 1: But if you knew action number one backward and forward,
Speaker 1: you'd be able to spot inconsistencies, like the fact the
Speaker 1: manic screaming man running away from Superman on the cover.
Speaker 1: It wasn't sweating, he was always sweating since the issue
Speaker 1: was first printed in night he had been sweating. He
Speaker 1: was afraid er Man was going to toss a car
Speaker 1: at him. It would make anyone hysterical, but not this guy,
Speaker 1: at least not this version of this guy. So had
Speaker 1: someone damaged the comic or had someone done something even
Speaker 1: more sinister alter it so it couldn't be positively identified
Speaker 1: as Cages? Why erase beads of sweat? That seemed more
Speaker 1: like a printing error than any subterfuge. Alright, so maybe
Speaker 1: this copy was a little bit of an anomaly. If anything,
Speaker 1: something as distinctive as lacking those sweatbeats would mean that
Speaker 1: if Cage or Fishler could prove his copy had the
Speaker 1: same defect, then they'd have a match. The cops opted
Speaker 1: to gently remove the comic from its protective bag. To
Speaker 1: their eyes, it still looked okay. They exchanged glances. Maybe
Speaker 1: this was the one, maybe the bus that would land
Speaker 1: here sick back in pages of the Los Angeles Times
Speaker 1: as the country's only art coup the case that the
Speaker 1: Memphis p D could share some of the glory. But
Speaker 1: then they began turning the pages and they didn't see Superman,
Speaker 1: not anywhere. Granted he was only in twelve pages of
Speaker 1: the comic sharing space with stories no one remembers, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't anywhere. There weren't any illustrations. Instead, the cops
Speaker 1: saw photographs of women clad in lingerie. The entire interior
Speaker 1: was a lingerie catalog, and if the inside was a
Speaker 1: lingerie catalog, that meant the cover was something else Entirely.
Speaker 1: They quickly figured it out. Lex had found an image
Speaker 1: of Action Number one online, saved it and printed it
Speaker 1: out as a color copy, and it was a good copy.
Speaker 1: But in the process, the beads of sweat on the
Speaker 1: guide freaking out didn't register on the printer. They were
Speaker 1: lost in the translation from digital image to hard copy.
Speaker 1: Lex was busted. The scam was too simple. When he
Speaker 1: found an interested party, he told them to never ever
Speaker 1: remove the comic from its protective bag, since exposing it
Speaker 1: to air might cause the ancient pages to turn brittle.
Speaker 1: If it worked, that might have bought Lex enough time
Speaker 1: to take off before being found out. This Action Number
Speaker 1: One was inside a Frederick's of Hollywood or Victoria's Secret Catalog.
Speaker 1: Harrisak had seen this before, a collector in bel Air
Speaker 1: Cage's Neck of the Woods once bought a painting by
Speaker 1: artist Andrew Zorne for five hundred thousand dollars. Someone stole it,
Speaker 1: but left something behind, a giant photograph of the painting,
Speaker 1: which the family didn't detect for some time, not until
Speaker 1: one of them touched it and realized it had no texture.
Speaker 1: In this case, the collector's butler did it, swiped the
Speaker 1: real thing for one he had blown up in a
Speaker 1: photo lab. Clever enough, but it turns out that it's
Speaker 1: exceptionally difficult to counterfeit a comic book. This wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time someone tried. The mafia, which loved to traffic
Speaker 1: and Alyssa Goods, floated the idea. We know because the
Speaker 1: FBI once put wire taps on the phones of mobster
Speaker 1: Paul Castellano and his associates in the nineteen eighties. Castellano
Speaker 1: was the boss of the Gambino crime family in New
Speaker 1: York City. They speculated that counterfeiting comics would be brilliant
Speaker 1: because no one else was doing it. But Castellano didn't
Speaker 1: get a chance to test his idea out. Big Paul,
Speaker 1: as he was known, was executed in the stream by
Speaker 1: other monsters in to do it convincingly would be a
Speaker 1: nearly impossible task. This isn't one image on canvas like
Speaker 1: a painting. This is sixty four pages, each one having
Speaker 1: to be identical in size, color, ink, and paper quality
Speaker 1: to the one produced in Now these scams persist even
Speaker 1: today in an arrow where comics are graded and sealed.
Speaker 1: Kick around on Facebook long enough and you might come
Speaker 1: across a copy of Action number one, Superman number one,
Speaker 1: or others that look very convincing, but they're not the
Speaker 1: real deal. They're usually reprints or what DC Comics called
Speaker 1: Famous First editions in the nineteen seventies. The outer cover
Speaker 1: indicates it's a modern book, but if a scammer takes
Speaker 1: that off, the inside more or less looks like the
Speaker 1: real thing. But they were also oversized by a few inches,
Speaker 1: both vertically and horizontally. So it wasn't cages copy, just
Speaker 1: a small time on from a small time command. And
Speaker 1: so Harrisik returned to Los Angeles. But that wasn't the
Speaker 1: end of the Memphis story, not exactly. Even though what
Speaker 1: was looking to be a promising lead for the Action
Speaker 1: Comics Number one was a bust, two thousand two was
Speaker 1: still a very eventful year. For Nicolas Cage. There had
Speaker 1: been a second break in the comic thefts case a
Speaker 1: former employee who was arrested for stealing from the actor.
Speaker 1: But when that shook out, all the men had taken
Speaker 1: were some watches, albeit some very expensive watches, and some booze.
Speaker 1: Not only didn't he take any comics, he wasn't under
Speaker 1: Cage's employee when the comics were stolen. In a separate incident,
Speaker 1: Cage had a porsteous stolen that one was found at
Speaker 1: the bottom of a lake in the Ozars a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars down the drain. In light of the other incidents,
Speaker 1: maybe he wondered if the same fate would greet his
Speaker 1: comics someone panicking and getting rid of them permanently. That
Speaker 1: was two dead ends in the comic world. But professionally
Speaker 1: Cage was doing well. He started in Adaptation and a Reverend,
Speaker 1: comedy about twin brothers and screenwriters trying to adapt The
Speaker 1: Orchid Thief, a true story about a horticulturist who steals
Speaker 1: rare and valuable orchids. The film is fictional, but Cage
Speaker 1: got a lot of positive attention for his dual roles.
Speaker 1: He was even nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.
Speaker 1: He was going to start shooting Gone in sixty Seconds,
Speaker 1: a car theft movie with Angelina Jolie. Heists were apparently
Speaker 1: not something he could get away from, or crimes for
Speaker 1: that matter. One movie he was set to make but
Speaker 1: never did was called Back Up, about a cop who
Speaker 1: comes back from the dead to solve his own murder.
Speaker 1: He was even getting set to direct his first feature film, Sonny,
Speaker 1: about a male hustler, with James Franco. The last big
Speaker 1: professional shift was departing from his longtime manager, a man
Speaker 1: named Jerry Harrington. While Cage was doing well, he hadn't
Speaker 1: been doing face off and conairwell and maybe wanted a
Speaker 1: fresh pair of eyes looking at his choices. The split
Speaker 1: may not have been amicable because Jerry believed Cage owed
Speaker 1: him some commissions for all of his highly paid acting gigs.
Speaker 1: That marked one separation, but there was also one union
Speaker 1: to Lisa Marie Pressley. In August of that year, the
Speaker 1: longstanding Elvis fan had married Elvis's daughter. There was something
Speaker 1: to the idea that Cage was undergoing a huge paradigm
Speaker 1: shift in his life. New marriage, new management, and new
Speaker 1: hobbies or no more old hobbies. Cage announced he was
Speaker 1: going to sell his comic book collection, his entire comic
Speaker 1: book collection, and the reason was interesting. Here's Bill Hughes again.
Speaker 1: I was told that when he got involved with Lisa Marie,
Speaker 1: when they were married for a year or whatever, she
Speaker 1: hated the comics and wanted to see the comics go.
Speaker 1: And a year later she was gone and the comics
Speaker 1: were gone. She didn't like the comic book she said,
Speaker 1: get rid of them, or get rid of me and whatever.
Speaker 1: So he got rid of the comics and then marriage
Speaker 1: didn't last anyways. But that's just what I was told.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of rare and exceptional issues he had spent years
Speaker 1: building up we're going to be put up for auction
Speaker 1: via Heritage, one of the industry's leading auction houses, and
Speaker 1: the person who helped broker the deal was Bill Hughes.
Speaker 1: Many of them were slabbed in c GC holders, those
Speaker 1: hard plastic cases that guarantee a comics condition. Bill decided
Speaker 1: which one stood to benefit the most from that additional providence,
Speaker 1: and because Cage was so famous, the c g C
Speaker 1: label would make mention that the copy up for sale
Speaker 1: came from the collection of Nicholas Cage. Whether he desired
Speaker 1: it or not, he had become one of the more
Speaker 1: notable collectors in the hobby, and maybe the fact that
Speaker 1: these books were once Cages could mean a little extra money.
Speaker 1: Bill Hughes helped arrange this massive comic book dump when
Speaker 1: the dealer he worked for, known as the Mint, partnered
Speaker 1: with Heritage. The idea was Cage could have twice the
Speaker 1: promotional power as well as the client lists of the
Speaker 1: two instead of just one dealer. It was like a
Speaker 1: superhero team up, only the team would get a percentage
Speaker 1: of the sales. While there were hundreds of books, there
Speaker 1: were a few Cage couldn't bear to part with, not
Speaker 1: even for Lisa Murray, if you believe that story. His
Speaker 1: horror comics. Ron had told me at the time that
Speaker 1: Cage didn't want to let go of his horror comics,
Speaker 1: that he had trains on his walls, shoal frames made
Speaker 1: to house each comic book down a long hallway. I've
Speaker 1: never been to his house, so I can only mentally
Speaker 1: visualize it, but he said there were a hundred and
Speaker 1: one frames and that's where the Action one was housed.
Speaker 1: During the party at his home when it was stolen,
Speaker 1: but after he had given up the comics for option
Speaker 1: that he had kept a hundred and one horror comics
Speaker 1: that he had in those frames down this long hallway
Speaker 1: at his home. The custom frames that had once held
Speaker 1: the rarest comics in the world, that had gone empty
Speaker 1: when they were stolen, were now being filled with horror comics.
Speaker 1: The old ec books that were once the subject of
Speaker 1: Senate subcommittee hearings in the nineteen fifties for being too
Speaker 1: violent were now Nicolas Cage's wallpaper. For some extra pomp
Speaker 1: and circumstance, The non horror comics were sold at Dallas
Speaker 1: Comic Con, a three day gathering of the biggest dealers
Speaker 1: and fans in Texas. Heritage was located there and a
Speaker 1: con seemed well suited for such a high profile sale.
Speaker 1: If one phase of Cages comic collecting it started in
Speaker 1: Southebys back in it ended at another auction in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. One by one the comics went under
Speaker 1: the gavel and cages cash register kept ringing. A copy
Speaker 1: of All Star Comics Number three went for a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five thousand, five hundred dollars. It was thought
Speaker 1: to be worth just forty five thousand dollars. A copy
Speaker 1: of Detective Comics number thirty eight, the first appearance of
Speaker 1: Robin the Boy Wonder, went for a hundred and twenty thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty dollars. That was nearly three times
Speaker 1: what it was estimated to be worth in price guides.
Speaker 1: The Nicolas Cage effect was apparently real. It always adds value.
Speaker 1: When when stan Lee started letting go of some of
Speaker 1: his Marvel comics also at Heritage, they went for huge numbers.
Speaker 1: They were very poor quality at the time, and Stanley
Speaker 1: had kept back his better copies and had just offered
Speaker 1: up his lesser copies. First, of course, the autographed him,
Speaker 1: and they went for huge numbers at the time, what
Speaker 1: was considered to be very aggressive numbers at the time,
Speaker 1: And it was just because of his affiliation, I mean
Speaker 1: the fact that they were part of his collection personally,
Speaker 1: same with Cage, that the books brought premiums for sure.
Speaker 1: Cage offered copies of Amazing Fantasy number fifteen, X Men
Speaker 1: number one, Green Lantern number one. It was a collector's
Speaker 1: paradise and on it went until over one point six
Speaker 1: million dollars had been spent on his books, well his
Speaker 1: former books. The overall auction, which also included comics from
Speaker 1: other sellers, brought in five point two million total, a
Speaker 1: new record for a comic auction. Cage had likely drawn
Speaker 1: interest even in books that didn't belong to him. As
Speaker 1: for that Lisa Marie story where she admonished him to
Speaker 1: get rid of his books, well, anything's possible. But we
Speaker 1: have to mention what Cage himself gave as the reason
Speaker 1: for why he decided to part with his vast collection,
Speaker 1: And it probably didn't have much to do with money. Sure,
Speaker 1: one point six million dollars is a fortune, but Cage
Speaker 1: was being paid twenty million for gone in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1: This wasn't someone finding some books in an attic he
Speaker 1: probably didn't have to sell them. It was because his
Speaker 1: four best comics had been stolen, and despite the best
Speaker 1: efforts of the l A. P. D. And one close
Speaker 1: call in Memphis, it didn't seem like they were going
Speaker 1: to ever find their way back to him. It hurt.
Speaker 1: He decided that it was time to part ways with
Speaker 1: the hobby that he had once enjoyed. What good were
Speaker 1: having comics if they had to be under armed security?
Speaker 1: Where was the fun in that, when asked about it
Speaker 1: at the time, Cage gave an answer that hinted at
Speaker 1: this sometimes. He said the things you own end up
Speaker 1: owning you, and that it was time to stop worshiping
Speaker 1: false idols. The Cage and Pressley union lasted just one
Speaker 1: hundred and eight days, Reportedly caged through Pressley's fifty six
Speaker 1: thousand dollar engagement ring into the ocean, Cage hired divers
Speaker 1: to try and find it, but with no luck, so
Speaker 1: he replaced it, going from a six carrot to a
Speaker 1: tend carrot ring. But ultimately it just wasn't meant to be.
Speaker 1: It was a strange year. The comic auction came in
Speaker 1: November towards the end, and it held one final surprise
Speaker 1: for anyone following this labyrinth mystery. Among the the hundreds
Speaker 1: of comics auctioned off at the Dallas Comic Con that
Speaker 1: belonged to Nicolas Cage was action comics. No one, now,
Speaker 1: where did that come from? And more importantly, why is
Speaker 1: a story this weird not a movie? Already? The heist
Speaker 1: of Nicholas Cage's Superman stash, Well it is, someone made it,
Speaker 1: but you'll probably never see it. For reasons You'll never
Speaker 1: believe that's next time I'm stealing Superman. Stealing Superman is
Speaker 1: written by Jake Rawson, Sound design, scoring and mixing by
Speaker 1: Josh Fisher, Additional editing by Jonathan Washington, Original music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser. Additional voices
Speaker 1: by Ruthie Stevens and Zarin Burnett. Research and fact checking
Speaker 1: by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson. With productions support from
Speaker 1: Lulu Philip. Show logo by Lucy Quintinia. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jason English and I'm your host Danish Sports. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this show, check out Haleywood and Noble Blood
Speaker 1: and give us a nice review. We'll see you next week.