Christopher Dennis was the famous Hollywood Boulevard Superman for 25 years.
But Dennis' life wasn't all flowing capes and photos with tourists.
His real-life story was often tragic, and it ended with an untimely death.
What kind of man just grabs a cape one day and spends the next quarter-century pretending
to be the greatest superhero of them all?
It's difficult to say.
There's little information about the childhood of Christopher Dennis, and the situation wasn't
exactly helped by Dennis himself, who seemingly preferred his past to be multiple choice.
He has been known to claim that he's an orphan, a fitting past for an aspiring superhero.
Dennis also insisted that he was an illegitimate love child of Sandy Dennis, the Academy Award-winning
actress.
Regardless of which story is true, if either, it seems likely that his formative years weren't
all that happy.
Dennis revealed his Superman origin story in an interview with the Superman Homepage,
saying he used to be an aspiring actor who found it difficult to juggle auditions with
his job as a waiter.
He was already an avid comic book merchandise collector, and when people started telling
him he looked like Christopher Reeve, a bold idea began taking hold.
One day, he was cast as a reporter with a Clark Kent-like appearance, and as a joke,
he put a Superman T-shirt underneath the suit.
When someone inevitably asked whether he has a Superman suit underneath, he ripped open
his shirt to magnificent effect.
Now confident that he could portray Superman in an entertaining fashion, Dennis ditched
his waiter job and started constructing his persona as the Superman of Hollywood Boulevard.
Unfortunately, the transition turned out to be quite painful, literally.
He constructed the costume bit by bit, and got so carried away with his quest for authenticity
that the only appropriate boots he could find were a way-too-small pair he found at a women's
specialty shoe store.
Until the size 12 Dennis could upgrade to better footwear, he spent his days standing
on the Boulevard smiling through the pain and bloodied toes those crushing boots were
causing him.
As the Hollywood Boulevard Superman's reputation grew, Christopher Dennis found his fame growing
well beyond the reach of your average street performer.
Dennis became a frequent face on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and even ended up on the cover of The
Hollywood Reporter with Kimmel.
Dennis was also the main focus of Confessions of a Superhero, a documentary about him and
three other street-side superheroes.
The documentary revealed the tragedy lurking beneath the veneer of his fake muscles and
all-American hero appearance.
Despite Dennis' apparent success and fame, Confessions of a Superhero shows parts of
his life that come across as much more dire.
Entertaining as it may be, street performing is not the most stable of jobs, and even the
most well-known performers might be secretly living in squalor, wrestling with demons.
One of Chris Dennis' demons was homelessness.
LA's Man of Steel used to live very close to his Hollywood Boulevard haunt, in an apartment
filled with Superman merchandise and DIY Man of Steel dioramas.
Unfortunately, at some point he lost the place and ended up on the street.
The conditions left him vulnerable.
Dennis claimed that he was beaten up and robbed during his homeless days, and described these
times as his, quote, "own living hell."
Dennis is far from the only Hollywood Boulevard "character worker" who has faced a similar
situation.
For many costumed panhandlers, their peculiar job is essentially the only lifeline they
have.
Dennis was no stranger to struggles, but the misfortunes he suffered in the last few years
of his life must have made that one of the most challenging periods.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, he claimed he was living in a motor home a few years
before his death, but the city decided to take it away.
Things only got worse for Dennis when a man allegedly beat him up with golf clubs and
robbed him of his costume, money, and laptop.
CBS Los Angeles tells us Dennis took these events extremely hard.
"It felt like I died.
Because to me, that was my livelihood."
Dennis struggled with addiction for years, and despite many attempts, he was never able
to fully kick his habit, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Combined with his homelessness and financial troubles, a crystal meth addiction reportedly
left him in a very unhealthy state of mind.
While most everyone who met him in his Superman guise found him charming and polite, Dennis
struggled with depression, and was even reportedly known to self-harm.
Eventually, Dennis stopped working the Boulevard, though he always wanted to return.
His costumed colleagues say they still saw him around after he left the game, though
they didn't always recognize him.
At that point, the former Superman had become a shadow of his old self.
A drug addiction can do terrible things to even the nicest of men.
While few people have gone on record with bad things to say about Dennis as a human
being, the Los Angeles Times tells us that his crystal meth habit, poverty, and a propensity
for tall tales may have stretched his credibility towards the end of his life.
There are those who say that his story about losing his RV and ending up homeless is untrue,
allegedly because he never even owned one.
Some even think that the tragic story of being robbed never happened, and that Dennis actually
lost his teeth to crystal meth.
It's worth noting that reports of his misfortunes often led to news coverage, which in turn
led to crowdfunding campaigns that sent thousands of dollars his way.
Some donors complained of promised rewards for their pledges that they never received.
Well-meaning people also kept buying him new Superman suits so he could at least regain
his means of employment.
"I got my new Superman outfit.
It’s amazing.
I got my teeth fixed.”
But one after another, the costumes reportedly disappeared... and if you ask the Boulevard
crew, these incidents allegedly tended to coincide with Dennis acquiring more meth.
On November 6, 2019, TMZ broke the news of Christopher Dennis' death, and that his body
had been found "lying headfirst" in a clothing donation bin.
The person who discovered Dennis was his partner Jennifer Masciopinto, whose wheelchair he
had borrowed to reach the clothes in the bin.
Masciopinto eventually clarified the circumstances that led to Hollywood Boulevard Superman's
untimely demise at 52.
Dennis had built a rope tool to get clothes from the donation bin, and used to stand on
her wheelchair to fish the garments out through the lever-operated slot.
Masciopinto usually accompanied him, but this time he decided to go alone and leave her
sleeping.
What happened next is anyone's guess: according to Masciopinto,
"Maybe he slipped.
Maybe he suffocated."
Confessions of a Superhero opens with Dennis saying:
"Hollywood is a place where dreams are made and dreams are broken."
And he appears to have believed that in the end, he could become one of the winners.
Dennis was familiar with the alleged "Superman Curse" that had befallen people associated
with Superman before him, and once stated in an interview for the Superman Homepage:
"I'm the mold that's gonna break that curse."
Unfortunately, this Man of Steel was all too human.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
That's 1-800-662-4357.