Telly Savalas' '70s TV Detective Kojak Nearly Appeared In A Classic Movie

Roguish TV detective Kojak spent most of his days catching crooks on the streets of New York — but at one point in the late 1970s, he almost journeyed to Metropolis for an encounter with a very different kind of crimefighter.

Early on in the development of Richard Donner's 1978 movie "Superman," the script called for the Man of Steel to bump into none other than Telly Savalas — or possibly even Kojak himself — on the streets of Metropolis. This draft of the "Superman" script was written by "The Godfather" screenwriter Mario Puzo, who produced a vast 500-page screenplay that was intended to be produced as "Superman" and "Superman II." 

As the development process continued, Robert Benton and David Newman — and later, Newman's wife, Leslie Newman — were brought in to rewrite and trim down Puzo's script. This new draft was campier than Puzo's and featured a scene in which Superman, while searching for Lex Luthor, spots a bald man in a suit on the streets of Metropolis. Swooping down to confront him, Superman is faced with Telly Savalas, referred to by his real name in the script, though behaving decidedly like the main character in his iconic police procedural series. Savalas is seen with one of Kojak's trademark lollipops and even greets Superman with the character's catchphrase, "Who loves ya, baby?"

Kojak's "Superman" cameo obviously never made it to the screen. Director Richard Donner was unhappy with the campier tone in the script by Benton, Newman, and Newman, and Savalas' cameo as Kojak was reportedly one of the moments he was particularly displeased with. To get "Superman" back on track, Donner brought screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz on board to rewrite the script once more, resulting in the version of "Superman" that was ultimately immortalized on screen.

It's not hard to see why some of the early "Superman" writers might have been tempted to take the superhero screenplay in a more comedic direction. At the time the movie entered preproduction in the mid-1970s, the last major live-action comic book adaptation had been Adam West's "Batman," a superhero spoof that embraced camp comedy. That series regularly featured celebrity cameos in the form of guest stars poking their heads out of windows as Batman and Robin scaled buildings, and Savalas' planned "Superman" cameo wouldn't have been a far cry from the Dynamic Duo's celebrity encounters.

By the time "Superman" hit the big screen in December 1978, "Kojak" had already aired its last episode, with the series concluding just a few months before Christopher Reeve's Superman made his debut appearance. Even though Savalas missed out on an appearance in the DC Comics adaptation, he still got to reprise the role of Kojak in seven TV movies, starting with 1985's "Kojak: The Belarus File" and concluding in 1990's "Kojak: None So Blind."