Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve (born 1952) is an actor who has worked on behalf of those with disabilities ever since he suffered an injury that left him a quadriplegic.

Inspirational, brave, determined this is how actor and activist Christopher Reeve has been described ever since a devastating accident in 1995 left him paralyzed from the neck down. Best known for his starring role in four Superman movies, Reeve saw his life change forever in a mere moment. His tireless efforts to secure funding for spinal cord research may one day lead to a cure for paralysis. "I think God sent Chris to be the man to do this because of his heart and courage and awareness and fight, " declared his longtime friend and fellow actor Mandy Patinkin in People magazine. "The ironies are unbelievable. He's more than Superman."

A native of Manhattan, Reeve was the oldest of two sons born to Franklin D. Reeve, a novelist, translator, and university professor, and Barbara Pitney Lamb Johnson, a journalist. Reeve's parents were divorced when he was about four years old and he moved with his mother and brother to Princeton, New Jersey. Although he grew up there amid affluence, following his mother's remarriage to a stockbroker, he nevertheless had to cope with the lingering anger and tension that characterized his parents' relationship.

Reeve would often pass the time away during his youth playing the piano, swimming, sailing, or engaging in some other solitary activity. And while he was still just a child around ten or so the stage began call. His very first role was in a Princeton theater company's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard, and after that experience, Reeve was hooked. Later, as a gawky teenager lacking in self-confidence, he found that acting helped him overcome his feelings of clumsiness and inadequacy. "[My life] was all just bits and pieces, " Reeve explained to Time magazine reporter Roger Rosenblatt. "You don't want to risk getting involved with people for fear that things are going to fall apart. That's why I found relief in playing characters. You knew where you were in fiction. You knew where you stood."

Reeve starred in virtually every stage production at his exclusive private high school and also spent the summer months immersed in the theater, either as a student or an actor. By the time he was sixteen, he was a bona fide professional with an Actors' Equity Association membership card and an agent.

After graduating from high school in 1970, Reeve attended Cornell University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and music theory in 1974. Meanwhile, he continued his drama education, serving as a backstage observer at both the Old Vic in London and the Comedie-Francaise in Paris before enrolling in the Juilliard School for Drama in New York City to pursue graduate studies.

Reeve's first major acting assignment came shortly after his graduation from Cornell when he joined the cast of the television soap opera "Love of Life." He remained with the program for two years, during which time he also performed on stage in the evenings with various New York City theater companies, including the Manhattan Theater Club and the Circle Repertory Company. Reeve made his Broadway debut in 1975 in the play A Matter of Gravity, an offbeat comedy starring Katharine Hepburn. Even though it received lackluster reviews and closed after only a few weeks, it provided Reeve with the opportunity to learn valuable lessons about his craft from one of the greatest actresses of the century.

Later that same year, Reeve headed to California and won his first movie role, a bit part in a 1978 nuclear submarine disaster movie titled Gray Lady Down. But when no other work was forthcoming, he returned to New York City and appeared in an off-Broadway play that opened in January 1977.

Then, to Reeve's surprise, Hollywood came calling with an offer to try out for the role of Superman in an upcoming film of the same title. (After approaching several big-name actors who turned them down or who just didn't suit the part, the project's producers and director had decided to go after an unknown.) At first, Reeve thought the idea was downright silly and very un-theatrical, but then he read the script and loved it. So when he was invited back for a screen test, he was determined to beat out the other hopefuls for the part. Reeve prepared for two solid weeks, experimenting with complete makeup and costume changes for both Superman and Clark Kent. He aced the screen test and the part was his.

Filming on Superman began in the spring of 1977 and took about eighteen months to complete, partly because of its technical complexity and certain logistical problems. When it premiered in December 1978, it met with almost universal critical acclaim and astounding box-office success. Suddenly, Reeve was a megastar with all of the baggage that entailed, including countless demands on his time, a total loss of privacy, and the danger of being typecast forever as the hunky "Man of Steel."

Deluged with offers, Reeve accepted a part in a low-budget romantic drama as his next project. Somewhere in Time, which also starred Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer, was released in 1980 to less-than-enthusiastic reviews and a lukewarm reception at the box office. Since then, however, it has developed a cult-like following among those who find its dreamy quality and pretty scenery irresistible.

Reeve's next project was Superman II, which he had agreed to do when he signed on for the first film. It, too, was spectacularly successful upon its debut in mid-1981, setting what was then a record by taking in five million dollars on a single day. The critics also liked it, with some even saying that it was better than the first movie.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Reeve enjoyed an increasingly busy film career. Besides reprising his most famous role in Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), which he also helped write, Reeve appeared in about a dozen other pictures, including Deathtrap (1982), Noises Off (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993), Speechless (1994), and Village of the Damned (1995). Reeve was also involved in a number of television productions during this same period, among them the movies Anna Karenina (1985), The Rose and the Jackal (1990), Death Dreams (1991), The Sea Wolf (1993), and Above Suspicion (1994). In addition, he appeared in several documentaries for which he served as host and narrator. He also appeared on Faerie Tale Theatre in a production of "Sleeping Beauty" and in an episode of Tales from the Crypt.

In between working in film and television, Reeve often returned to the stage, both on and off-Broadway and in regional venues such as the Williamstown (Massachusetts) Theatre. During the summer of 1980, for example, he appeared in Williamstown in The Cherry Orchard, The Front Page, and The Heiress. Later that same year, he opened on Broadway in the hit drama Fifth of July and remained with the cast for five months. He then returned to Williamstown in the summer of 1981 to perform in The Greeks. Reeve's subsequent stage appearances included The Aspern Papers in London in 1984 and New York productions of The Marriage of Figaro (1985) and Love Letters. In Williamstown, he performed in Holiday, John Brown's Body (1989) and The Guardsman (1992).

On May 27, 1995, Reeve's world was shattered in a matter of seconds when he was thrown from his horse head first during an equestrian competition in Virginia. The impact smashed the two upper vertebrae in his spine, leaving him completely paralyzed from the neck down and able to breathe only with assistance from a ventilator. Reeve remained in intensive care for five weeks as he fought off pneumonia, underwent surgery to fuse the broken vertebrae in his neck, and weathered several other life-threatening complications of his injury. Doctors initially gave him no more than a fifty percent chance of surviving. Once he was stabilized, he was then transferred from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility for six months of therapy and learning how to adjust to his paralysis.

With his characteristic grit and determination, Reeve set about the task of putting his life in order. He mastered the art of talking between breaths of his ventilator. He learned how to use his specialized wheelchair, which he commands by blowing puffs of air into a straw-like control device. Always hungry for the smallest sign of progress, he did countless exercises, competing against himself to improve and grow stronger. All the while, he later recalled, "You're sitting here fighting depression. You're in shock. You look out the window, and you can't believe where you are. And the thought that keeps going through your mind is, This can't be my life. There's been a mistake."'

Reeve astounded his friends and admirers by making his first public appearance on October 16, 1995, less than six months after his accident. The occasion was an awards dinner held by the Creative Coalition, an actors' advocacy organization he had helped establish. Reeve joked with the audience about what had happened to him and immediately put everyone at ease, then introduced his old friend Robin Williams, who was being honored for the work he had done on behalf of the group.

The awards dinner was just the beginning for Reeve, who has since channeled his considerable energies into a wide variety of endeavors. In March 1996, he appeared before a worldwide television audience at the Academy Awards to introduce a special segment on movies that display a social conscience. In August of that same year, Reeve was in Atlanta to serve as master of ceremonies at the Paralympic Games and then went on to Chicago, where he delivered an emotional opening-night speech to the Democratic National Convention. Reeve has also kept busy with countless speaking engagements, delivering motivational talks to eager audiences all over the country.

During the spring of 1996, Reeve took on his first acting job since his accident when he agreed to do the voice of King Arthur in an animated feature entitled The Quest for Camelot. Later that year, in the fall, he made a cameo appearance in the television movie A Step Toward Tomorrow playing a disabled patient who offers psychological support to a young man injured in a diving mishap. And in April 1997, Reeve demonstrated his talents behind the camera when he made his debut as a director of the Home Box Office (HBO) movie In the Gloaming about a family struggling to cope with the impending loss of a son to AIDS. Before his accident, Reeve was an activist on behalf of children's issues, human rights, the environment, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has since assumed the role of national spokesman for the disabled especially those people who, like him, have suffered spinal-cord injuries. As a famous actor and one of the most visible disabled people in the United States, Reeve is using his celebrity status not only to secure financial support for research but also to lobby for insurance reforms that would increase the lifetime benefits cap for catastrophic illnesses or injuries in employer-sponsored health plans from the industry average of $1 million to at least $10 million. He is also the founder of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which raises funds for biomedical research and acts as an advocate for the disabled, and serves as chairman of the American Paralysis Association.

Meanwhile, Reeve continues to cope with the daily trials and occasional triumphs related to his quadriplegia. "You don't want the condition to define you, " he once commented, "and yet it occupies your every thought." While he may never be completely free of his respirator, he does manage to go without it for several hours at a time. He can move his head and shrug his shoulders, and he reports some sensation in one of his legs and one of his forearms. He exercises regularly to keep his body flexible and to prevent his muscles from atrophying, noting that "the more I do, the more I can do." Yet Reeve must also deal with unpredictable spasms that send his body into embarrassing and potentially dangerous contortions, and in 1997 he was hospitalized twice for blood clots.

Reeve is determined to walk again; one of his fondest dreams, has him standing up on his fiftieth birthday in the year 2002 and offering a toast to all of the people who helped him get to that point. "When John Kennedy promised that by the end of the 1960s we would put a man on the moon, " Reeve told Rosenblatt of Time, "everybody, including the scientists, shook their heads in dismay. But we did it. We can cure spinal-cord injuries too, if there's the will. What was possible in outer space is possible in inner space."

Further Reading

Reeve, Christopher, Still Me, Random House, 1998.

Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1993; June 3, 1996.

Entertainment Weekly, November 15, 1996.

Good Housekeeping, August 1997.

Ladies' Home Journal, April 1996.

McCall's, September 1987; January 1991.

Newsweek, June 12, 1995, p. 43; July 1, 1996, p. 56.

New York Times, June 1, 1995; June 2, 1995; June 6, 1995; October 17, 1995; June 2, 1996; October 31, 1996.

People, June 12, 1995; June 26, 1995, pp. 55-56; December 25, 1995-January 1, 1996, pp. 52-53; April 15, 1996; December 30, 1996, p. 71; January 27, 1997, pp. 82-86.

Time, August 26, 1996, pp. 40-52.

REEVE, Christopher

Nationality: American. Born: New York City, 25 September 1952. Education: Graduated from Princeton Day School, 1970; graduated from Cornell University, 1974; attended Julliard School. Family: Began domestic partnership with the advertising executive Gae Exton, 1977 (partnership ended 1987); married the singer-actress Dana Morosini, 1992, sons: Matthew and Will, daughter: Alexandra. Career: First appeared on television in the soap opera Love of Life, 1974–76; made his Broadway debut in A Matter of Gravity, 1976; founded Christopher Reeve Foundation, 1996 (merged with the American Paralysis Association in 1999 to become the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation); named Vice President, National Organization on Disability, 1997. Awards: British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Best Newcomer Award, 1979; special Obie Award "for his courageous work on behalf of Chilean artists," 1988; Walter Briehl Human Rights Foundation Award, 1988; Emmy, Outstanding Informational Special, for Without Pity: A Film about Abilities, 1996; Screen Actors Guild Award, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries, for Rear Window, 1998. Agent: Betsy Berg, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A. Address: Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, 500 Morris Ave., Springfield, NJ 07081, U.S.A.

Films as Actor:

1978

Gray Lady Down (Greene) (as Phillips); Superman (Donner)(title role)

1980

Superman II (Lester) (title role); Somewhere in Time (Szwarc)(as Richard Collier)

1982

Deathtrap (Lumet) (as Clifford Anderson); Monsignor (Perry)(as Flaherty)

1983

Superman III (Lester) (title role)

1984

The Bostonians (Ivory) (as Basil Ransome)

1985

The Aviator (Miller) (as Edgar Anscombe); Anna Karenina(Langton—for TV) (as Count Vronsky)

1987

Street Smart (Schatzberg) (as Jonathan Fisher); The Grand Knockout Tournament (Hughes—for TV) (as himself);Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (Furie) (title role)(+ co-story, second-unit direction)

1988

Switching Channels (Kotcheff) (as Blaine Bingham); The Great Escape II: The Untold Story (Nader—for TV) (as Major John Dodge)

1990

The Rose and the Jackal (Gold—for TV) (as Allan Pinkerton);Fear and the Muse: The Story of Anna Akhmatova (Janows)(Narrator)

1991

Bump in the Night (Arthur—for TV) (as Lawrence Muller);Death Dreams (Donovan—for TV) (as George Westfield)

1992

Noises Off (Bogdanovich) (as Frederick Dallas and Philip Brent); Mortal Sins (May—for TV) (as Father Thomas Cusack); Nightmare in the Daylight (for TV) (as Sean)

1993

Morning Glory (Stern) (as Will Parker); The Sea Wolf(Anderson—for TV) (as Humphrey Van Weyden); The Remains of the Day (Ivory) (as Lewis)

1994

Speechless (Underwood) (as Bob "Bagdad" Freed); Black Fox: The Price of Peace (Stern—for TV) (as Alan John-son); Black Fox: Blood Horse (Stern—for TV) (as Alan Johnson); Black Fox: Good Men and Bad (Stern—for TV)(as Alan Johnson)

1995

Village of the Damned (Carpenter) (as Alan Chaffee); Above Suspicion (Schachter) (as Dempsey Cain)

1996

Without Pity: A Film about Abilities (Mierendorf—for TV)(doc) (Narrator); Nine (Hays) (anim) (as Thurston Last); A Step toward Tomorrow (Reinisch) (as Denny Gabrial); The Toughest Break (for TV) (doc) (Narrator)

1998

Rear Window (Bleckner—for TV) (as Jason Kemp) (+ exec)

Other Films:

1997

In the Gloaming (for TV) (d); Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope (for TV) (exec)

Publications

By REEVE: book—

Still Me: A Life, New York, 1998.

By REEVE: articles—

"A Down-to-Earth Actor . . . A Soaring Superstar," interview with Linda Watson, in Teen Magazine (New York), June 1983.

"Eat Your Heart Out, Lois," interview with Jeannie Park, in People Weekly (New York), 20 April 1992.

"He Will Not Be Broken," interview with Michelle Green, in People Weekly (New York), 15 April 1996.

"Local Hero," interview with Karen Schneider, in People Weekly, 27 January 1997.

"Reeve's Super Struggle," interview with Nancy Shute, in U.S. News & World Report (New York), 11 May 1998.

"In Step with Christopher Reeve," interview with James Brady, in Parade, 22 November 1998.

On REEVE: books—

Havill, Adrian, Man of Steel: The Career and Courage of Christopher Reeve, New York, 1996.

Reeve, Dana, Care Packages: Letters to Christopher Reeve from Strangers and Other Friends, New York, 1999.

On REEVE: articles—

Rosenblatt, Roger, "New Hopes, New Dreams," Time (New York), 26 August 1996.

Roberts, Jerry, "Peers Pile Praise on Reeve," Variety (New York), 29 September 1997.

Smith, Dinitia, "A Life Before and a Life After," New York Times, 30 April 1998.

Schwarzbaum, Lisa, "A Steely View," Entertainment Weekly (New York), 8 May 1998.

Prager, Joshua, "Superman Transforms Spinal Research," Wall Street Journal (New York), 18 November 1998.

Rudolph, Ileane, "Still Super," TV Guide (Radnor, PA), 21 November 1998.

Smolowe, Jill, "Christopher Reeve," People Weekly (New York), 15 March 1999.

Gallagher, Leigh, "Man of Spiel," Forbes (New York), 22 March 1999.

Jenish, D'Arcy, "Man of Steely Determination," Maclean's (Toronto), 7 June 1999.

Younis, Steven, "Biography," Christopher Reeve Homepage www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/4071. April 2000.

When a tall and gangly 15-year-old named Christopher Reeve joined a summer stock company in Williamstown, Massachusetts, thereby embarking on a professional acting career, he had no idea that he would become world famous for two very different reasons: enacting a comic book character in the movies, and dedicating his formidable energies to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries. Despite Reeve's varied career on stage and the large and small screens, two images—simultaneously contradictory and complementary—will forever define him in the public imagination: Reeve in the familiar blue-and-red costume of Superman, and Reeve seated in a wheelchair.

Reeve's early experiences at the Williamstown Theater Festival quickly led to other professional acting opportunities. He took time off after high school to join a national touring company and performed opposite Celeste Holm in the Hugh and Margaret Williams comedy The Irregular Verb to Love. He enrolled as an English major at Cornell shortly after the tour and continued to act in professional plays as his schedule permitted. He studied at the famed Julliard School in New York City during his final collegiate year and, to help his bills, landed a recurring role in the TV soap opera Love of Life. He debuted on Broadway opposite Katharine Hepburn in A Matter of Gravity in 1976, and soon thereafter traveled to Hollywood and secured a minor role in his first film: the Charlton Heston vehicle, Gray Lady Down. Reeve's acting experiences before the camera were thus relatively limited when he auditioned for the role that would catapult him into worldwide stardom: Clark Kent of the Superman movies. As Tom Mankiewicz, the co-writer of the first two Superman movies remembered, "Chris was tall, good looking and nervous. He was perspiring and, well, that doesn't go over real well if you're supposed to be Superman. Then he hopped up on the edge of a balcony, looked at Margot Kidder and said, 'Good evening, Miss Lane.' Geoffrey Unsworth, the cinematographer, turned to me in that moment and whispered, 'Oh, thank god!' It was just one of those fits. We had our Superman." At 6' 4," Reeve weighed only 189 pounds at the time of his audition, but a rigorous program of exercise and diet enabled him to add thirty pounds before the cameras rolled. He explained why he was chosen for the role in typical self-deprecating fashion: "Ninety percent of why I have the part is because, when the makeup is done, I look like I walked right out of the comic book. The other ten percent, I hope, is my acting ability."

Internationally famous as a result of his Superman role in four films, the handsome and athletic Reeve insisted on maintaining a stage acting career and alternated his movie schedule with frequent appearances in Williamstown productions and other shows. His post-Superman stage work has included roles in Fifth of July (1980), The Aspern Papers (London, 1984), The Marriage of Figaro (New York, 1985), Summer and Smoke (Los Angeles, 1988), and A Winter's Tale (New York, 1989). He has also been a frequent guest on television, often playing himself on such programs as The Muppet Show in 1979, The Carol Burnett Show in 1991, and The Unpleasant World of Penn and Teller in 1994.

Despite the pressure to keep playing "good guy" movie roles, Reeve began playing characters far removed from Clark Kent, with his performances as Basil Ransome in The Bostonians, Jonathan Fisher in Street Smart, and Lewis in Remains of the Day among his best. Sidney Lumet, who directed him in Deathtrap, said Reeve "was always an arresting talent and did first-class work from the beginning. . . . There was real courage evident in him as an actor. What was always startling to me is this assumption that people who play serial parts—Superman or James Bond—can only play those parts. Chris Reeve is the perfect example of the antidote to that assumption."

Though he never again hit the heights of popularity that he achieved with the Superman movies, Reeve was pursuing a solid movie and stage career when an accident changed his life forever. On 27 May 1995, he was thrown head first from a horse during a competition near Charlottesville, Virginia, and the accident instantly rendered him a quadriplegic. With commentators writing endlessly about the ironies, the actor best known for playing the virtually invulnerable "Man of Steel" in the movies soon became the most famous disabled person on the planet.

Reeve refused to let his profound injury stop his movie and television career. "I would say I'm making the best of a bad situation," he said in 1997. "Much has been lost. But it doesn't serve any purpose to dwell on it." His post-injury successes have included his first stint as a director (for the HBO film In the Gloaming, which won four Cable/ACE awards including Best Dramatic or Theatrical Special) and the role of Jason Kemp in the television remake of the Hitchcock classic, Rear Window. He also caused considerable controversy in early 2000 when he performed in a Nuveen Investments television commercial in which, through special effects wizardry, he appeared to walk.

In the years since his accident, Reeve has worked tirelessly to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. "Now that I'm in the club," he said with reference to his own injury, "my job is to increase awareness and funding for research." An expert lobbyist and longtime social activist, he averages more than 40 speaking engagements a year and has raised millions for his nonprofit organization, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. Though his ceaseless quest for a cure has alienated some disability-rights activists (who see the goal as quixotic and completely unrelated to the day-to-day realities of disabled people), Reeve has remained adamant in his belief that a cure will be found: "Curing paralysis—which will happen, it's just a question of time—will be one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. It will even dwarf the landing on the moon."

—Martin F. Norden

Reeve, Christopher

(b. 25 September 1952 in New York City; d. 10 October 2004 in Mount Kisco, New York), stage, screen, and television actor known for his portrayal of Superman and who became an activist on behalf of persons with spinal cord injuries.

Reeve was the elder of the two sons of Franklin d’Olier Reeve, a professor, poet, activist, and writer, and Barbara Pitney Lamb, a journalist. In the spring of 1962, at age nine, Reeve auditioned for and won a bit part in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard, presented at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. The theater company became a second family for Reeve and gave him a calling for life. At McCarter, Reeve worked both on stage and off, performed with and learned from stage veterans, and grew into increasingly substantive roles. At age fifteen Reeve was accepted as an apprentice at the Williams town Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. He performed there for fourteen seasons, even at the height of his film career.

Reeve went to high school at Princeton Country Day School (renamed Princeton Day School). At Cornell University, Reeve majored in music theory and English, but his experience in the theater department was more valuable to him. In the fall of 1973 Reeve was accepted by the producer, director, and actor John Houseman for the advanced program in the drama division of the Juilliard School. Through an agreement with Cornell, Reeve’s first year in the Juilliard program was credited toward the completion of his undergraduate education. He was thus awarded his BA from Cornell in 1974.

At Juilliard, Reeve attracted the attention of his peers and professors, which opened doors to him in New York’s competitive theater scene. Reeve’s first break came in the summer of 1974, when he was cast as the lovable bad guy Ben Harper in the Columbia Broadcasting System soap opera Love of Life. From February to April 1976 Reeve played the coveted second lead role opposite Katharine Hepburn in A Matter of Gravity during the show’s New York City run. The play gained Reeve favorable notice and prominence. When it closed, Reeve went to Los Angeles to explore his options in film. He accepted a small role in the disaster film Gray Lady Down (1978), but frustrated in finding more work, he returned to New York City to resume his career on stage. Within weeks he won a role with the Circle Repertory Company in My Life by Corinne Jaecker.

In 1977 Reeve was invited to audition for the lead role in Superman (1978), a motion picture by a major studio with a screenplay by the novelist Mario Puzo and a cast that included several Hollywood stars. Reeve’s honest and captivating portrayal of the iconic hero and his alter ego, the reporter Clark Kent, ennobled this American myth for a new generation of movie lovers. With the popularity of Superman, Reeve was thrust into Hollywood stardom. He enjoyed global recognition and suddenly had more work than he could handle in television, stage, and film. Reeve’s work, including the Superman sequels, was uneven, yet he remained meticulous and humble. Among Reeve’s achievements were the love-struck writer Richard Collier in Somewhere in Time (1980); a nimble interpretation of the manipulative playwright Clifford Anderson in the film adaptation of Ira Levin’s play Deathtrap (1982); an illuminating portrayal of Basil Ransom, an impenitent sexist in love with a vivacious New England feminist in The Bostonians (1984); the unethical journalist Jonathan Fisher in Street Smart (1987); the forceful Congressman Lewis in The Remains of the Day (1993); and a chilling portrait of Demsey Cain, a former police officer planning a murder, in Above Suspicion (1995).

In London for the filming of the first two Superman films, Reeve met and began a relationship with the British modeling executive Gae Exton. The couple had two children but never married. The relationship ended in February 1987. In the summer after his separation from Exton, Reeve returned to the Williamstown Theatre Festival. On 30 June he attended a cabaret and spotted on stage the actress and singer Dana Morosini. The couple married on 11 April 1992 in Williamstown and had one child.

Reeve balanced his professional activities with his interests in flying, sailing, skiing, and horseback riding. He began riding seriously during the filming of a television version of Anna Karenina (1985) and became a competitive jumper. During a competition on 27 May 1995 in Culpeper, Virginia, Reeve’s horse balked at a jump. With his hands entangled in the reins, Reeve pitched forward and struck his head on the rail and then the hard turf. His spinal column snapped at the level of the highest cervical vertebra, and the skull separated from the spinal cord. Reeve awoke on 1 June 1995 quadriplegic and dependent on a mechanical ventilator. After a month in intensive care at the University of Virginia Medical Center, Reeve was transferred to the Kessler Rehabilitation Institute in West Orange, New Jersey, for therapy and preparation to return home.

Reeve was a high achiever in his professional and sporting life and proved himself likewise in his rehabilitation. Highly self-disciplined, he maintained a strict diet to control his weight, undertook a daily three-to-four-hour regimen of activity-dependent therapy, and “willed” his body to remain healthy and whole in preparation to walk again. Years after the injury Reeve regained limited voluntary movement in the extremities and the ability to breathe without the ventilator for short periods. He became a symbol of hope, an advocate for persons with spinal cord injuries, and a spokesperson for the advancement of medical research on disorders of the central nervous system.

An activist and a liberal Democrat, Reeve opposed the Vietnam War and fought for protection of the environment. In the fall of 1987 he traveled to Chile and risked his life in support of seventy-seven Chilean actors threatened with execution by the Pinochet regime. Reeve was a cofounder of the Creative Coalition, which defended the National Endowment for the Arts and launched an initiative to protect the New York City water supply. After his injury Reeve worked to boost funding for the American Paralysis Association. Reeve set aside political differences and worked with legislators from both parties successfully to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health but unsuccessfully to raise the insurance cap for persons with catastrophic illnesses. In 1996 Reeve founded the Christopher Reeve Foundation to raise funds for medical research on spinal cord injuries and in 1999 became chairman of the board. He spoke on national health issues at the 1996 Democratic National Convention and was a proponent of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. On 3 May 2002 the Reeves opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, an information clearing house.

Reeve was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the National Courage Award, a special Obie Award, the annual award of the Walter Briehl Human Rights Foundation for his service in Chile, the Lasker Award for Public Service in Support of Medical Research, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries for his performance in Rear Window (1998), a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his audio book recording of Still Me (1998), honorary degrees, and on 15 April 1997 a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Although advocacy was his principal activity after his accident, Reeve also maintained a busy schedule of speaking engagements and continued his work in film. His directorial debut, the television film In the Gloaming (1997), garnered five Emmy Award nominations and won four CableACE Awards, including Best Dramatic or Theatrical Special. Reeve’s autobiography, Still Me (1998), and his memoir, Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life (2002), were New York Times best-sellers. On 9 October 2004 Reeve fell into a coma as a result of an adverse reaction to a drug used to control a systemic infection caused by a pressure wound. The following day in Mount Kisco, Reeve died of heart failure. His remains were cremated and his ashes scattered by his family.

Reeve’s characterizations were studied and penetrating, his timing precise, and his diction impeccable. He was intrepid, always testing his limits but never careless. He was also an accomplished pianist and a fine writer. He transcended the overwhelming challenges he faced with honesty, generosity, humility, and grace. He survived his injury long enough to see that he inspired many people through his example. Reeve was not only a cinematic superman but the embodiment of courage.

Reeve’s life and career are detailed in Adrian Havill, Man of Steel: The Career and Courage of Christopher Reeve (1996). Dana Reeve, Care Packages: Letters to Christopher Reeve from Strangers and Other Friends (1999), is a compilation of letters that inspired Reeve after his injury, accompanied by commentary by his wife. Jeffrey Klugar, “He Never Gave Up,” Time (25 Oct. 2004) describes Reeve’s influence on the management of spinal cord injuries. Obituaries are in the New York Times and Washington Post (both 12 Oct. 2004) and the Lancet (13 Nov. 2004).

Robert J. Chabora

Christopher Reeve

Born: September 25, 1952
New York, New York
American actor and activist

Best known for the lead role in Superman, Christopher Reeve has dedicated his life to those with disabilities ever since he suffered an injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Rise to stardom

Christopher Reeve was born September 25, 1952, the oldest of two sons born to Franklin D. Reeve, a novelist, translator, and university professor, and Barbara Pitney Lamb Johnson, a journalist. Reeve's parents were divorced when he was about four years old, and he moved with his mother and brother to Princeton, New Jersey. Although he enjoyed a privileged childhood following his mother's remarriage to a stockbroker, he nevertheless had to cope with the anger and tension that characterized his parents' relationship.

Reeve would often pass the time during his youth playing the piano, swimming, sailing, or engaging in some other similar activity. While he was still just a child around ten or so the stage began to call. His very first role was in a Princeton theater company's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard, and after that experience, Reeve was hooked. Later, as a gawky teenager lacking in self-confidence, he found that acting helped him overcome his feelings of clumsiness and insecurity. Reeve starred in virtually every stage production at his exclusive private high school and also spent the summer months immersed in the theater, either as a student or an actor. By the time he was sixteen, he was a true professional with an Actors' Equity Association membership card and an agent.

After graduating from high school in 1970, Reeve attended Cornell University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and music theory in 1974. Meanwhile, he continued his drama education, serving as a backstage observer at both the Old Vic in London, England, and the Comedie-Francaise in Paris, France, before enrolling in the Juilliard School for Drama in New York City to pursue graduate studies.

Reeve's first major acting assignment came shortly after his graduation from Cornell when he joined the cast of the television soap opera Love of Life. He remained with the program for two years, during which time he also performed on stage in the evenings with various New York City theater companies, including the Manhattan Theater Club and the Circle Repertory Company. In 1975 Reeve headed to California and won his first movie role, a bit part in a 1978 nuclear submarine disaster movie titled Gray Lady Down. But when no other work was forthcoming, he returned to New York City and appeared in an off-Broadway play that opened in January 1977.

Superman

Then, to Reeve's surprise, Hollywood came calling with an offer to try out for the role of Superman in an upcoming film of the same title. At first, Reeve thought the idea was downright silly and very untheatrical, but when he read the script, he loved it. When Superman premiered in December 1978, it met with almost universal critical praise and box-office success. Suddenly, Reeve was a megastar with all of the baggage that entailed, including countless demands on his time, a total loss of privacy, and the danger of being offered only similar roles to the "Man of Steel."

Superman II, which Reeve had agreed to do when he signed on for the first film, was spectacularly successful upon its debut in mid-1981. The critics also liked it, with some even saying that it was better than the first movie. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Reeve enjoyed an increasingly busy film career. Besides reprising his most famous role in Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), which he also helped write, Reeve appeared in about a dozen other pictures, including Deathtrap (1982), Noises Off (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993), and Village of the Damned (1995).

Tragedy strikes the Man of Steel

On May 27, 1995, Reeve's world was shattered in a matter of seconds when he was thrown from his horse head first during an equestrian competition in Virginia. The impact smashed the two upper vertebrae in his spine, leaving him completely paralyzed from the neck down and able to breathe only with assistance from a ventilator. Reeve remained in intensive care for five weeks as he fought off sickness, underwent surgery to fuse the broken vertebrae in his neck, and weathered several other life-threatening complications of his injury.

With Reeve's characteristic grit and determination, he set about the task of putting his life in order. He mastered the art of talking between breaths of his ventilator. He learned how to use his specialized wheel-chair, which he commands by blowing puffs of air into a straw-like control device. Always hungry for the smallest sign of progress, he did countless exercises, competing against himself to improve and grow stronger.

Reeve astounded his friends and admirers by making his first public appearance on October 16, 1995, less than six months after his accident. The occasion was an awards dinner held by the Creative Coalition, an actors' advocacy organization he had helped establish. Reeve joked with the audience about what had happened to him and immediately put everyone at ease, then introduced his old friend Robin Williams (1952–), who was being honored for the work he had done on behalf of the group.

Facing the future

The awards dinner was just the beginning for Reeve, who has since channeled his considerable energies into a wide variety of endeavors. Before his accident, Reeve was an activist on behalf of children's issues, human rights, the environment, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). He has since assumed the role of national spokesman for the disabled, especially those people who, like him, have suffered spinal-cord injuries. He is also the founder of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which raises funds for biomedical research and acts as a champion for the disabled, and serves as chairman of the American Paralysis Association.

Meanwhile, Reeve continues to cope with the daily trials and occasional triumphs related to his quadriplegia, or being paralyzed from the neck down. "You don't want the condition to define you," he once commented, "and yet it occupies your every thought." While he may never be completely free of his respirator (a device to help one breath), he does manage to go without it for several hours at a time. He can move his head and shrug his shoulders, and he reports some movement and sensation in his hands and feet.

Reeve is determined to walk again; one of his fondest dreams has been to stand up on his fiftieth birthday in 2002 and offer a toast to all of the people who helped him get to that point. "When John Kennedy promised that by the end of the 1960s we would put a man on the moon," Reeve told Time magazine, "everybody, including the scientists, shook their heads in dismay. But we did it. We can cure spinal-cord injuries too, if there's the will. What was possible in outer space is possible in inner space."

Christopher Reeve, husband to Dana Morisini since 1992, is the father of three children. He continues to be an inspiration to many, frequently traveling across the world to speak and to support various groups and organizations.

For More Information

Havill, Adrian. Man of Steel: The Career and Courage of Christopher Reeve. New York: Signet, 1996.

Nickson, Chris. Superhero: A Biography of Christopher Reeve. New York: St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne, 1998.

Reeve, Christopher. Still Me. New York: Random House, 1998.