Christopher Reeve — Superman from Metropolis
A native of Manhattan, Christopher 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. From a young age, Reeve loved acting. He and brother Benjamin acted out their own stories. A favorite game was pirates with cardboard boxes as ships. “To us they became pirate ships simply because we said they were,” Reeve said. Hanging on to that simple ability to pretend, he said, was an important part of being a good actor.
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.”
Cornell years
After graduating from Princeton Day School in June 1970, Reeve acted in plays in Boothbay, Maine. He planned to go to New York City to find a career in theater. Ultimately, however, at the advice of his mother, he applied for college. He was accepted into Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, and Princeton. Reeve said that he chose Cornell primarily because it was distanced from New York City and because of the temptations of working as an actor immediately versus finishing college, as he had promised his mother and step-father. Reeve joined the theater department in Cornell, and played Pozzo in Waiting for Godot, Segismundo in Life Is a Dream, Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale.
Late in his freshman year, Reeve received a letter from Stark Hesseltine, a high-powered New York City agent who had discovered Robert Redford and who represented actors such as Richard Chamberlain, Michael Douglas, and Susan Sarandon. The two met, but Reeve was surprised to find that Hesseltine strongly supported his promise to his mother and step-father to complete college. They decided that instead of dropping out of school, Reeve would come to New York once a month to meet casting agents and producers to find work for the summer vacation.
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.Christopher Reeve
Reeve received favorable responses to his introductions and auditions arranged by Hesseltine but had to forgo several desirable opportunities because they began before school ended. That summer, he toured in a production of Forty Carats with Eleanor Parker. The next year, Reeve received a full summer contract with the San Diego Shakespeare Festival, with roles as Edward IV in Richard III, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Dumaine in Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Old Globe Theatre.
Before his third year of college, Reeve took a three-month leave of absence. He flew to Glasgow and saw theatrical productions throughout the United Kingdom. The actors inspired him, and he often had conversations with them in bars after the performances.
Juilliard and Robin Williams
After returning to the U.S. from Europe, Reeve chose to focus solely on acting, although Cornell University had several general education requirements for graduation that he had yet to complete. He managed to convince theater director Jim Clause and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences that, as a theater major, he would achieve more at Juilliard than at Cornell. They agreed that his first year at Juilliard would be counted as his senior year at Cornell.
In 1973, approximately 2000 students auditioned for 20 places in the freshman class at Juilliard. Reeve’s audition was in front of 10 faculty members, including John Houseman, who had just won an Academy Award for The Paper Chase. Reeve and Robin Williams were the only students selected for Juilliard’s Advanced Program. They had several classes together in which they were the only students. Williams and Reeve developed a close friendship.
The original Superman
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.
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. 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.
When Superman premiered in December 1978, it met with almost universal critical praise and box-office success. The film grossed $300,218,018 worldwide. 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.”
I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.Christopher Reeve
Reeve’s next big 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. In between working in film and television, Reeve often returned to the stage, both on and off-Broadway and in regional venues.
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.
Later, after Dana left, Reeve was lying alone in the hospital with his “dark thoughts.”
Suddenly, a doctor walked into Reeve’s hospital room and yelled “Turn over!” The surprised Reeve uttered “What?” — he was paralyzed, and clearly couldn’t turn over. But again the doctor repeated, “Turn over!”
Reeve was about to call a nurse, when he realized that this was no doctor. This was Robin Williams — his old friend from Juilliard.
And at that moment, Reeve started to laugh. He later told Walters, “I knew then: if I could laugh, I could live.”
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, who was being honored for the work he had done on behalf of the group.
Reeve continued to work after ongoing rehabilitation. He acted again in films, including a television production of Rear Window (1998) and directed two television films with health themes, In the Gloaming (1997) and The Brooke Ellison Story (2004). His autobiography Still Me appeared in 1998.
Christopher Reeve, the Philantropist
Reeve used his celebrity status for several philanthropic causes throughout his lifetime. He was a part of various charitable organizations and campaigns. Following his injury, he became involved in campaigns supporting handicapped children and paraplegics. In 1998, he founded the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation (now Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation) to promote research into spinal cord injuries. He even lobbied for expanded federal funding on embryonic stem cell research.
Reeve was elected Chairman of the American Paralysis Association and Vice Chairman of the National Organization on Disability. He co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center which is now one of the leading spinal cord research centers in the world.
Death of Superman
In early October 2004, he was being treated for an infected pressure ulcer that was causing sepsis, a complication he had experienced many times before. On October 4th, he spoke at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on behalf of the Institute’s work. This was to be his last reported public appearance.
On October 9, Reeve felt well and attended his son Will’s hockey game. That night, he went into cardiac arrest after receiving an antibiotic for the infection. He fell into a coma and was taken to Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York. Eighteen hours later, on October 10, 2004, Reeve died at age 52. His doctor, John McDonald, believed an adverse reaction to the antibiotic caused Reeve’s death.
His remains were cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery. A memorial service for Reeve was held at the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, which his wife attended.
Legacy
His widow, Dana Reeve, headed the Christopher Reeve Foundation after his death. Although a non-smoker, she was diagnosed with lung cancer on 9 August 2005 and died at age 44 on 6 March 2006.
Christopher and Dana Reeve are survived by their son, William, and Reeve’s children from his relationship with Gae Exton, Matthew and Alexandra. Matthew and Alexandra now serve on the board of directors for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Christopher was survived by his parents and Dana by her father.
On April 25, 1998, Random House published Reeve’s autobiography, Still Me. The book spent eleven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and Reeve won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. In April 2004, Reeve’s second book, Nothing Is Impossible was published. This book is shorter than Still Me and focuses on Reeve’s world views and the life experiences that helped him shape them.
So I come back to my own situation, approaching that third jump on May 27. I may have moved forward before I should have, which is an easy mistake to make. On the other hand, that shouldn’t have been enough to cause Buck to stop. But I’ve learned that to speculate endlessly about what happened serves no purpose other than to torment myself. Regardless of exactly what happened, I know now that I can’t relive the event forever. If I made a mistake, I’ve got to forgive myself for being human. I’m in the process of doing that now.
I only fell a few feet, but I shattered my first cervical vertebra as I landed on the top rail of the jump. The second vertebra was also broken, but not so badly. Then I was fighting for air like a drowning person. It’s possible that as I twisted my head and fought for air the shards of my first vertebra and the broken part of the second vertebra were cutting and damaging nerves in the spinal cord. I was probably my own worst enemy at that point.
By the time the paramedics arrived at the scene, I hadn’t breathed for three minutes. They stabilized my head and managed to keep me alive by squeezing air into my body with an ambu bag. Apparently I was still conscious; later they described me as “combative.” I’m very lucky they reached me so quickly, because after four minutes of not breathing, brain damage begins. They managed to hold my head still enough to put on a collar that immobilized my neck. After I was loaded into the ambulance, they drove off the field extremely slowly, so that the rough terrain wouldn’t cause further damage.
Several months later I called these paramedics and told them how grateful I was that they had saved my life. They were very matter of fact, saying that it was just part of their job. I was deeply moved by their quiet, understated response. In keeping with EMT policy, they never even told me their names.
Still Me by Christopher Reeve