Christopher Reeve

Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, film director, author, and activist, best known for playing the title character in the film Superman (1978) and three sequels.

Born in New York City and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Reeve discovered a passion for acting and theater at the age of nine.

Reeve was born on September 25, 1952, in New York City, the son of Barbara Pitney Lamb, a journalist; and Franklin D'Olier Reeve (1928–2013), a teacher, novelist, poet, and scholar.

Franklin and Barbara divorced in 1956, and she moved with Christopher and his younger brother to Princeton, New Jersey, where they attended Nassau Street School and then Princeton Country Day School (today called the Princeton Day School).

Reeve's parents both remarried.

Reeve excelled academically, athletically, and onstage; he was on the honor roll and played soccer, baseball, tennis, and hockey.

The sportsmanship award at Princeton Day School's invitational hockey tournament was named in Reeve's honor.

Reeve had a difficult relationship with his father, Franklin.

Reeve found his passion for acting in 1962 at age nine when he was cast in an amateur version of the operetta The Yeomen of the Guard; it was the first of many student plays.

His interest was solidified when at age fifteen, he spent a summer as an apprentice at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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 Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Reeve said he chose Cornell primarily because it was distant from New York City and this would help him avoid the temptation of working as an actor immediately versus finishing college, as he had promised his mother and stepfather.

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.

Hesseltine had seen Reeve in A Month in the Country and wanted to represent him.

Reeve was very excited and kept re-reading the letter to make sure of what it said.

Reeve was impatient with school and eager to get on with his career.

The two met, but Reeve was surprised to find Hesseltine strongly supported his promise to his mother and stepfather to complete college.

They decided 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.

He studied at Cornell University and the Juilliard School, making his Broadway debut in 1976.

After his acclaimed performances in Superman and Superman II, Reeve declined many roles in action movies, choosing instead to work in small films and plays with more complex characters.

Beginning in the 1980s, Reeve was an activist for environmental and human-rights causes and for artistic freedom of expression.

After his accident, he lobbied for spinal injury research, including human embryonic stem cell research, and for better insurance coverage for people with disabilities.

His advocacy work included leading the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.

He later appeared in critically successful films such as The Bostonians (1984), Street Smart (1987), and The Remains of the Day (1993), and in the plays Fifth of July on Broadway and The Aspern Papers in London's West End.

Between 1988 and 1995 the two barely spoke to each other, but they reconciled after Reeve's paralyzing accident.

On May 27, 1995, Reeve was paralyzed from the shoulders down after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

He used a wheelchair and ventilator for the rest of his life.

Reeve returned to creative work, directing In the Gloaming (1997) and acting in the television remake of Rear Window (1998).

He also made several appearances in the Superman-themed television series Smallville, and wrote two autobiographical books, Still Me and Nothing Is Impossible.

Over the course of his career, Reeve received a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy Award.

He wrote in 1998 that his father's "love for his children always seemed tied to performance" and he put pressure on himself to act older than he actually was in order to gain his father's approval.

Reeve died in 2004 from heart failure at a hospital near his home in Westchester County, New York.

Through his mother, he was a 12th generation descendant of William Bradford, a pilgrim and five-time Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Other ancestors of Reeve came from the French aristocracy.

For over 25 years his paternal grandfather, Colonel Richard Henry Reeve, was CEO of the Prudential Life Insurance Company.

Many of his ancestors had been in America since the early 17th century, some having been aboard the Mayflower.