Post by Journey2herpast on Oct 23, 2005 17:50:36 GMT -5
Christopher Reeve was born in New York City on September 25, 1952. After his parents' divorce in 1956 his mother, Barbara Johnson, moved to Princeton, New Jersey with Chris and his brother Benjamin.
By the time Christopher was eight years old he began acting in school plays and a year later was picked to be in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Yeoman of the Guard for Princeton's professional theater, the McCarter Theatre. The theatre would prove to be Reeve's one true passion. At Princeton Day School, Reeve became the President of the Drama Club and the Student Director of The Glee Club.
By the time he was 15 Christopher Reeve got a summer apprenticeship at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, and by 16 had an agent.
After graduating from high school, Reeve enrolled at Cornell University, where he majored in Music Theory and English and spent time studying theater in Britain and France. In that time his roles included Victor in Private Lives, Aeneas in Troilus and Cressida, Beliaev in A Month In The Country, and Macheath in Threepenny Opera..
In lieu of his final year at Cornell, Reeve was one of two students accepted to advanced standing at New York's famous Juilliard School of Performing Arts. Here he studied under the renowned John Houseman. When it became financially difficult for his stepfather to continue to pay for Reeve's education, he took the role of Ben Harper in the soap opera Love of Life.
Chris would later win a role in A Matter of Gravity, a 1976 Broadway play starring Katharine Hepburn. By this time, the demands of his career had become so great that Reeve was forced to give up his final year at Juilliard.
In 1976, Reeve went to Los Angeles and got a small part in Gray Lady Down, a submarine adventure film. Back in New York City, he was in the
In New York City in 1976 during the off-broadway production of My Life, Reeve auditioned and successfully screen tested for the lead role in Superman.:The Movie. Reeve portrayed Superman as "somebody that, you know, you can invite home for dinner...someone you could introduce your parents to." He made Superman believable by playing him as a hero with brains and a heart. Reeve said, "What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that's how I approached the part." The 18 months of shooting for that movie took place mostly in England, where Reeve met and began a relationship with modeling executive Gae Exton. This union produced two children, Matthew and Alexandra.
After the success of 1978's Superman, Christopher Reeve did the movie Somewhere in Time. In 1980, he spent the summer doing theater in Williamstown. He worked on Superman II and the broadway production of Fifth of July.
John Wayne, who, after meeting Reeve at the 1979 Academy Awards, turned to Cary Grant and said: "This is our new man. He's taking over."
In the years that followed, Reeve went on to appear in an estimated 150 plays, a dozen TV-movies, and a total of 17 feature films including Deathtrap, Monsignor, Superman III, The Bostonians, The Aviator, Street Smart, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
In 1987 Christopher Reeve and Gae Exton parted unmarried, but keeping joint custody of the two children. During the summer in Williamstown, Reeve met Dana Morosini where she was performing in a cabaret. In four months they were living together, and in 1992 they were married and had a son.
By the 1990's, horses had become Chritopher Reeve's passion. He loved the sport called "eventing" which combined the precision of dressage with the excitement of cross-country and show jumping.
In May of 1995, during the cross-country portion of such an event in Culpeper, Virginia, Reeve's Throughbred, Eastern Express, balked at a rail jump, pitching his rider forward. Reeve's hands were tangled in the horse's bridle and he landed head first, fracturing the uppermost vertebrae in his spine. Reeve was instantly paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe. Prompt medical attention saved his life and delicate surgery stabilized the shattered C1-C2 vertebrae and literally reattached Reeve's head to his spine.
After 6 months at Kessler Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey, Reeve returned to his home in Bedford, New York, where Dana had begun major renovations to accomodate his needs and those of his electric wheelchair which he operates by sipping or puffing on a straw. Ironically, this most self-reliant and active of men was now facing life almost completely immobilized and dependent on others for his most basic needs. In addition, his condition puts him at constant risk for related illnesses--pneumonia, infections, blood clots, wounds that do not heal, and a dangerous condition involving blood pressure known as autonomic disreflexia--all of which Reeve would experience in the coming years.
In the years after his accident, Christopher Reeve has gradually regained sensation in parts of his body--notably down the spine, in his left leg, and areas of the left arm. But he remains dependent on a ventilator to breathe and unable to move any part of his body below the shoulders. His condition has stabilized and in April of 1998 Chris released his compelling autobiography Still Me which quickly hit the bestseller lists.
In November of 1998, critics praised his talent and courage when Reeve reclaimed his leading-man status by starring in an updated version of Rear Window for ABC.
On Saturday Oct. 9th 2004 Christopher went into cardiac arrest at his home in Westchester County, New York, after developing a serious systemic infection during treatment for a pressure wound. He slipped into a coma and died Sunday afternoon at a hospital near his home.
The actor is survived by his wife, Dana, and three children: a son, Will, with his wife, and a son and a daughter, Matthew and Alexandra, by a previous relationship with Gae Exton.
