Biography
EditChristopher D'Olier Reeve
was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist. He achieved stardom for his acting achievements, in particular his motion picture portrayal of comic book superhero Superman.
On May 27, 1995, Reeve became a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition inCulpeper, Virginia. He required a wheelchair and breathing apparatus for the rest of his life. He lobbied on behalf of people with spinal-cord injuries and for human embryonic stem cell research, founding the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.
Reeve married Dana Morosini in April 1992. Christopher and Dana's son, William Elliot Reeve, was born on June 7, 1992. Reeve also had two children, Matthew Exton Reeve (born 1979) and Alexandra Exton Reeve (born 1983), from his relationship with Gae Exton. In October 2004, Reeve died suddenly of cardiac arrest while co-directingEveryone's Hero.
Christopher Reeve was born in New York City on September 25, 1952, the son of Barbara Pitney (Lamb), a journalist, and Franklin D'Olier "F.D." Reeve, who was a teacher, novelist, poet and scholar. His paternal grandfather, Colonel Richard Henry Reeve, had been the CEO of Prudential Financial for over twenty-five years, and his great-grandfather,Franklin D'Olier, was a prominent businessman, veteran of World War I, and the first national commander of theAmerican Legion.
Reeve's father was also descended from a sister of statesman Elias Boudinot, as well as from Massachusetts governors Thomas Dudley and John Winthrop, Pennsylvania deputy governor Thomas Lloyd, andHenry Baldwin, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Reeve's mother is the granddaughter of Mahlon Pitney, another U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and is also a descendant of William Bradford, a Mayflower passenger.
Reeve's father was a Princeton University graduate studying for a master's degree in Russian at Columbia Universityprior to the birth of his son, Christopher. Despite being born wealthy, Franklin Reeve spent summers working at the docks with longshoremen. Reeve's mother had been a student at Vassar College, but transferred to Barnard College to be closer to Franklin, whom she had met through a family connection. They had another son, Benjamin Reeve, born on October 6, 1953.
Franklin and Barbara divorced in 1956, and she moved with her two sons to Princeton, New Jersey, where they attended Nassau Street School. Later that year, Franklin Reeve married Helen Schmidinger, a Columbia University graduate student. Barbara Pitney Lamb married Tristam B. Johnson, a stockbroker, in 1959.
Johnson enrolled Christopher and his brother, Benjamin, in Princeton Country Day (later Princeton Day School), a highly selective, elite private school. Among a very talented student body, Reeve distinguished himself by excelling 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 famed invitational hockey tournament was named in Reeve's honor. Reeve admitted that he put pressure on himself to act older than he actually was in order to gain his father's approval.
Reeve found his passion in 1962 at age nine when he was cast in an amateur version of the play The Yeomen of the Guard; it was the first of many student plays.
In mid-1968, at age fifteen, Reeve was accepted as an apprentice at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The other apprentices were mostly college students, but Reeve's older appearance and maturity helped him fit in with the others. In a workshop, he played a scene from A View from the Bridgethat was chosen to be presented in front of an audience. After the performance, actress Olympia Dukakis said to him, "I'm surprised. You've got a lot of talent. Don't mess it up."
The next summer, Reeve was hired at the Harvard Summer Repertory Theater Company in Cambridge for $44 per week. He played a Russian sailor inThe Hostage and Belyayev in A Month in the Country. Famed theater critic Elliot Norton called his performance as Belyayev "startlingly effective." The 23-year-old lead actress in the play, a Carnegie Mellon graduate, turned out to be Reeve's first romance. She was engaged to a fellow Carnegie Mellon graduate at the time; they mutually ended the relationship when he made a surprise visit to her dorm room at seven in the morning and found Reeve with her. Reeve's romance with the actress fizzled a few months later when the age difference became an issue.[9]
Reeve was briefly involved with Scientology, but opted out of becoming a member. He has voiced criticism of the organization.[10][11]
Cornell[edit]After graduating from Princeton Day School in June 1970, Reeve acted in plays in Boothbay, Maine and planned to go to New York City to find a career in theater. Instead, at the advice of his mother, he applied for college. He was accepted into Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, and Princeton. Reeve claimed that he chose Cornell primarily because it is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from New York City, where he planned to start his career as an actor,[12] despite the fact that Columbia is in New York City, just uptown from Broadway.
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.[13] Late in his freshman year, Reeve received a letter from Stark Hesseltine, a high-powered agent who had discoveredRobert Redford and represented actors such as Richard Chamberlain, Michael Douglas, and Susan Sarandon. Hesseltine had seen Reeve in A Month in the Countryand wanted to represent him. The two met and decided that instead of dropping out of school, Reeve could come to New York once a month to meet casting agents and producers to find work for the summer vacation. That summer, he toured in a production of Forty Carats with Eleanor Parker.[14]
The next year, Reeve received a full-season 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.[15]
Before his third year of college, Reeve took a three-month leave of absence. He flew to Glasgow and saw theatrical productions throughout Scotland and England. He was inspired by the actors and often had conversations with them in bars after the performances. He helped actors at the Old Vic with their American accents by reading the newspaper aloud for them. He then flew to Paris, where he spoke fluent French for his entire stay; he had studied it from third grade until his second year in Cornell. He watched many performances and immersed himself in the culture before finally returning to New York to reunite with his girlfriend.[16]
Juilliard[edit]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.[17]
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.
[18] They had several classes together in which they were the only students. In their dialects class with Edith Skinner, Williams had no trouble mastering all dialects naturally, whereas Reeve was more meticulous about it. Williams and Reeve developed a close friendship.[19]
In a meeting with John Houseman, Reeve was told, "Mr. Reeve. It is terribly important that you become a serious classical actor. Unless, of course, they offer you a shitload of money to do something else."[20]
Houseman then offered him the chance to leave school and join the Acting Company, among performers such as Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers. Reeve declined, as he had not yet received his bachelor's degree from Juilliard.[21]
In early 1974, Reeve and other Juilliard students toured the New York City middle school system and performed The Love Cure. In one performance, Reeve, who played the hero, drew his sword out too high and accidentally destroyed a row of lights above him. The students applauded and cheered. Reeve later said that this was the greatest ovation of his career.[22]
After completing his first year at Juilliard, Reeve graduated from Cornell in the Class of '74.
In late 1975, he auditioned for the Broadway play, A Matter of Gravity. Katharine Hepburn watched his audition and cast him as her character's grandson in the play. With Hepburn's influence over the CBS network, Reeve worked out the schedules of Love of Life and the play so that he would be able to do both. Because of his busy schedule, he ate candy bars and drank coffee in place of meals, and suffered from exhaustion and malnutrition.
On the first night of the play's run, Reeve entered the stage, said his first line, and then promptly fainted. Hepburn turned to the audience and said, "This boy's a goddamn fool. He doesn't eat enough red meat." Theunderstudy finished the play for him, and Reeve was treated by a doctor who advised him to eat a more healthy diet. He stayed with the play throughout its year-long run and was given very favorable reviews. He and Hepburn became very close. She said, "You're going to be a big star, Christopher, and support me in my old age." He replied, "I can't wait that long." A romance between the two was rumored in some gossip columns. Reeve said, "She was sixty-seven and I was twenty-two, but I thought that was quite an honor...I believe I was fairly close to what a child or grandchild might have been to her."
Reeve said that his father, who was a professor of literature and came to many of the performances, was the man who most captivated Hepburn. When the play moved to Los Angeles in 1976, Reeve — to Hepburn's disappointment — dropped out. They stayed in touch for years after the play's run. Reeve later regretted not staying closer instead of just sending messages back and forth.[23]
Reeve's first role in a Hollywood film was a small part as a submarine officer in the 1978 naval disaster movie Gray Lady Down. He then acted in the play My Life at theCircle Repertory Company with friend William Hurt.[24]
Superman[edit]Reeve as Superman and Clark Kent.During My Life, Stark Hesseltine told Reeve that he had been asked to audition for the leading role as Clark Kent/Superman in the big budget film, Superman (1978). Lynn Stalmaster, the casting director, put Reeve's picture and résumé on the top of the pile three separate times, only to have the producers throw it out each time. Through Stalmaster's persistent pleading, a meeting between director Richard Donner, producer Ilya Salkind and Reeve was set in January 1977 at the Sherry Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue.[25]
The morning after the meeting, Reeve was sent a 300-page script. He was thrilled that the script took the subject matter seriously, and that Richard Donner's motto was verisimilitude. Reeve immediately flew to London for ascreen test, and on the way was told that Marlon Brando was going to play Jor-El and Gene Hackman was going to play Lex Luthor. Reeve still did not think he had much of a chance. Though standing 6'4" (1 m 93 cm), he was a self-described "skinnyWASP." On the plane ride to London, he imagined how his approach to the role would be. He later said, "By the late 1970s the masculine image had changed... Now it was acceptable for a man to show gentleness and vulnerability. I felt that the new Superman ought to reflect that contemporary male image." He based his portrayal of Clark Kent on Cary Grant in his role in Bringing Up Baby. After the screen test, his driver said, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you've got the part."[26]
Reeve was a talented all-around athlete.[27] Portraying the role of Superman would be a stretch for the young actor, but he was tall enough for the role and had the necessary blue eyes and handsome features. However, his physique was slim. He refused to wear fake muscles under the suit, and instead went through an intense two-month training regimen supervised by former British weightlifting champion David Prowse, the man under the Darth Vader suit in the Star Wars films. The training regimen consisted of running in the morning, followed by two hours of weightlifting and ninety minutes on the trampoline. In addition, Reeve doubled his food intake and adopted a high protein diet. He added thirty pounds (14 kg) of muscle to his thin 189 pound (86 kg) frame. He later made even higher gains for Superman III (1983), though for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) he decided it would be healthier to focus more on cardiovascular workouts.[28]
Reeve was never a Superman or comic book fan, though he had watched Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves. Reeve found the role offered a suitable challenge because it was a dual role. He said, "there must be some difference stylistically between Clark and Superman. Otherwise, you just have a pair of glasses standing in for a character."[29][30]
On the commentary track for the director's edition of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz spoke of how Reeve had talked to him about playing Superman and then playing Clark Kent. Mankiewicz then corrected Reeve, telling him that he was always, always playing Superman and that when he was Clark Kent, he was "playing Superman who was playing Clark Kent." Mankiewicz described it to Reeve as a role within the role.
The film grossed $300,218,018 worldwide (unadjusted for inflation).[31] Reeve received positive reviews for his performance:
"Christopher Reeve's entire performance is a delight. Ridiculously good-looking, with a face as sharp and strong as an ax blade, his bumbling, fumbling Clark Kent and omnipotent Superman are simply two styles of gallantry and innocence." – Newsweek"Christopher Reeve has become an instant international star on the basis of his first major movie role, that of Clark Kent/Superman. Film reviewers — regardless of their opinion of the film — have been almost unanimous in their praise of Reeve's dual portrayal. He is utterly convincing as he switches back and forth between personae." – StarlogWon a BAFTA Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.Christopher Reeve also guest starred in Smallville, the successful American television show about Clark Kent/Superman's childhood. He appeared as Doctor Virgil Swann, helping Clark Kent understand his heritage, in Seasons 2 and 3, until the character was ultimately "killed off". He appeared in two episodes titled "Rosetta" and "Legacy", while his death was made known in the fourth season episode "Sacred".
Reeve used his celebrity status for several philanthropic causes. Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he visited terminally ill children. He joined the Board of Directors for the worldwide charity Save the Children. In 1979, he served as a track and field coach at the Special Olympics, alongside O. J. Simpson.[32]
Sequels[edit]Much of Superman II was filmed at the same time as the first film. After most of the footage had been shot, the producers had a disagreement with director Richard Donner over various matters, including money and special effects, and they mutually parted ways. He was replaced by director Richard Lester, who had the script changed and reshot some footage. The cast was unhappy, but Reeve later said that he liked Lester and considered Superman II to be his favorite of the series.[33] Due to fan encouragement, Richard Donner's version of Superman II, titled Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, was released on DVD in 2006 and dedicated to Reeve.
Superman III, released in 1983, was filmed entirely by Lester. Reeve believed that the producers ruined it by turning it into a Richard Pryor comedy. He missed Richard Donner and believed that Superman III's only saving grace was the junkyard scene in which evil Superman fights Clark Kent in an internal battle.[33]
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was released in 1987. After Superman III, Reeve vowed that he was done with Superman.[34] However, he accepted the role on the condition that he would have partial creative control over the script. The nuclear disarmament plot was his idea. The production rights were given to Cannon Films, which cut the budget in half to $17 million. The film was both a critical failure and a box office bomb, becoming the lowest-grossing Superman-film to date. Reeve later said, "the less said about Superman IV the better."[33]
on October 10, 2004, Reeve died of cardiac arrest[92] at the age of 52. His doctor, John McDonald, believed that it was an adverse reaction to the antibiotic that caused his death.[93]
A memorial service for Reeve was held at the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, which his wife attended.[94] Reeve was cremated and his ashes were scattered.[95]
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