Christopher Reeve, 'Superman' and Crusader for Stem Cells, Dies

Celebrity Obituaries Forum

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God Bless Christopher Reeve, his wife and 3 children.

More about it here:

http://www.drudgereport.com/

OMG!!

That was really sudden!

How very, very sad!

That is sudden. I thought he was on the way to recovery, all the recent reports said he was getting better, feeling more and moving more. I even heard a rumour he was going to do a cameo of some sort on the new Superman movie they are working on. What a shame.

R.I.P. Superman

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BEDFORD, New York (AP) -- Christopher Reeve, the star of the "Superman" movies whose near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research, died Sunday of heart failure, his publicist said. He was 52.

Reeve fell into a coma Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home, his publicist, Wesley Combs, told The Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C., on Sunday night.

Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound that he developed, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection.

"On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hospital for the excellent care they provided to my husband," Dana Reeve, Christopher's wife, said in a statement. "I also want to thank his personal staff of nurses and aides, as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years."

Reeve broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury and to move an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.

He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of "Rear Window," a modern update of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor in a television movie or miniseries.

"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story," Reeve said. "But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face. With so many close-ups, I knew that my every thought would count."

In his public appearances, he was as handsome as ever, his blue eyes bright and his voice clear.

"Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the March 1996 Oscar awards appearance. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. There is no challenge, artistic or otherwise, that we can't meet."

In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen has made his legs and arms stronger. He has also regained sensation in other parts of his body.

Very sad....He was a symbol of courage and I hoped he could recover and show everybody that we could overcome anything.

may he rest in peace.

That is very sad. He was very brave to come forward and all the cameras to see all he had to live with in the last few years. Still, I was shocked to hear of his passing. Sounds like the systemic infection took a toll.

Mount Kisco, N.Y. -- Actor Christopher Reeve, who soared through the air and leapt tall buildings as "Superman," turned personal tragedy into a public crusade, becoming the nation's most recognizable spokesman for spinal cord research -- from a wheelchair.

Reeve went into cardiac arrest Saturday at his Pound Ridge home, then fell into a coma and died Sunday at a hospital surrounded by his family, his publicist said. He was 52.

His advocacy for stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and his Democratic opponent, John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry during the second presidential debate Friday evening.

Reeve, left paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident and who pushed for funding to help others like himself, was hospitalized the following day. In the last week Reeve had developed a serious systemic infection from a pressure wound, a common complication for people living with paralysis.

Dana Reeve, Christopher's wife, thanked her husband's personal staff of nurses and aides, "as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years."

Reeve's life changed completely after he broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Va.

Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury and to move an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.

"Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the March 1996 Oscar awards appearance. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. There is no challenge, artistic or otherwise, that we can't meet."

Dr. John McDonald treated Reeve as director of the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Washington University in St. Louis. He called Reeve "one of the most intense individuals I've ever met in my life."

"Before him there was really no hope. If you had a spinal cord injury like his there was not much that could be done, but he's changed all that, he's demonstrated that there is hope and that there are things that can be done."

He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of "Rear Window," a modern update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor.

"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story," Reeve said. "But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face. With so many close-ups, I knew that my every thought would count."

In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. He also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He vowed to walk again.

"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery," Reeve said.

Dr. Raymond Onders, who implanted electrodes in Reeve's diaphragm in a groundbreaking surgery to help him breathe, called Reeve "very compassionate."

"Even though he struggled with his own disease, he would still help patients throughout the United States and the world really with this type of problem," Onders told ABC News' "Good Morning America."

Onders said that in addition to the ulcer, Reeve "had other problems last week."

"Many different problems develop after nine years of being dependent on a ventilator, not being able to move yourself, having intestinal problems ... It just slowly builds up over the years."

Before the accident, his athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natural, if largely unknown, choice for the title role in the first "Superman" movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts.

Although he reprised the role three times, Reeve often worried about being typecast as an action hero.

Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play "Fifth of July," a lovestruck time-traveler in the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time," and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller "Deathtrap."

More recent films included John Carpenter's "Village of the Damned," and the HBO movies "Above Suspicion" and "In the Gloaming," which he directed. Among his other film credits are "The Remains of the Day," "The Aviator," and "Morning Glory."

Reeve also made several guest appearances in the WB series "Smallville" as Dr. Swann, a scientist who gave the teenage Clark Kent insight into his future as Superman.

Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. About the age of 10, he made his first stage appearance -- in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeoman of the Guard" at McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.

After graduating from Cornell University in 1974, he landed a part as coldhearted bigamist Ben Harper on the television soap opera "Love of Life." He also performed frequently on stage, winning his first Broadway role as the grandson of a character played by Katharine Hepburn in "A Matter of Gravity."

Reeve's first movie role was a minor one in the submarine disaster movie "Gray Lady Down," released in 1978. "Superman" soon followed. Reeve was selected for the title role from among about 200 aspirants.

Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestrian events regularly. Witnesses to the 1995 accident said Reeve's horse had cleared two of 15 fences during the jumping event and stopped abruptly at the third, flinging the actor headlong to the ground. Doctors said he fractured the top two vertebrae in his neck and damaged his spinal cord.

While filming "Superman" in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. The couple had a son and a daughter, but were never wed.

Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 12. Reeve also is survived by his mother, Barbara Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin Reeve; and his two children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21.

There was no immediate announcement of funeral plans.

A few months after the accident, he told interviewer Barbara Walters that he considered suicide in the first dark days after he was injured. But he quickly overcame such thoughts when he saw his children.

"I could see how much they needed me and wanted me... and how lucky we all are and that my brain is on straight."

Source: The New York Times

Superman suffered much. I hate to see him leave us, but I feel better knowing that his physical ordeals have been put to rest.

So I both grieve and feel relieved.

Tributes pour in for brave Superman star

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Inspiring: Actor Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman, has died at the age of 52, his publicist said today.

Reeve fell into a coma on Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home and died on Sunday, his publicist Wesley Combs said.

Reeve was paralysed from the shoulders down after a riding accident in 1995. The accident turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research.

Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound that he developed, a common complication for people living with paralysis.

Tributes pouring in

In the past week the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection. He died of heart failure,

Dana Reeve, Christopher's wife, said in a statement today: "On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hospital for the excellent care they provided to my husband."

"I also want to thank his personal staff of nurses and aides, as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years."

The worlds of film and medicine have also paid tribute.

Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said Reeve was a "remarkable man".

"Christopher Reeve was known to all of us for his campaigning and for his courage," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"It is absolutely wrong to raise false expectations about the speed with which medical research progresses, but it takes people like Reeve, with their commitment and their certainty that they will be cured, to carry it forward.

"It takes extraordinary individuals like Reeve to recognise that investment and effort is worthwhile in the long run to work for others.

"He always said that he was working for himself and was convinced that there would be a cure, but I think probably deep in his mind he knew his efforts would be far more likely to pay off for others than for him."

Heroic struggle

Film director Michael Winner paid tribute to Reeve as the "archetypal movie star" and said his death was a tragedy.

"I think he grew to personify a heroic struggle against disability," he said.

"We all kind of believed that we would one day see him walk again and instead we see him die really very young.

"It's terribly, terribly sad. "My main memory of him is of his enormous charm. He had great skill as a screen actor and was the archetypal movie star. He had great charisma.

"He was a kind of action actor and to see an action actor who played Superman paralysed and hardly able to speak was terrible, but we all had hope for him and it is tragic that those hopes have been dashed."

Charming

John Cavanagh, of charity Spinal Research, who met Reeve several times, said the star's work had been "extremely significant" in raising the profile of spinal cord research and giving hope to those with injuries.

Mr Cavanagh, head of research at the charity, said: "In terms of funding worldwide he has made a very big impact.

"His contribution was important because he was such a public figure.

"He realised he had a public face and he would make full use of that.

"He also gave other sufferers a lot of hope."

Total Film magazine editor Matt Mueller said Reeve would be remembered for his "incredible bravery".

"After his accident, he had a huge impact," he said.

"He lobbied very hard for stem cell research, and raised people's consciousness about having to live life in a wheelchair. He changed people's attitudes.

"He will be remembered for his incredible bravery. He obviously had these injuries but refused to accept it and feel sorry for himself.

"He made some incredible strides. He was a real fighter."

- Daily Mail

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Nearly 100 friends and family members of Christopher Reeve remembered the actor who became an activist for spinal cord injury research in a small gathering at his home this week.

"He's Superman," actor and comedian Robin Williams said Wednesday, a day after attending the Westchester County service for his friend, whose death he had not thought would come so soon.

"He went from looking like a Greek god to becoming Buddha: quiet, contained, but so powerful," Williams said. "And he's such a fighter. I thought, 'He's going to the hospital, he'll be OK, he'll come out.' "

Williams said he was not surprised that Reeve emerged as a figure in the debate over stem-cell research -- which has become a central issue in the presidential election.

"He loved politics," Williams said. "He was always an activist on that level, always a fighter."

Reeve, 52, died of heart failure Sunday at the Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York, near his home, a day after falling into a coma.

Plans for a larger memorial are not finalized, but it most likely will take place in Manhattan within the next few weeks, said Wes Combs, a spokesman for the Reeve family.

"The Reeve family is deeply grateful for the outpouring of support shown to them," Combs said.

"It is clear that Christopher Reeve has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world and that is the legacy he leaves behind. That is a great comfort to the family at this difficult time."

Born September 25, 1952, in New York City, Reeve made his movie debut in 1978, playing a small role in "Gray Lady Down." Later that year, he landed the role of his life, as the star in the blockbuster "Superman." He went on to play the superhero in three sequels. The actor appeared in more than three dozen films and television movies.

Reeve had been an avid horseman when he went for a ride in May 1995 in Culpeper, Virginia. But Reeve's horse balked at a rail jump during a cross-country event, and he was thrown forward and landed head first, fracturing his upper vertebrae.

The actor was left paralyzed from the neck down.

Reeve became an activist for increased funding and research for spinal cord injuries and other central nervous system disorders.

He raised money through the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which has awarded millions of dollars in grants to neuroscientists working to develop treatments and cures for paralysis.

They're showing Superman on TV tomorrow as a tribute. I'll watch it. I haven't seen it for like 15 years. I think it's a nice gesture.

Memorial for Christopher Reeve on Oct. 29

Family of Christopher Reeve to Hold Private Memorial Oct. 29 at Juilliard

NEW YORK Oct. 19, 2004 — The family of Christopher Reeve will hold a private memorial service for the "Superman" star this month.

The event will be held Oct. 29 at the Juilliard School, where Reeve studied drama, his paralysis foundation announced Tuesday. About 900 guests are expected, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation said in a statement on its Web site.

Reeve, who was left a quadriplegic after a May 1995 horse riding accident, died Oct. 10 after complications from an infection caused by a bed sore. He was 52.

Reeve's wife, Dana Reeve, posted a letter on the Web site expressing gratitude for the support the family has received.

"We are moved by and sincerely grateful for all these gestures large and small for they do make a difference," the letter said.

- The Associated Press

Friends gather to remember Reeve

Reeve's most recent directorial project will continue

More than 900 friends and family of the late Christopher Reeve have gathered to celebrate his life at a memorial ceremony in New York.

The memorial was held at the Juilliard School, where the Superman actor he first honed his acting skills.

Reeve, who was paralysed in a riding accident in 1995, died in hospital on 10 October, at the age of 52.

Guests at the ceremony on Friday included actors Michael J. Fox, Laura Linney and Susan Sarandon.

Spinal research

Speakers included Reeve's widow, Dana; his Juilliard roommate and lifelong friend, Robin Williams; and actresses Glenn Close and Meryl Streep.

Reeve's children, Matthew, Alexandra and Will, had also prepared a 20-minute film about life with their father.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, were also among the guests

Speaking about Reeve's dedication to finding a cure for spinal injuries, Ms Clinton said: "His courage and inspiration will live on."

Scott Remington, a paraplegic injured in a logging accident, also attended the memorial.

The actor invited Mr Remington to his home earlier this year after he raised $135,000 for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

Global star

"I was very impressed. He was so incredibly knowledgeable," Mr Remington said.

Music during the ceremony was provided by Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell and Rui Shi, a piano student at Juilliard.

The memorial closed with the cast of Broadway's The Lion King performing the song Circle of Life.

Reeve broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

At the time, he was a worldwide star for having played the lead role in Superman in 1978 and its three sequels.

As a campaigner, he was to be seen regularly at the US Congress, lobbying for better funding.

Reeve died after suffering a heart attack and falling into a coma at his home. He was being treated for an infection caused by a bedsore.

His family has asked that any donations should be made to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, based in New Jersey.

- BBC