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WHEN Christopher Reeve died recently, he was only 52 but the back injury he sustained in a riding accident in 1995 had left him struggling for almost a decade. Fate dealt a cruel hand to the one who had played Superman and shot to instant stardom in 1978. Actually the Superman role didn’t call for any special acting skills, the persona of the hero was much bigger and even his close friend and fellow actor Treat Williams said on History Channel (in a tribute to Reeve) "it was almost a handicap to Christopher Reeve." That Reeve starred in four Superman films is now history — Superman (1978), Superman 2 (1980), Superman 3 (1983) and Superman 4: Quest for Peace (1987) — and for the first film he had to do weights and put on extra pounds (he was 218 pounds) to look like the superhero. Shades of Robert de Niro becoming obese for his Raging Bull part. Why, even his mother Barbara Johnson cried when he bagged the Superman part. "He was going into a new realm, earning 250,000 dollars," she said in the History Channel interview. But Reeve had a price to play for his celebrity status. His close friends Stanley Wilson and Robin Williams (they formed a trio with Reeve in drama school) vouch for Reeve’s professionalism and seriousness as an actor. It is, therefore, in the films he did apart from the Superman films that one really saw his dramatic skills, almost like Sean Connery when he was out-of-Bonds. I particularly liked Reeve in Deathtrap where he starred opposite British veteran Michael Caine. It was about a playwright, past his prime, who conceives a plan to murder an upcoming rival and steal his script. He gave Caine a run for his money. He also had a bit part alongside Anthony Hopkins in Remains of the Day and a bigger part in The Bostonians with Vanessa Redgrave. Born in New York on September 25, 1952, Christopher Reeve was a product of a broken home. His parents divorced and this had a major impact on his life. To get away from the present he took to acting and flying. He got his pilot’s licence at 21. Initially diffident and enigmatic, he finally made his Broadway debut in 1976 in Grey Lady Down. Tall and handsome, he was the cynosure of many a woman’s eye. Maybe success too soon as Superman was a disadvantage even off the screen. The product of a broken home he didn’t marry for years. He lived for 10 years with Gay Exton and had two children with her and when they separated he saw to it that they had joint custody of the children. Reeve did marry Dana in 1995 and she stood by him firmly after his tragic accident in which he broke his first and second vertebrae. Since then it was a struggle for life and Reeve showed extraordinary will and determination. He took special care of children of broken homes and was involved in the Special Olympics. In 1998 he wrote his autobiography Still Me which recounts his debilitating life in bed and in a wheelchair. Though he was involved in a good deal of social work and charities, it was sad to see him struggling for life. In a way his death may well have been a kind of deliverance from his suffering. |
