In Loving Memory of Christopher Reeve

Born in New York City and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Reeve discovered a passion for acting and the theater at the age of nine. He studied at Cornell University and the Juilliard School and made 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. He later appeared in critically successful films such as The Bostonians , Street Smart , and The Remains of the Day , and in the plays Fifth of July on Broadway and The Aspern Papers in London's West End.

On May 27, 1995, Reeve broke his neck when he was thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition. The injury paralyzed him from the shoulders down, and he depended on a ventilator to breathe. From his wheelchair, Reeve returned to creative work, directing In the Gloaming and acting in the television remake of Rear Window . 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.

Beginning in the 1980s, Reeve was an activist for environmental and human-rights causes and for artistic freedom of expression. After the accident, he lobbied for spinal cord 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. Reeve died on October 10, 2004, at the age of 52.

Reeve was born on September 25, 1952, in New York City, the son of Barbara Pitney Lamb, a journalist; and Franklin D'Olier Reeve , a teacher, novelist, poet, and scholar. Many of his family lines had been in America since the early 17th century, while other ancestors came from the French aristocracy. His paternal grandfather, Colonel Richard Henry Reeve, had been the CEO of Prudential Financial for over 25 years.

Reeve's father was a Princeton University graduate studying for a master's degree in Russian at Columbia University before Christopher's birth. Despite being born wealthy, Franklin Reeve spent summers working at the docks with longshoremen. Reeve's mother had been a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, but transferred to Barnard College to be closer to Franklin, whom she had met through a family connection. They had another son, Benjamin, 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 School, which later merged with Miss Fine's School for Girls to become the co-educational Princeton Day School. 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. He wrote in 1998 that his father's "love for his children always seemed tied to performance" and that he put pressure on himself to act older than he actually was in order to gain his father's approval. Between 1988 and 1995 the two barely spoke to each other, but they reconciled after Reeve's paralyzing accident.

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. 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 Bridge that 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 in The 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 turned out to be Reeve's first romance. Her engagement to a fellow Carnegie Mellon graduate ended when he made a surprise visit to her dorm room at seven in the morning and found Reeve with her. The relationship fizzled a few months later when the age difference became an issue.

Full name: Christopher Reeve

Born: September 25, 1952

Passed away: October 10, 2004

Age: 52 years of age

Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA