Goodbye, Christopher.

[sincerely_helene]

"Superman's Song"

Tarzan wasn't a ladies' man
He'd just come along and scoop 'em up under his arm
Like that, quick as a cat in the jungle
But Clark Kent, now there was a real gent
He would not be caught sittin' around in no
Junglescape, dumb as an ape doing nothing

[Chorus:]
Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him

Hey Bob, Supe had a straight job
Even though he could have smashed through any bank
In the United States, he had the strength, but he would not
Folks said his family were all dead
Their planet crumbled but Superman, he forced himself
To carry on, forget Krypton, and keep going

Tarzan was king of the jungle and Lord over all the apes
But he could hardly string together four words: "I Tarzan, You Jane."

Sometimes when Supe was stopping crimes
I'll bet that he was tempted to just quit and turn his back
On man, join Tarzan in the forest
But he stayed in the city, and kept on changing clothes
In dirty old phonebooths till his work was through
And nothing to do but go on home

 

[The_old_man]

Far too many of the stage and screen stars of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies are leaving us.

 

[wildsweetone]

Christopher...

...was fighting a good fight for himself and for others. He will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace and may another take up his banner for spinal cord research.

 

[sincerely_helene]

Re: Christopher...

...was fighting a good fight for himself and for others. He will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace and may another take up his banner for spinal cord research.

It almost felt surreal to me to hear the news. I actually thought it a hoax when it was first broadcast.

 

[Guest]

for someone with fx of the C-spine, he lived longer than i ever imagined he would. he did alot of work for those with spinal chord injuries ... he was a good man.

 

[ElPila]

I can't help thinking that it wasn't an actor who died but the super-hero. I'm probably not the only one.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I'm putting on Tori Amos's "1000 Oceans" in condolence.

I realize that he wasn't the superhero he played, but he was a human who tried his best to emulate that hero. His personal motto of never giving up no matter how hard it got is an inspiration to all and I was hoping to have heard another success story from him being able to move another muscle instead of the news of his death. Its a victory for Death but a great loss for humankind.

We geeks of the world will miss you, big guy.

 

[impressive]

As a fellow crusader for stem cell research, I am reeling. What a loss to the advocacy community. Here's the news story:

'Superman' star Reeve dies at 52 of cardiac arrest

Associated Press
Oct. 11, 2004 12:00 AM

BEDFORD, N.Y. - Christopher Reeve, the star of the Superman movies whose nearly 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 on Sunday night by phone from Washington, D.C.

Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, 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, 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.

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 in a Television Movie or Miniseries.

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

In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a workout regimen had made his legs and arms stronger. He also had regained sensation in other parts of his body. Reeve's support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry Friday during the second presidential debate.

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.

Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he put it, "escape the cape." He played a 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.

Yet Reeve always will be known to movie fans as the strapping, boyishly handsome stage veteran whose charm and humor brought a new dimension to the characters of Superman and his alter-ego, Clark Kent. The film co-starred Margot Kidder as Lois Lane.

Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestrian events regularly. Witnesses to the May 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 two sons, but were never wed.

Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 11. His wife became his frequent spokeswoman after the accident.

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."

No plans for a funeral were immediately announced.

 

[shereads]

I can't think of anyone whose courage and resilience have impressed me more. I was feeling bitter about goings-on at the office a few years ago, and imagining I had a difficult life. Then I saw Christopher Reeves on 60 Minutes, showing the world that he had learned to move the fingers of one hand and could breathe without the apparatus. And announcing that he was going to act again, in a stage version of the Hitchcock film, "Rear Window."

Life cut him low, and he refused to stay there.

If anyone would like to see him as he was in his prime, in a minor but thoroughly uplifting role, rent "The Remains of the Day." I think it was the last film he made before his accident.

Wherever he is, he's free. Maybe he always was.

 

[Guest]

 

[shereads]

"If anyone had said to me, 'If you broke your neck, what would you do,' I'd have said, 'I couldn't cope with that.'

"And then it happens and you find out you can. You can cope with anything."

~ CR

 

[Guest]

He will always be a superhero to millions, for so many reasons. What a guy!

Rest in peace, Christopher.

Lou

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'd always thought him a little too effete to play Superman. Then his accident happened and it turned out he really was the strongest man in the world.

From what I've read, he absolutely baffled his doctors, doing things the medical community said were impossible for a man with his injuries. He made them rethink their ideas on the irreversible nature of spinal cord injuries, and he did it through sheer will.

About as close to Superman as we're going to get.

---dr.M.

 

[BlackSnake]

Wow, feeling it in my gut. Real Life super hero.

 

[R. Richard]

Physically he may not have been Superman, but his mind and his will made him a superman trying to overcome a horrible injury. His work for spinal cord research is his monument.

JMHO.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Christopher...

It almost felt surreal to me to hear the news. I actually thought it a hoax when it was first broadcast.

My boyfriend kissed me goodbye this morning (I was sleeping) and told me that he had died! I've barely been able to process it, I've been so mad at him for telling me like that.

 

[sweetnpetite]

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

Dana Reeve thanked her husband’s personal staff of nurses and aides, “as well as the millions of fans from around the world.”

“He put up with a lot,” his mother, Barbara Johnson, told the syndicated television show “The Insider.” “I’m glad that he is free of all those tubes.”

Before the 1995 horse-riding accident that caused his paralysis, Reeve’s athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natural choice for the title role in the first “Superman” movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts.

“Look, I’ve flown, I’ve become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I’ve faced my peers, I’ve befriended children and small animals and I’ve rescued cats from trees,” Reeve told the Los Angeles Times in 1983, just before the release of the third “Superman” movie. “What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn’t been done?”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6223386/

 

[sweetnpetite]

“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. 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,” McDonald said. “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.”

 

[sweetnpetite]

Smallville

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

 

[Belegon]

Some of you may remember that one of my friends had his spinal cord severed in a motorcycle accident in May.


Chris Reeve was admired by me before that. As I learned more, and as I watched Dave struggle with his injury, I came to love Christopher Reeve in another way.

Goodbye Christopher. Godspeed, and I am glad you can fly again now.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Farewell friend.

 

[Just-Legal]

I'm crying again now.

He was a wonderful man, who did amazing things for people who had been told there was no hope.

May his spirit fly free and live on.

 

[impressive]

Godspeed, and I am glad you can fly again now.

Ah, fuck. Now I'm crying again. I haven't shed this many tears for a celebrity since Mr. Rogers died. (My kids still think I'm weird for THAT.)

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Many actors get to play a role as a larger-than-life hero. Some even become trapped by those roles. After playing Superman, Christopher Reeve did his best to “escape the cape” and had succeeded, before an accident “ended” his career.

But his accident didn’t end Reeve's career, and in a strange way, Christopher Reeve did not escape the cape. Through all his public actions following the accident a new audience saw his indomitable courage prove him to be a real life hero.

Although time has proven that Reeve was, after all, merely mortal, we have come to learn that Christopher Reeve really was a super man.

 

[Goldie Munro]

He is a real life superhero - he will be remebered for that.