The late Christopher Reeve will always be Superman to those who knew him best.
His performance as Clark Kent in “Superman” (1978) and its sequels turned Reeve into a worldwide superstar, only for a 1995 accident on horseback to paralyze him from the neck down.
In an upcoming documentary, “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” in which the actor revealed that his injury at one point made him wonder if his life had been ruined forever. But, according to a trailer for the film, a few simple words from his wife Dana made him change his mind.
“I won’t be able to ski, sail, throw a ball to [my son],” Reeve recalled thinking, after learning that he’d never walk again. “Won’t be able to make love to Dana. Maybe we should let me go. And then she said the words that saved my life.”
“‘You’re still you,’” he remembered her saying. “‘And I love you.’”
Reeve was a flourishing actor who had worked with stars like Katharine Hepburn and Charlton Heston before he was ever cast as Superman, but the films were so successful that fans forever identified Reeves with the role — making his accident all the more shocking.
His daughter Alexandria noted in the trailer her dad “was very competitive” and “didn’t necessarily slow down” when sports were involved. His son William was only 15 years old when his father was paralyzed.
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Reeves spent years navigating his grief but offered in a 1998 interview that there are only two choices: “One is to stare out the window and gradually disintegrate. And the other is to mobilize and use all your resources, whatever they may be, to do something positive.”
The actor ultimately dedicated himself to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which serves to find treatments for paralysis. He died at 52 in October 2004, and his wife died some four years later of lung cancer.
The upcoming documentary includes intimate interviews with Reeve’s three children, Matthew, Alexandra and William, as well as his late wife Dana and a roster of famous friends, including Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close and Jeff Daniels.
“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” hits theaters Sept. 21.