Remembering Real-Life Superman Christopher Reeve 20 Years Later

Despite playing the Man of Steel in four movies, Christopher Reeve never considered himself a hero. The strikingly handsome, larger-than-life actor believed he was simply doing work that needed to be done, living with purpose and passion, both before and after a horrific equestrian accident left him paralyzed.

But as we mark the 20th anniversary of his death at 52 on October 10, 2004, Reeve now stands as a touchstone of courage and the power of optimism, proving nothing is impossible, there is no problem too big, and we are all capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable hardships.

“People close to Chris said that from the beginning, even before the accident, there was something bigger than being an actor, something bigger than Superman,” an insider exclusively shares in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “He was on some larger human mission from the start.”

With the release of a riveting new documentary, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, playing in select theaters on September 21 and September 25, the star’s stunning impact — along with the story of his unstoppable wife, Dana — lights up the big screen once again. Their son, Will, 32, and Christopher’s two older children with partner Gae Exton, Matthew, 44, and Alexandra, 40, contribute intimate memories and insights into their father’s legacy, intercut with home movies and repurposed film footage that is, according to Variety, “a moving, wrenching, compellingly well-made documentary.”

Christopher Andersen, the author of Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve, tells Us: “It was an epic tragedy, but also an epic love story. Here was this chiseled-from-granite star who is paralyzed in a freak horseback-riding accident and becomes a symbol of hope for millions.”

Christopher Reeve.

His Rise — and Brutal Fall

Trained in theater at Cornell and Juilliard, Reeve took acting seriously, bringing creativity and passion to his roles. When he won the lead in 1978’s Superman, the young unknown feared he’d be typecast. But he made the character his own. Critics praised the humanity he brought to the character, as well as the humor and sensitivity that made the bespectacled Clark Kent an intriguing foil. Three successful sequels followed.

“He was the best Superman up to that time. And he is still the best Superman since, with all due respect to all the other participants,” Pierre Spengler, producer of the first three Superman films, tells Us. “I haven’t seen a comparable Superman. He was absolutely perfect.”

At a muscular 6-foot-4, not only did the actor look like the superhero, he furthered the mystique by performing his own stunts. Off-screen, he piloted his own plane, flying solo across the Atlantic twice, sailed, skied and, as fate would have it, took up equestrian competition.

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During filming of the first Superman movie, Reeve summed up his role with a wink. “I prevent an earthquake,” he quipped. “I repair Golden Gate Bridge and Boulder Dam, and I prevent a nuclear explosion in Southern California.”

Unfortunately, Reeve was powerless against the grisly injury that would capsize his world. On May 27, 1995, competing with his thoroughbred, Buck, in a cross-country event in Culpeper, Virgina, the horse balked during a routine jump. Reeve was thrown headfirst, slamming into a crossrail and then the turf, shattering his spine between the first and second vertebrae, causing paralysis from the neck down.

Surviving the catastrophe at all was a miracle, doctors said. But the prognosis was overwhelmingly grim. “I couldn’t breathe on my own, I was intubated and on a respirator,” Reeve wrote in his memoir, Still Me. When the doctor told Dana there was a chance her husband would never breathe without assistance, “Dana said it was like being slammed into a wall,” Reeve wrote. “Her whole body and head involuntarily turned to one side, as if she had been struck.”

Saved By Love

In the days after learning his fate, Reeve considered giving up. “I ruined my life and everybody else’s,” he recalled thinking. “I won’t be able to ski, sail, throw a ball to Will. Won’t be able to make love to Dana. Maybe we should let me go.”

Dana wasn’t having it, declaring through tears, “I want you to know that I’ll be with you for the long haul, no matter what.” Then she added the words that saved Reeve’s life: “You’re still you. And I love you.”

The depth of her love and commitment made living seem possible. “I knew then and there that she was going to be with me forever,” Reeve wrote. “My job would be to learn how to cope with this and not be a burden. I would have to find new ways to be productive again.”

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Dana’s devotion to the complicated needs of Reeve and their then-3-year-old son, Will, touched everyone around the couple. “There are not that many times when you come across that true, shining love that Chris and Dana had for each other,” their friend late broadcaster Barbara Walters observed.

Dana, a singer and actress with chestnut hair and soulful brown eyes, became the caretaker who held the juice while her husband sipped from a straw, snuggling against his cheek and lovingly wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he sat in his wheelchair. She called ahead before every family outing to make sure there would be wheelchair access — thereby shielding him from depressing reminders of what he couldn’t do. And on the rare occasions when they would go out to dinner or a movie, she often carried a portable ramp up to entranceways.

Actress Katharine Hepburn was in awe of Dana, telling Andersen, “She never complains — you never hear either of them complain. It’s heartbreaking what happened, but now we know they are just two damn extraordinary people, plain and simple.”

Reclaiming Himself

“My dad was very competitive, and he didn’t necessarily slow down,” daughter Alexandra Reeve Givens says in Super/Man, describing Reeve’s restless energy, even after his devastating accident. True to form, the actor wasted no time attempting to defy the odds with his inspirational fight to walk again, repeatedly vowing to do so by his 50th birthday in 2002.

While he never realized that dream, he did make startling physical progress by tirelessly exercising and using electrical shocks to jolt his nervous system. By September 2000, Reeve was able to move an index finger, stunning scientists who hadn’t expected to see such regeneration so long after an accident so severe. ​

“Chris inspired me by just getting up in the morning, by opening his eyes and spending three hours having to get dressed,” says Michael Manganiello, former vice president of government relations for the Christopher Reeve Foundation. “That was all before he even got in the chair to start doing the work that we would do together. It took so much bravery and fortitude.”

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Even as he was pushing the limits of his own body, Reeve threw himself into a stubborn fight to change the medical world. He repeatedly made the arduous trip from his home in Bedford, New York, to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress and persistently advocated for stem cell research, a controversial subject at the time. His efforts on behalf of insurance reform helped raise the lifetime pay-out cap to $10 million.

“Whether it was increasing funding for the [National Institutes of Health] or passing the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, when Chris was passionate about an issue, he was like a dog with a bone,” says Manganiello. “He wouldn’t let it go, almost ever, until he succeeded.”

Reeve’s love of the arts never wavered. Along with his son Will, the Shakespearean-trained actor appeared on Sesame Street with Big Bird to demonstrate how he controlled his wheelchair by blowing through a straw. In 1997, Reeve realized his lifelong dream of directing, helming the acclaimed HBO film In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close. He earned a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild award for his starring role in a 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. And he wrote two soul-stirring bestsellers, Still Me (1998) and Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life (2002), which encouraged readers not to accept limitations.

Final Days

Even in the months leading up to his death, Reeve’s packed schedule stood as a reminder of his powerful sense of optimism. He directed an A&E Film, The Brooke Ellison Story, about a young girl’s achievements despite being paralyzed at the age of 11. He appeared on TV’s Smallville, and he codirected the animated movie Everyone’s Hero, which was loosely based on Joe DiMaggio.

The foundation Reeve started, later renamed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, became a game changer in funding research for the development of new treatments and cures for paralysis, raising more than $130 million over the last 25 years.

The day before he died, Reeve “spent his last day of consciousness doing what he loved to do,” Dana wrote in a letter to family, friends and supporters of the film star and activist. “He left a long phone message for [presidential candidate] Senator John Kerry lending his support and encouragement; he attended one of Will’s hockey games, cheering as they won a huge victory, bursting with pride as Will was presented with the game puck for his outstanding playing that day. He and I spent the early evening on the phone and then he watched the Yankee game with Will and gobbled up one of his favorite meals, turkey tetrazzini.”

By the next day Reeve was in a coma and hospitalized near his home in Bedford due to an infection from a pressure wound that spread throughout his body. His death was attributed to heart failure.

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“The world has lost a tremendous activist and artist and an inspiration for people worldwide,” said actor Robin Williams at the time. “I have lost a great friend.”

Tragically, the loss didn’t end there. Just 17 months after her husband’s death, Dana, a nonsmoker, died from lung cancer at age 44. “It seemed unfathomably cruel,” Andersen tells Us.

“Dana was more than just resilient. Despite everything, she was joyful about life — fun, witty, warm, disarmingly down-to-earth. Dana didn’t want to be called a saint, but if she wasn’t a saint, she certainly is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to one.”

It’s impossible to overestimate the impact the Reeves had on elevating the awareness of spinal cord injuries and funding research. It’s also impossible not to be moved by the power of their human courage and enduring love story. Perhaps their friend, actress Meryl Streep, said it best in a video clip from 2020: “When I first met Chris and Dana, they were two of the most glamorous, beautiful, vital people I had ever seen. And when they were slammed with adversity, they became even more — not glamorous — but glorious. They were blessed with so much and when it was taken away, they gave even more.”

For more on Reeve, watch the exclusive video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly — on newsstands now.

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi & Andrea Simpson