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Top Stories - AP BEDFORD, NY - Christopher Reeve, the star of the "Superman" movies whos e near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research, died Sunday of heart failure, his pub licist said.
Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure w ound, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the pas t week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious s ystemic infection. "On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hosp ital for the excellent care they provided to my husband," Dana Reeve, Ch ristopher's wife, said in a statement. "I also want to thank his persona l 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. "Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the March 1996 Oscar awards appe arance. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. There is no c hallenge, artistic or otherwise, that we can't meet." He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 productio n of "Rear Window," a modern update of the Hitchcock thriller about a ma n in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered.
"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story," Reeve said. "But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face. With so many clos e-ups, I knew that my every thought would count." In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized worko ut regimen made his legs and arms stronger. "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 actual ly is very helpful toward recovery," Reeve said.
His name was even mentioned by Kerry earlie r this month during the second presidential debate. His athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natura l, if largely unknown, choice for the title role in the first "Superman" movie in 1978. Although he reprised the role three times, Reeve often worried about bein g typecast as an action hero. "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 animal s and I've rescued cats from trees," Reeve told the Los Angeles Times in 1983. "What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn't been done ?" Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he of ten put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play "Fifth of July," a lovestruck time-tr aveler in the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time," and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller "Deathtrap." More recent films included John Carpenter's "Village of the Damned," and the HBO movies "Above Suspicion" and "In the Gloaming," which he directe d Among his other film credits are "The Remains of the Day," "The Aviat or," and "Morning Glory."
Reeve's first movie role was a minor one in the submarine disaster movie "Gray Lady Down," released in 1978. Reeve was selected for the title role from among about 200 aspirants. Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestr ian events regularly. Witnesses to the 1995 accident said Reeve's horse had cleared two of 15 fences during the jumping event and stopped abrupt ly 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 c ord. While filming "Superman" in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. and his two children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21. 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. and how lucky we al l are and that my brain is on straight."
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