Christopher Reeve

The following is extracted from Wikipedia.  Reeve's life is an inspiration, as well as a tragedy.

Actor Christopher Reeve was born on September 25, 1952.

He was no dummy.  When he applied to college “he was accepted into Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, and Princeton.”  He chose Cornell, got into acting, and became a movie star — a 6’4” movie star.

For his senior year he transferred to Julliard.  Two thousand students applied for 20 positions, but Julliard only took two — Reeve and Robin Williams.  After completing his first year at Julliard he graduated from Cornell in 1974.  

During his first stint as a professional actor he ate candy bars and drank coffee instead of healthy meals.  It took its toll.  He was cast for the Broadway play A Matter of Gravity and on opening night uttered his first line, then "promptly fainted.” 

Things improved after that.  After the success of Superman and other films, he turned down lead roles in "American Gigolo, The World According to Garp, Splash, Fatal Attraction, Pretty Woman, Romancing the Stone, Lethal Weapon, and Body Heat.”  

In 1985 he started horse riding, and eventually entered competitions.  On May 27, 1995 he entered a competition in Culpeper, Virginia that included a number of jumps.  One of them was a routine three-foot fence shaped like the letter W.  

Witnesses said that the horse began the third fence jump and suddenly stopped. Reeve fell forward off the horse, holding on to the reins. His hands somehow became tangled in the reins, and the bridle and bit were pulled off the horse. He landed head first on the far side of the fence, shattering his first and second vertebrae. This cervical spinal injury, which paralyzed him from the neck down, also halted his breathing. Paramedics arrived three minutes later and immediately took measures to get air into his lungs. He was taken first to the local hospital, before being flown by helicopter to the University of Virginia Medical Center. Afterwards, he had no recollection of the accident.

His skull and spine were disconnected, and Reeve seriously considered suicide.  In the depths of his depression his friend Robin Williams showed up and got him laughing.

During the period of paralysis, Reeve continued to write, direct, and act.  He even made guest appearances on Sesame Street.  He became an activist for research in spinal cord injuries.  

He suffered from asthma and allergies all his life.  He also had severe drug reactions, one of which stopped his heart.  In early October, 2004 Reeve was being treated for sepsis, 

a complication he had experienced many times before. On October 4, he spoke at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on behalf of the Institute's work. This was to be his last reported public appearance.  On October 9, Reeve felt well and attended his son Will's hockey game. That night, he went into cardiac arrest after receiving an antibiotic for the infection.  He fell into a coma and was taken to Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York. Eighteen hours later, on October 10, 2004, Reeve died, aged 52.  His doctor, John McDonald, believed an adverse reaction to the antibiotic caused Reeve's death.

His widow, Dana Reeve, headed the Christopher Reeve Foundation after his death. She was diagnosed with lung cancer on August 9, 2005 and died, aged 44, on March 6, 2006.  

They are survived by their children and their fathers.