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'Superman' Reeve dies of cardiac arrest
AMERICAN "Superman" actor, Christopher Reeve, who turned personal tragedy into a public crusade and from his wheelchair became the United States (U.S.) most recognisable spokesman for spinal cord research, has passed on.
He died on Sunday at the age of 52 years, of complications from an infection caused by a bedsore. He suffered cardiac arrest on Saturday, while at his Pound Ridge home, then fell into a coma and was taken to a hospital where he died surrounded by family, his publicist said.
Funeral plans are yet to be announced by family.
Reeve's advocacy for stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between U.S. President George W. Bush and Senator. John Kerry. Kerry even mentioned his name during the second presidential debate on Friday.
In the last week Reeve had developed a serious systemic infection, a common problem for people living with paralysis who develop bedsores and depend on tubes and other medical devices needed for their care.
His wife, 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?"
Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play "Fifth of July," a love-struck time-traveller 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 directed. Among his other film credits are "The Remains of the Day," "The Aviator," and "Morning Glory."
Reeve's life changed completely after he broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Vancouver.
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. He moved an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.
"Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the 1996 Oscar awards appearance. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else."
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 is convinced a neighbour has been murdered.
Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor in a TV movie or miniseries.
"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."
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.
Reeve in 2001 was able to move his index finger, and a specialised workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. With rigorous therapy, involving repeated electrical stimulation of the muscles, he also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He vowed to walk again.
"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 Programme 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."
Dr. Raymond Onders, who implanted electrodes in Reeve's diaphragm in a groundbreaking surgery to help him breathe, said the sore that led to the infection was not Reeve's only recent health problem.
"Many different problems develop after nine years of being dependent on a ventilator, not being able to move yourself, having intestinal problems. It just slowly builds up over the years," Onders told ABC's "Good Morning America."
Reeve was born September 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter.`
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