The family of Superman star Christopher Reeve is breaking silence about tragic life
The life and career of Christopher Reeve will be documented in a new film due out next month.
October 25, 2024, published at 6:40 PM ET
Superman star by Christopher Reeve family have opened up about the star’s tragic life, 20 years after his death.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the role of the actor’s children in a new film about the legendary actor, who was paralyzed from the neck down after a horse riding accident in 1995.
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Reeve became paralyzed after a horse riding accident.
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His family tells how Reevewas only 42 at the time, feared he would become a ‘burden’ to his family – and his mother was in favor of letting him die.
His lawyer daughter Alexandra revealed her stepmother and Reeves second wife Dana was the person who kept him alive.
Alexandra, 40, reveals: “She said, ‘I’m going to say this one time. It’s your choice, because it’s your life. But you’re still you, and I love you.”
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Reeve with wife Dana, who he credits with saving his life.
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“He was reminded that he was the same person, and that he still had a family around him who loved him, wanted him and needed him, that he would still have value.
“Dana was really the one who helped him realize that. He said, ‘Dana saved me.'”
Suddenly the strong father who had raced them down the ski slopes and hit them with tennis balls as hard as he could was in a wheelchair.
But from that tragedy, they took comfort in the fact that he was still alive.
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Reeve became a huge star after his appearance in the 1978 Superman film.
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Reeve in his Superman heyday.
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If the fracture in his neck had been an inch further to the left, he would have died.
Alexandra says: “He never blamed the horse. I started riding again. He saw very clearly that it was a very stupid coincidence.
“But it could have been a fluke in the other direction and he could have died on the spot.”
Alexandra, her brother Matthew, stepbrother and Dana’s son Will, now 32, got to spend more time with their father after his accident.
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Speak with The sun before the release of Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve StoryMatthew, 44, said: “For him and for us it was all about being really grateful that we were together and that we had each other, and we spent a lot of time in his office just talking.
“He always had wise advice and supportive words.”
Reeve became the most high-profile advocate for the paralyzed community, raising millions for research and campaigning for better rights for people with disabilities.
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He continued acting and starred in an Alfred Hitchcock remake Rear window in 1998, and directed films.
Some of his nerves found new pathways, so he regained the movement of his feet and left hand.
He never gave up hope that one day he would be able to walk again.
But in October 2004, an infection led to sepsis and after falling into a coma, his fight for life came to an end at the age of 52.
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In a cruel twist of fate, the Reeve family’s pain was not over.
Eighteen months later, Dana, 44, died of lung cancer, leaving Will “all alone”, aged just 13, but Alexandra and Matthew became his support network.
And all three children, who are very close, are now directors of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
