Christopher Reeve

Love his New England lifestyle; reading, staying healthy, horse breeding, and having an almost "boring" personal life.

He WAS Christopher Reeve!

Lately when I think about him I think about the saga and legacy of Chadwick Boseman. It’s almost like a curse.

Most of his projects were vastly different:

Superman

Deathtrap

The Bostonians

Monsignor

Street Smart

Noises Off

The Remains of the Day

Thatbulge

I’m sorry he fell off a horse

That being said, Christopher Reeve turned down everything.

American Gigolo: made Richard Gere’s career

Body Heat: made William Hurt’s career

Romancing the Stone & Fatal Attraction: made Michael Douglas’s career

The Bounty & Lethal Weapon: made Mel Gibson’s career

Splash & Philadelphia: made Tom Hanks’s career

Both Christopher Reeves and Eric Porter were in television versions of Anna Karenina.

R1 New England lifestyle: He was shitting his Depends on a mobility scooter.

Reeve not Reeves.

I loved him in Street Smart. Great movie.

R6 He was wrong for Body Heat. William Hurt came off as broke and dumb, Reeve comes off as posh and educated in everything.

I think the plot would be more believable with Hurt than Reeve.

[quote] I loved him in Street Smart.

Is Morgan Freeman our greatest actor?

I didn't know much about him outside of Superman (no one will ever top his depiction as the character) and his accident so the documentary "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story" was eye-opening. It's a great documentary as it wasn't afraid to show him in a realistic light as a person with faults. It wasn't overly fawning.

R7- I prefer the 1977 mini series starring Nicola Pagett ( Elizabeth Bellamy on Upstairs Downstairs) which I have been watching lately on the Britbox channel on Amazon.

He was going to play Thomas Jefferson in Merchant Ivory's Jefferson in Paris, but he had his accident

I met him once, I didn't like him, but I met his wife (Dana Reeve) and loved her. Too bad they both died so young.

^ I also happened to see him before he was famous, in the play, A Matter of Gravity, with Katharine Hepburn.

[quote]r17 = I also happened to see him before he was famous, in the play, A Matter of Gravity, with Katharine Hepburn.

I saw him in *The Irregular Verb to Love* with Celeste Holm which would have been before that.

R18 Cool, where was that?

Central City Opera House (CO), r19. Celeste's husband, Wesley Addy, was also in it.

Kate Hepburn took him under her wing

I remember loving Deathtrap when I was young. I should revisit it after all this time.

I met him once, between Superman and Somewhere In Time. I was a bit starstruck and didn't say anything other than simple pleasantries. He was smiling and friendly. Later I got to know Nathan Lane, who was a friend of Reeve and his wife, Dana. He was devastated by Reeve's death -said what a great guy he was. He was near tears when talking about him. That speaks well for what kind of a man he was.

Where I met him was at a screening of the film of The Glass Menagerie that was directed by Paul Newman, starring Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich, Karen Allen, James Naughton. I think he had somethnig to do with producing it. I was sent there by a radio station to review the movie. When I ran into Reeve in the back of the theater afterwards, I mentioned to him that I went to the same university as him and was in the theater department. He seemed happy about that and shook my hand. Then when I said I was reviewing the movie for the station, he dropped my hand, looked at me like I was a bug, pretended to wave to a nonexistent friend across the room, and walked away.

Why that would bother him that much, I don't know. I wasn't there to interview him. But he could have just excused himself in a way that made me feel less like I was dropped like a hot potato. Not saying he was a bad guy, probably not, but encounters like that can leave you with a negative impression.

One thing that I still think about--he was huge. Tall, and a very large guy. Almost plastic-looking features, like some movie stars have.

In the '90s, after he was dead, some friends and I had gone to a play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where Reeve and his wife, Dana, had been in several plays. (I think the Festival had something to do with that film version of The Glass Menagerie.) There was a cabaret there, where the people in the current play usually performed, afterwards, and we met Dana Reeve. She sat with us, she was very funny, and extrememly nice.

R24, he didn’t die until 2024.

R25 - make that 2004 not 2024

R26 Oh, my God, you caught me! The play was in summer of 1997, called Johnny On A Spot. I just looked it up. Reeve was not dead. But he had already had his accident.

Thanks for correcting that. Louis Black (who was in the play) performed that night at the cabaret and was hilarious. Timothy Daly was also at the play, because an actor from Wings was in it. Daley was extremely good looking in person.

The play wasn't so hot.

R26, of course. My bad.

President Bush worked with him on stem cell research

R11, Reeve comes off to me as someone who had too much plastic surgery (before Superman).

[quote] President Bush worked with him on stem cell research

Which Bush?

R31 Junior

The Charlie Rose interview

He does the “s thing.” Can’t pronounce the S without his teeth in the lower lip.

Did he dye his pubes black?

Poobs.

I love how he respected the Superman legacy and wouldnt take roles that could tarnish it. I feel that Hollywood was donw with him, before the tragic accident, which is sad. He needed, and deserved, a Tarantino style ressurection. In a way he was super typecast. I love him though, and loved the new documentary Super Man. Rip.

Still a gentleman while slagging off Marlon Brando.

The only actor miscast in "The Remains of the Day." Every time he was on the screen he pulled me out of the movie. (I still think it's a brilliant movie.)

Maybe Ivory thought he was more suited to "Jefferson in Paris", though I don't remember Ivory talking about casting him or even considering him for Jefferson.

R39 Really? I thought he was great. He was supposed to be a little different because he was an American and did not understand the British system.

R16 Why didn’t you like him? He never did much for me, but he seemed like a nice guy. Lots of people loved him. When his wife died young too, I was astounded at their children’s bad bad luck. :-(

Didn't one of his sons publicly say that he thought his father was really gay?

You can't find a word about it on the interwebs.

Christopher Reeve on Desert Island Discs (1984)

Bach, Van Cliburn playing Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Carly Simon, Beethoven, Mozart, Brian Eno, and John Lennon

Christopher Reeve on Dick Cavett

I bet he had a huge cock.

It’s not kryptonite that defeated Superman.

R30 He looked like he'd had some.

People treat him like a bad actor, but Superman works because he is able to balance Clark Kent and Superman.

The wrong actor would have sank the movie.

He never ONCE tried to fuck me on the set of that awful John Carpenter movie!

*would have sunk

[quote]Didn't one of his sons publicly say that he thought his father was really gay? You can't find a word about it on the interwebs.

I have never heard of this so I looked and found a TikTok where the person has screengrabs - one from an article by Thomas M. Hubbard who wrote/writes for the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. The article is no longer on their site and the Twitter link to it is dead. The article referenced a rumoured interview Will Reeve did with The Daily Beast and I see no reference of it on TDB's site.

There was also another article referencing one of the "Hollywood Babylon" films that stated that porn actor Cal Culver had an affair with Reeve.

Love him

A young woman I knew interned with the Williamstown Festival as a undergrad summers when he was there. She said he was a straight horndog.

The documentary on his life is brutally honest. He was flawed like all of us but he did so much good after his accident. Dana seemed like an angel.

“Pink”

- Superman

R54 which documentary?

I remember him from Love of Life as Ben.

"Somewhere in Time" is a STUNNING film. Both Reeve and Jane Seymour are incredible and the soundtrack (by John Barry) is AMAZING.

R53- Yes he was definitely a PUSSYHOUND like Richard Simmons and Paul Lynde.

Somewhere in Time is scheduled for a 4K re-release 🤗

And Reeve was HOT AS FUCK!