CHRISTOPHER REEVE Superman’s secret life as revealed in new documentary, featuring never-before-seen family footage

On May 27, 1995, actor Christopher Reeve was riding his horse in a competition in Virginia when, during a routine three-foot jump, the horse suddenly stopped, throwing the 42-year-old Hollywood star years forward out of the chair. Reeve’s head hit the floor, fracturing the first and second vertebrae in his neck, paralyzing him from the shoulders down. A sixteenth of an inch to the left and he would have been killed instantly. Same on the right and I would have just been shocked.

You might think you know the story: the sad irony of the actor who played Superman, the Man of Steel, lying in a Virginia hospital unable to breathe without a ventilator.

Reeve photographed by Herb Ritts in 1996, a year after the accident

But then? This is where Reeve’s new documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story it begins The film’s directors, Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhôte, tell Reeve’s remarkable life from the two events that defined him: becoming the star of Supermanthe original superhero movie, and losing sensation in 90 percent of his body.

His film includes never-before-seen family film footage and the first extended interviews with Reeve’s three children. At its core is the relationship between the Hollywood star and his wife Dana Morosini. They met in 1987 at a theater festival, and the video clips reveal their chemistry: they made each other laugh and, of course, fancied each other crazy. They married in 1992 and soon had their son Will (Reeve already had two children, Matthew and Alexandra, from a previous relationship).

It was only three years after they were married that Reeve had his driving accident. He was on life support and his mother suggested they turn it off. Dana resisted. When she finally opened her eyes, his first words to her were, “Maybe we should let me go.” She replied, “You’re still you and I love you.” He credited that phrase with keeping him alive.

“The love story and the role of Dana show how disability affects not only one person, but everyone around them,” Bonhôte notes as we sit in a small office in London. “Christopher needed 24-hour care. She raised his son, her other two children and took care of him. It’s just pure love.

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The film chronicles Reeve’s troubled childhood, fluctuating career and powerful activism, interviewing colleagues and friends Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels and Susan Sarandon and showing Reeve family VHS tapes. It’s more exhilarating and more heartbreaking than you can imagine.

Born into a blue-blooded American family, Reeve’s mother, Barbara, was descended from the Pilgrims of Mayflower while his father Franklin’s line included French aristocrats and wealthy businessmen. His grandfather, Colonel Richard Henry Reeve, was CEO of insurance giant Prudential for more than 25 years.

His parents separated bitterly when he was four years old. Young Reeve found that success impressed them, so he excelled as a student and in sports. At 24, she had been working in off-Broadway theater and daytime soap operas when her agent sent her photo to Superman director Richard Donner and producer Ilya Salkind, who had been trying to play the role for three years. They agreed to see him and he based his audition on the kind and vulnerable Cary Grant. ‘I heard that the new Superman it should reflect that contemporary male image,” he said.

Perhaps because of his father’s disdain for acting – the two weren’t even speaking at the time of his accident – Reeve had a deep bond with his best friend, actor Robin Williams. They had met as drama students at the Juilliard School and became roommates, sleeping in bunk beds; Reeve bought food for Williams when her student loan came late.

After the accident, Williams supported Reeve emotionally and financially. While the paralyzed actor was in hospital, the funnyman disguised himself as a Russian doctor and insisted he was there for an anal exam. It was the first time Reeve had laughed since the fall.

One night, when Reeve had moved into the house, a power outage knocked out his ventilator and he almost died. The Reeve family was cash-strapped and health insurance didn’t cover a generator, but Williams provided one, as well as a specially tuned van that would carry Reeve with all the necessary equipment and care equipment.

At one point in the film, Glenn Close says the two were so close that Williams might not have taken his own life in 2014 if Reeve had been alive. Reeve’s fame got the better of him at times and ruined many relationships, but his friendship with Williams never failed.

In the film, Reeve admits that, like his father, he was not present enough for his own children before the fall. After the accident, he became engaged on a more personal level: “I needed to break my neck to learn some of these things.”

The family needed money, with insurance covering only two-thirds of the $400,000 annual care bills, so Reeve worked hard, directing three films, including the award-winning one. In Gloamingand acting in a handful of films, including a 1998 remake rear windowwhich also produced.

“I had to be on the set (for rear window) at 6.30 in the morning,” says Bonhôte. “He had to wake up three hours earlier to bathe, dress, do physiotherapy. Every day of filming, he would be the first to arrive and the last to leave. He spent only two or three hours sleeping, but he never complained.”

He appeared at the Oscars in 1996 in a wheelchair to a standing ovation as part of his campaign to change attitudes and increase funding for disability, later setting up the Christopher Reeve Foundation which has supported remarkable progress. He traveled the world, pushing for research or legislation that would offer a chance to walk again. Today, the Foundation offers a helpline in the United States for people suffering from paralysis.

In November 2003, Reeve gave him a hopeful interview The New Yorker. That spring, an experimental electrical stimulation device had been implanted in his diaphragm so he could breathe without a ventilator. He was starting to regain some movement in his arms and legs. But Reeve was impatient. “I don’t want to get out of this wheelchair at 75,” he said. “I’m 51 years old and I’d like to get out very soon.”

Less than a year later, he was being treated for an infected pressure ulcer and on October 10 he was given an antibiotic to treat it. That night he went into cardiac arrest and later fell into a coma. He died 18 hours later. “His body shut down, he pushed it too hard,” says Ettedgui. “It could have lasted longer if he had done less. But it wasn’t him.

The final emotional impact of the film comes when Dana and Will mourn him. About a year after his death, Dana sang on stage at a fundraiser for the foundation. Soon after she developed an unusual cough, visited a doctor and, although she was a non-smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on March 6, 2006 at the age of 44, leaving 13-year-old Will an orphan. The family came together: Reeve’s grown children, Alexandra and Matthew, helped raise their half-brother Will, who became the ABC presenter. Good morning America. Matthew is now a producer and Alexandra, CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology. They all serve on the board of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

It is a sad but heroic story. As Reeve himself says in the film: “What is a hero? I used to say it was someone who does a brave act without considering the consequences. Now it’s completely different. A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to to persevere and endure despite overwhelming obstacles.’

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story will be in theaters from November 1