The character arc of Christopher Reeve
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 25 September 1952 in New York City, raised in Princeton, acting from the age of nine. Between then and his death sit Cornell and Juilliard, a Broadway debut in 1976, four Superman films, a deliberate turn away from big-budget roles towards small serious ones, a horse that refused a routine fence at Culpeper on 27 May 1995, a shattered first and second vertebra, a wife who answered his worst thought with four words, six months of rehabilitation, a directing career, two bestselling books, a research centre and a foundation that has given away more than 140 million dollars. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Christopher Reeve?
The horse refused. Dana said you are still you.
He found acting at nine, in Princeton, and never really stopped: Cornell, Juilliard, a Broadway debut in 1976, and then in 1978 the role that fixed him in everybody head. Three Superman sequels followed to 1987, and afterwards he turned down the big-budget offers on purpose and went looking for complicated parts in smaller films and plays. Somewhere in Time, Deathtrap, The Bostonians, Street Smart, The Remains of the Day, Fifth of July on Broadway, The Aspern Papers in the West End.
He learned to ride for a 1985 television film and took the sport seriously. He bought a thoroughbred called Buck, trained through 1994, and entered the Commonwealth finals at Culpeper, Virginia. He finished fourth of twenty seven in the dressage. Walking the cross-country course he worried about jumps sixteen and seventeen and barely looked at the third, an ordinary fence about a metre high.
On 27 May 1995 the horse began the third jump and stopped. He went forward over its head holding the reins, his hands tangled, and landed head first, shattering his first and second vertebrae. He was paralysed from the neck down and stopped breathing. He remembered none of it.
His first thoughts when they told him what had happened were that he had ruined his life and would be a burden, and he mouthed to Dana that maybe they should let him go. She said she would support whatever he wanted because it was his life and his decision, that she would be with him for the long haul no matter what, and then the four words the rest of this page comes from: you are still you, and I love you. She added, in what she later called a sales ploy, that if he still wanted to in two years they could reconsider.
He spent six months at the Kessler centre learning to drive a chair by blowing through a straw, and started, through the other patients, to see himself as part of the disabled community. Then he went back to work and did more in nine years than most people manage in a whole career: narrating an Emmy-winning documentary, directing In the Gloaming in 1997, persuading Disney to give two prime-time hours to a spinal cord research fundraiser, publishing Still Me in April 1998, which spent eleven weeks on the bestseller list and won him a Grammy for the audiobook, starring in and producing a remake of Rear Window that won him a Screen Actors Guild Award, a second book in 2002, two Smallville appearances in 2003, and two films directed in 2004. He chaired the American Paralysis Association, co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, and built a foundation that has since given more than 140 million dollars to research and more than 46 million in quality-of-life grants. He died on 10 October 2004, aged fifty two, having attended his son hockey game the day before.
The moments
Christopher Reeve's timeline.
The 1950s
Born in New York
Everyday. New York, then Princeton after the divorce.
The 1960s
Acting at nine
Milestone, and it changed everything. Nine years old, and that was that.
The 1970s
Broadway
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Cornell, Juilliard, Broadway, in that order.
Superman
Milestone, and it changed everything. One role, and the whole world knew his face.
The 1980s
He learns to ride
Milestone, and it changed everything. He learned it for a part, and kept it.
He turns down the blockbusters
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He had the franchise and went looking for harder work.
The 1990s
He marries Dana
Milestone, and it changed everything. He put down his fork and asked.
The horse refuses
Setback, and it changed everything. The fence he had barely looked at.
You are still you
Milestone, and it changed everything. Four words from his wife, and everything after them.
Let go, or stay
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: stay, and find work he can do, taken, or let it end. He directed, wrote two bestsellers, won a Grammy and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and built a foundation that has given away over 140 million dollars.
Six months at Kessler
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He learned to drive a chair with his breath.
The foundation
Milestone, and it changed everything. A research centre and a foundation, built from a wheelchair.
He directs
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He could not move, so he directed.
Still Me
Milestone, and it changed everything. The title is what his wife said to him.
Rear Window
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He acted again, and won for it.
The 2000s
Nothing Is Impossible
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A second book, about how he saw things now.
Back in Smallville
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The old Superman, telling the new one who he is.
He dies at fifty two
Setback, and it changed everything. He went to his son hockey game the day before.
The foundation still carries both their names and still writes the cheques, and an act of Congress carries them too. What he set moving is a research field that was quiet and underfunded before a famous man fell off a horse at a three-foot fence and decided to spend the rest of his life on it.
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His turned on four words from his wife in a hospital room. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Christopher Reeve: frequently asked questions
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Where does this timeline of Christopher Reeve's life come from?
More character arcs
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Sources
- Christopher Reeve, English Wikipedia biography.
- Still Me, his 1998 autobiography, and its Grammy-winning audiobook.
- Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life, 2002.
- The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation published giving figures, as cited there.