Christopher Reeve (25-September-1952 – 10-October-2004) was an American actor. He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in music theory and English, and later attended the Juilliard School of Performing Arts. Reeve was a prolific theatre actor, performing in about 150 plays the Broadway plays, most notably in A Matter of Gravity (1976), along with Katharine Hepburn. However, Reeves was most famous for his films — especially his title role in Superman (1978) and its three sequels. Reeve also appeared in numerous television shows such as Smallville and Sesame Street. He married Dana Morosini in 1992 and they had one son, William, born in 1992. Reeve also had two children with Gae Exton: Matthew, born in 1979, and Alexandra, born in 1983.
In 1995, Reeve was in a horseback riding accident that injured his spinal cord and left him paralysed from the neck down. From that point on, Reeves became a noted disability activist and spokesperson.
In a 2002 interview with Charlie Rose, Reeve spoke about his childhood fear of church and its images of a violent god: It’s frightening to me, the organised religion…My father was not religious at all, so I really did not bother with questions of faith and spirituality.
During Reeve’s post-accident spiritual journey, he joined a Unitarian church. When asked about that in a Reader’s Digest interview, Reeve replied: It gives me a moral compass. I often refer to Abe Lincoln, who said, ‘When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.’ I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don’t know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.
Reeve died at age 52 after an antibiotic for an infection sent him into cardiac arrest and a coma.