How Christopher Reeve’s own ‘Superwoman’ convinced him to live

‘I’ve ruined my life and everybody else’s.’

That’s what Christopher Reeve was thinking in intensive care after a freak horse-riding accident changed his life in an instant on May 27, 1995. In his memoirs years later, he revealed what was running through his mind.

The actor, who became a global star through his role as Superman, had been taking part in an equestrian competition in the small town of Culpeper, Virginia, alongside hundreds of other riders when tragedy struck.

Approaching a triple-pole jump, his horse Buck suddenly came to a halt in what’s known as a ‘dirty stop.’ Chris  – as he was known to friends and family – was thrown to the ground and landed on his head.

The 42-year-old broke two vertebrae in his neck and suffered a large haemorrhage on his spinal cord, which meant his brain could no longer send information to the muscles of his body.

It emerged that if Chris had fallen one centimeter further to the left, he would have died on the spot. As a result of his injuries, doctors told him he would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. 

His mother, writer Barbara Pitney, agreed. She begged the doctors to withdraw his mechanical ventilation.

However, Dana Morosini, Chris’s second wife, thought otherwise.

The pair had met at a cabaret show at the Williamstown theater festival in 1987. Chris was in the audience and watched with awe as Dana sang ‘The Music That Makes Me Dance’ from Jule Styne’s ‘Funny Girl.’ He fell ‘hook, line and sinker’ for the dark-haired beauty and the pair were wed by 1992. The same year, they had their son named Will.

Initially, Chris was reclusive and the world had no idea how the Superman actor’s treatment was progressing. But he eventually returned to film and, with support in place, directed three features and starred in a TV remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window as a quadriplegic.

In 1996, Chris gave a speech in Washington and said: ‘When I was injured I thought that it must be my fault, that I was being punished for being a bad person. That’s a natural reaction. But part of what helped me to turn around fairly quickly was the core of discipline I had developed over the years. It helped me to see this as a new chapter in my life rather than the end of it.’

Chris died unexpectedly of heart failure in 2004 He was 52. ‘May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, sweet prince,’ said actor Robin Williams at the 2005 Golden Globes, as he dedicated the Cecil B DeMille Award to his close friend and former roommate.

Dana became the Christopher Reeve Foundation’s chair of the board of directors. In Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, the documentary explores how Dana became ‘Superwoman’ in her own right in her lifetime.

In one scene, the star’s ex-wife Gae Exton recalls a letter she received from Dana. It stated she wanted to be ‘friend, not stepmother’ to Chris’s first two children, Matthew and Alexandra, from his first marriage.  

Later, an emotive clip is played from Chris’s memorial service, where Dana tells the crowd she would need to amend her marriage vows from ‘love you til death do us part’ to ‘I will love you forever.’ 

Later in the film, the couple’s son Will wipes away tears as he reads a private poem from his mother, in which detailed the sense of loss she’d felt since the accident and the brave face she’d worn to keep the family positive. 

‘She was the reason Christopher decided to live on rather than switch off his life support. Thanks to her, resources were created that simply didn’t exist previously – from caregiving manuals to the Reeve Foundation’s helpline. So yes, she really was Superwoman, and everyone we interviewed for the film wanted to speak as much about Dana as about Chris.

‘However, it was only when we started looking through the family archives that we truly experienced what made her such a life-enhancing presence for ourselves: her warmth, her compassion, the way she lights up a room with a smile or a song. And we saw how she was such a wonderful mother not just to her beloved Will, but to her two step-children who absolutely adored her.

‘It was essential for us to stitch all this material into the film: to us she is the beating heart of this family’s story, and we wanted the film to celebrate her as much as Christopher.’

Family videos tell touching story

For co-directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, it was important not to divide Chris’s life into ‘before and after’ the accident. Instead, scenes from throughout his life are cut together in a different order.

The duo’s previous films include Rising Phoenix, about Paralympian athletes, and McQueen, a biopic of the iconic fashion designer. They tried to use lessons learned in each process for their documentary about Chris Reeve.

The pair gained access to never-before-seen home movies of the Reeve family to help tell the story of his life.

In one clip, Chris is the picture of health as he beams and shouts ‘carpe diem’ at daughter Alexandra as she rides a bike. In another, Dana places a hand on Chris’s leg post accident in what is ultimately a symbolic gesture of her love, as he wouldn’t have been able to feel her touch. 

Ian, who grew up in Switzerland, encountered Chris Reeve in his teenage years, when a dubbed version of Superman was played on French TV. Meanwhile Londoner Peter was a huge comic-book fan and, aged 13, watched Superman with his family at the Dominion Cinema when the film first came out.

‘We saw the dark shadow of a demanding father that loomed over his childhood and adolescence. We understood that he found his vocation as an actor in part to escape the legacy of a broken family.

‘We realised that his unhappy experience of family contributed to his own ambivalence about marriage, and reluctance to marry either of the two great loves of his life: Gae and also Dana.

‘Our perception of Christopher changed and deepened enormously as we made the film, and we wanted to reflect that in the way we unfolded his story.’

What makes a true hero?

Chris had recorded audio from his memoirs before he died in 2005, with parts of the narration used in Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.

In one section, the actor ponders the wider meaning of the ‘hero,’ a word frequently thrown his way.

Who was the hero? Was it his 24-year-old Chris as Superman, flying through the sky and allowing an entire generation to believe anything was possible? Or was it the 43-year-old on stage at the 1996 Oscars in a wheelchair, breathing with a ventilator and breaking down barriers for the disabled community as he gave a speech? 

In audio from the documentary, Chris answers his own question.