CHRISTOPHER REEVE

• Christopher Reeve's determination inspired doctors and the disabled • Reeve vowed to walk again • Reeve on screen

Actor Christopher Reeve turned personal tragedy into a public crusade, and from his wheelchair became the nation's most recognizable spokesman for spinal-cord research.

Reeve's advocacy for stem-cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry during the second presidential debate on Friday.

In the last week Reeve had developed a serious systemic infection, a common problem for people living with paralysis. He entered the hospital Saturday.

Dana Reeve thanked her husband's personal staff of nurses and aides, "as well as the millions of fans from around the world."

"He put up with a lot," said his mother, Barbara Johnson. "I'm glad that he is free of all those tubes."

Before the 1995 horse-riding accident that caused his paralysis, Reeve's athletic, 6-foot-4 frame and love of adventure made him a natural choice for the title role in the first Superman movie in 1978.

Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play Fifth of July, a lovestruck time-traveler in the 1980 movie Somewhere in Time, and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller Deathtrap.

From actor to activist

Reeve's life changed completely after he broke his neck in May 1995 after he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Va.

Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury. He moved an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.

"Hollywood needs to do more," he said at the 1996 Oscars. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else."

He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of Rear Window, an update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who is convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor in a TV movie or miniseries.

Reeve also made several guest appearances on the WB series Smallville as Dr. Swann, a scientist who gave the teenage Clark Kent insight into his future as Superman.

In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. He also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He vowed to walk again.

"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery," Reeve said.

Kerry, campaigning in Santa Fe, N.M., said Reeve made great strides toward curing spinal-cord injuries.

"Chris was an inspiration to all of us," Kerry said. "His tireless efforts will always be remembered and honored and, in part because of his work, millions will one day walk again."

'There is hope'

Dr. John McDonald treated Reeve as director of the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Washington University in St. Louis. "Before him there was really no hope. If you had a spinal cord injury like his there was not much that could be done, but he's changed all that. He's demonstrated that there is hope and that there are things that can be done."

Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. About age 10, he made his first stage appearance in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard .

After graduating from Cornell University in 1974, he landed a part as coldhearted bigamist Ben Harper on the soap opera Love of Life. He also performed on stage, winning his first Broadway role as the grandson of Katharine Hepburn's character in A Matter of Gravity.

While filming Superman in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. They had a son and a daughter, but never wed.

Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 12. Reeve also is survived by his mother, Barbara Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin Reeve; and the children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21.

Funeral plans were not immediately announced.

In his 1998 book, Still Me, he recalled that after the accident, when he contemplating giving up, his wife told him: "I want you to know that I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you. And I love you."

Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation: www.christopherreeve.org