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[dramatic music playing]

[screams]

[music intensifies]

[presenter] We are about to meet someone

who made the whole world believe that he could fly.

[Christopher Reeve] There is something about America,

which is very short on heroes.

We need something. We need all the heroes we can get.

Good afternoon, Mr. President.

Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen,

Superman may be make-believe.

But, the qualities of courage,

and of character, that make him unique are very real.

[reporter] He starred in four Superman movies,

making him one of the most famous faces in Hollywood.

How you doing?

[Chris] Superman has changed everything.

Any more at home like you?

Uh, not really, no.

Today, Superman. Tomorrow, what?

[Chris] I've got another 20, 30 years ahead,

and a wider range of roles to come,

and more interesting parts to play.

Do you prefer to be called Chris or Christopher

or Mr. Reeve?

- Or sir? Or Your Excellence? - [laughs]

No. Chris is fine.

[nostalgic music playing]

[Chris] For the first time,

my professional and personal life

seemed perfectly balanced.

[woman] Don't they always?

[Chris] Our plans for the year

were falling into place beautifully.

Just take a second to really make a wish for the new year.

Think about a nice wish for the new year,

and then we'll all blow out the candles together.

One, two, three...

[music stops]

[Chris] And then, in an instant...

[ventilator hisses]

[Chris] ...everything changed.

[slow inspirational music fading in]

- [playing gentle music] - [Chris singing]

♪ Yes, my dear Yes, my dear...♪

[Will Reeve] Most of what I remember about my dad

comes from stories and photos and videos.

It's coalesced in my brain as a memory

and it's kind of a perfect day.

Love you, too, Daddy.

[Chris] Why don't you climb up on the bed with Mommy?

[Will] My childhood bedroom shared a wall

with my parents' bathroom,

and when I was a little two-year-old...

when I woke up, I would knock on the... on the bathroom wall

and my dad, he would knock back.

Yeah.

And then he or my mom would come around and carry me in.

My mom was out of this world.

No.

[Will] A hug from my mom was like being wrapped up by the sun.

Forever and ever, we will know

that this is how I look in the morning.

- I love you. - I love you more.

- [Chris] Hey, Matthew. - Yeah?

[Chris] Hi. Merry Christmas.

[laughter]

- [Chris] Al... Merry Christmas. - Merry Christmas.

[young Will] Merry Christmas.

[Will] Matthew and Al are my half siblings,

but, as we say, "There's no half."

They're my brother and sister.

[Al] Dad and my mum separated when I was three,

and so, pretty early on, we had two households.

During the school year,

my brother and I would be in England

and then every vacation, we would come over to the States.

- Oh! Thank you. - [laughter]

- [Chris] Aw! - Did you get that? The kiss?

- [Chris] Great. - Yep.

- Oh, my God. - Oh, we got that.

[Matthew Reeve] Usually, you know, we'd get

like, ten days or a couple weeks.

[Dana] You ready for your close-up, Mr. Reeve?

[Matthew] Doing things with my dad,

it was all about activity and action.

Riding bikes, playing soccer,

skiing, swimming, horse riding with my sister.

Hi.

[Dana] A few words from Al's trainer.

- How's she doing, Coach? - Doing good.

She's getting ready. I think we're going to go for Saratoga,

and jump the big ones this year.

I mean, she really... could be in the money.

- [Dana] Good to hear. - Thanks.

[Dana] Thanks very much.

Learning how to ride horses was strange for me

because I've always been allergic to horses.

[Al] He was cast in Anna Karenina

and there were riding scenes, and he realized,

"If I'm going to do this and be on a horse,

I have to do it for real."

He injected himself with antihistamine every day for months.

[Chris] I sort of took a crash course

enough to get me through the movie.

If you look, that's actually me

in the middle of the Hungarian national equestrian team,

doing a steeplechase.

Come on!

I was in the middle for a good reason,

because if I was about to go,

they could catch me and keep me on.

- [audience laughs] - But anyway,

my wife and I have riding in common.

It's become a very central part of our life.

[Al] He just absolutely adored it.

[Will] He was an intense guy.

He didn't do anything half-assed.

[Matthew] You could not fail and quit.

It was like, you try, you fail, you try harder.

[Chris] Back in the Superman years,

I always used to joke about needing to be very careful,

because I didn't want to read a headline

in the New York Post like,

"Superman hit by a school bus."

I was getting to be a pretty good rider.

[woman] In first place,

Denver, ridden by Christopher Reeve.

[crowd cheers]

Our latest entry,

this is Will Reeve. Say, "Hi."

- Hi. - Hi.

[laughter]

[Will] It was Memorial Day weekend, 1995.

My dad was competing

in a cross-country horseback riding competition.

[Al] And was just so excited to get down there.

[man] What?

[Matthew] And my dad had been in London for some reason

a few weeks before.

We said, "Goodbye," and I ran upstairs to, like...

I guess, watch him... you know, walk away.

And I remember him turning,

I guess, instinctively,

knowing I would do that and, um... [voice breaks]

[smacks lips]

Yeah. He gave this wave and...

[inhales sharply]

Um, that was the last time I saw him on his feet.

[newscaster 1] Rumors have been flying

since 42-year-old Christopher Reeve

fell off a horse this past weekend.

Well, tonight, many of the worst reports are true.

Wendy Rieger joins us now, with the latest

from the hospital in Charlottesville.

Today, we're hoping to get an update

on Christopher Reeve's condition.

[newscaster 2] Doctors aren't saying too much

about his chances of pulling through.

Millions of people around the world

are praying and remembering tonight.

[reporter] The Reeve family

has refused to talk about the injury.

Their silence prompted much speculation

that he was near death.

[Susan Sarandon] I just remember thinking,

"That's impossible."

We just kept trying to call and find out what was going on.

And was it true and how could that have happened?

I mean, there was so much disbelief.

[Al] Matthew and I flew over with my mom.

It was circus mode at that point.

And we still didn't know a thing

because nobody knew what was happening.

It was this big cloud of confusion.

We saw Dana and she just burst into tears.

First time I'd seen her cry, I think, ever.

What a horror show.

It wasn't clear what was gonna happen.

[reporter] His doctor met the press.

The news is not encouraging.

Mr. Reeve currently has no movement

or spontaneous respiration.

He may require surgery

to stabilize the upper spine in the near future.

You know, he almost died. His heart stopped.

He flatlined certainly twice.

He was given basically a 50/50 chance

of surviving to the end of the day.

[sniffles] Um...

You think of your parents as completely invulnerable.

And he was always so careful and so capable and...

I mean, he was just Dad, right?

Like, this constant that you never even have to think about.

[Will] The surgery that they did on my dad

had never been done before.

They reattached his head to his body.

Tragic news for the actor

known for his role as the Man of Steel.

Virginia doctors now confirm that

Christopher Reeve is indeed paralyzed

and unable to breathe on his own.

Superman? Crazy.

Just that simple little thing over the horse.

It's just crazy.

[gas hisses]

[machine alarm beeping]

[ventilator hissing]

[Chris] I lay on my back, frozen,

unable to avoid thinking the darkest thoughts,

because it had dawned on me that I had ruined my life

- and everybody else's. - [tense music playing]

I won't be able to ski. Won't be able to sail...

Won't be able to make love to Dana.

I won't be able to throw a ball to Will.

I won't be able to do a thing.

- [plays chord] - Again.

[Chris echoing] This can't be me. Why me?

There's gotta be a mistake.

Oh, I'm an idiot. Oh, God. I'm trapped! No life.

What am I gonna do? I've spoiled everything.

I'm going to be a charity case.

[music fades out]

He was in and out of consciousness.

He was having clearly what were horrible hallucinations.

[Chris echoing] I'm in prison. I've got

a life sentence. Please let me out.

For some reason I didn't get my hands down

- and break my fall. - [horse neighs]

[echoing stops]

Witnesses said that Buck was absolutely willing and ready.

That I was going not excessively fast.

[horse neighs]

Apparently, Buck started to jump the fence,

but all of a sudden, he just put on the brakes.

It was what riders call a dirty stop.

And I landed right on my head,

six feet four inches and 215 pounds of me.

This break is what happens when the trap door opens

and the noose snaps tight.

Half an inch to the left, dead instantly.

Half an inch to the right, an embarrassing, scary fall

that he got up and walked away from.

♪ [Reeve family singing] Happy Birthday, dear Will ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

- [applause] - [Dana] Go on!

[Will] We had my third birthday party outside the ICU.

[Matthew] Dana threw like, a birthday party for Will,

complete with, like, a really annoying clown.

[in high-pitched voice] I told you

I brought my suitcase! Here!

[Matthew] And he had, like, a really good time

and really enjoyed himself.

Hi.

She tried to keep things normal for Will,

to try and protect him as much as she could.

[Will] There was some fighting within the family.

My dad's mom wanted to take him off life support.

He has low moments.

I think anybody, um, with an injury as severe as his

is bound to have low moments.

My mom did not want to do that.

[Dana] He's a fighter.

But this has to be the toughest challenge

that he's ever faced.

I know it's mine.

[Chris] Dana came into the room,

she knelt down next to me and we made eye contact.

And then I mouthed my first lucid words to her,

"Maybe we should let me go."

[machine beeping]

[Chris] Dana started crying.

She said, "I'm only gonna say this once.

I'll support whatever you want to do

because this is your life and your decision.

But I want you to know

that I'll be with you for the long haul,

no matter what."

And then she added the words that saved my life.

[emotional music playing]

[Chris] "You're still you and I love you."

I think if she had looked away or paused

or hesitated even slightly

or if I had felt there was a sense of her being noble,

I don't know if I could have pulled through.

"You are still you. And we love you."

So, out of that discussion of,

"Is it going to make sense for him to stay alive?"

came that capsulation, in a way,

of the value of... of living.

Everyone is devastated.

But it was not without moments of grace.

One that was just incredible was Robin Williams.

Hello, I'm Robin Williams,

and if you don't know that... Hahaha!

[Al] Robin Williams had been Dad's roommate

and had this deep relationship with him

going back so many years.

[Chris] I think Robin is one of the great human beings that was ever put here.

I'm the godfather of his son, and everything.

What you got with Robin is just waves of humanity

and respect come from him.

[Will] His wife, Marsha, became my mom's best friend

and is like a sort of fairy godmother to me.

And Robin's approach was a little bit different

than other family members. [laughs]

They had just taken him off, you know, the heavy sedation

and I think he was just coming back,

and I came in as a Russian proctologist.

[audience laughs]

[Oprah Winfrey] He didn't know you were coming in?

No, I put... Well, they put me in scrubs,

- so I just had the face. - [Oprah] Uh-huh.

And I said, [in Russian accent] "If you don't mind,

I'm going to have to put on a rubber glove

and examine your internal organs."

[in normal voice] And I, and I kind of said,

[in Russian accent] "Oh, look at the size of this baby."

[all laugh]

[in normal voice] And I saw he started to laugh

'cause his eyes lit up and he knew it was me.

[audience applauds]

[Chris] My old friend had helped me know

that somehow, I was gonna be okay.

I mean, life's gonna be very different,

but I can still laugh.

And Robin is a really good friend.

Anything, if you needed anything, he would be there.

I think he and Robin were such good friends

because they could match each other.

I mean, Chris didn't have Robin's...

you know, but he could... he could keep up with him.

[applause]

All right, somebody's fantasy.

[laughter]

And not many people could do that.

[gentle music playing]

[Chris] As I started to face reality in intensive care,

moments from my former life kept popping into my head.

It was like a slide show,

but the pictures were all out of sequence.

- [audience cheers] - [Chris] My most cherished memories

when I was whole, healthy, free.

[upbeat disco music playing]

[car horn blaring]

[Chris] After graduating from Cornell,

I had planned to go to New York

and join the ranks of young hopefuls

trying for a career in the theater.

Juilliard is one of the best schools in the country,

and you learn how to move,

mime, tumbling, acrobatics, acting.

You and Robin Williams were classmates?

[Chris] That's right. We were in the advanced program.

And we were training to be Shakespearean actors

in the English tradition,

able to enunciate for no reason.

[Chris] There was certainly nothing they could teach him.

Yes, I've already cleared the theater

with the rehearsal schedule.

In the lights, you will think it was a proper...

[Chris] John Houseman

had just won the Academy Award for best supporting actor.

He said, "Mr. Reeve, it is very important

you become a serious classical actor.

Unless of course, they offer you

a load of money to do something else."

[all laugh]

It's all yours.

[Chris] I probably gravitated towards the theater

as a way out of uncertainties growing up,

that the theater became a neutral kind of territory,

but that felt like home.

I had grown up between two families,

and neither one ever seemed truly secure.

The family backstory is...

is complicated.

Uh, I'm not sure how much

I want to get into the whole Reeve side because

they were just so fucked up.

[Chris] My father, the poet and scholar, Franklin Reeve,

courted my mother, Barbara Pitney Lamb, ardently.

But there was a widening gulf between my parents

when I was born.

When I was three years old, my parents got divorced

and there was a kind of acrimony between them,

- that was really painful. - Okay.

It was sort of, you had to call out the National Guard

to keep peace between them, you know?

[Matthew] Both his parents remarried twice

and had other children.

So, it was a big family, quite fractured.

[Al] I think it felt like he lived on shifting sands,

because he had gone back and forth

between his mother's household and his dad.

He never really felt that sense of home.

Franklin, even if he wasn't around,

he played a big part in my dad's life.

[Kevin] I'm sure there was an element of,

you know, how do you satisfy

the father that, in a sense, left you?

[Chris] So, there's this really charismatic man

who could do anything from translating Dostoevsky

to sailing a boat and chopping trees and playing tennis.

And it was really scary.

I thought, I'm never gonna do anything

to impress him, you know?

I'd say, "I was in this play," he'd say, "Eh."

"I got good grades here." "Eh."

Nothing, nothing seemed to make any difference.

[Chris] But I found relief from all this uncertainty

in playing characters.

[nostalgic music playing]

I like knowing the entire storyline.

Beginning, middle, and end.

[Jeff Daniels] We were cast in the same play in 1977.

He was just another, you know,

good-looking young actor when I met him.

He had the whole movie star thing.

You're going, "Oh, well." "Yeah, great." You know?

What really impressed me was how smart he was.

Now, I ain't stupid.

I may have been in Dumb and Dumber, but I ain't stupid.

In the play was another new guy named William Hurt.

Second to last weekend, Chris says,

"I'm going to London tonight.

I have to screen test for a movie."

For someone to say that

in an off-Broadway dressing room,

[imitates explosion] it just, "What are you...

What, when, where, huh?"

And Bill said, "What movie?"

And Chris said...

"Superman."

And Bill went right into, "Don't go.

You're going to sell out. You're an artist."

And Chris said, "No, I just...

Brando is gonna play the father."

"I don't care. I don't care. You're selling..."

I mean, he just was really on him.

[upbeat disco music playing]

[Pierre Spengler] We were frantically looking

for a Superman...

and the casting director

had lined up many, many people, dozens of them.

The most strange, like,

Neil Diamond wanted to be Superman, you know.

[chuckles]

Robert Redford.

We made an offer, immediately got a "no."

[commentator] He goes on now.

Bruce Jenner.

Yeah, that's right.

- [commentator] There he goes. - Ahhh!

[Spengler] Physically, he was very good,

but the acting, not so much.

Schwarzenegger was running after us.

- The main man is back. - Yes.

He had, theoretically,

the physique of the comic book.

[chuckles] We cannot have Superman say...

[in Austrian accent] "Truth, Justice,

and the American way."

[bleep] you, asshole.

[Spengler] The idea came,

rather than casting a well-known Superman,

we should go for an unknown and have stars around him.

[Richard Donner] We had made a costume

out of a blue leotard

and Chris was sweating like a stuck pig.

I took black shoe polish, and we blacked his whole head,

and this skinny little kid did a scene with various ladies

who were up for the part of Lois Lane.

I mean, why are you here?

'Cause I'm here to fight for truth...

for justice, and the American way.

[whistles]

[Daniels] He flew Sunday night,

screen tested in London on Monday,

and then flew back Monday night.

Bill said, "How'd it go?" Chris said, "I got it."

[Chris] I realized that if I could pull off this part,

it would change my life.

It's urban myth in our family

that Dad got the part of Superman

and told his father, and Franklin ordered champagne.

This is a very un-Franklin thing to do.

"Cheers. Congratulations. So proud of you," da-da-da.

There was a miscommunication.

[Al] His dad thought that he was talking

about the famous play

Man and Superman, by George Bernard Shaw.

[Matthew] Not the legendary comic book character.

Franklin didn't approve.

[interviewer] How did he tell you, uh,

that he got this part of Superman?

It was after the contract was signed.

It was not serious enough.

It wasn't academic enough. It wasn't intellectual enough.

It was...

embarrassing.

[Chris] I was extremely anxious to please my father.

It was difficult to be myself

or literally breathe easy when he was around.

[moody music playing]

Since the accident, I've had time to look back.

Much more time than I would've liked.

[reporter] Reeve took to the skies this afternoon.

He was transferred from Charlottesville, Virginia,

to the Kessler Institute.

[reporter 2] In a terrible twist of fate, the actor's last role

was as a crippled policeman in the movie Above Suspicion.

[applause]

[Chris] The physical therapy nurses would work with me and say,

"This is how you get in and out of the bathtub.

This is how you get in and out of a car." You know.

Then every time I left that rehab center, I said,

"Thank God that's not me."

I was very smug about it. And I regret that so much,

because I was setting myself apart

from those people who were suffering.

Without realizing that in a second that could be me.

Yeah, left is hard.

[Dana] Christopher now faces

what hundreds of thousands

of disabled men and women face daily

in this country and around the world.

Limitations, frustration, sorrow, anger,

humiliation, injustice.

[Chris] When Doctor Kirshblum took over

the responsibility for my care,

it was a tremendous psychological boost.

[Kirshblum] I know it's tedious.

Feel that here?

- No. Nothing, okay. - No.

[Kirshblum] After this idea

of "Will I live or die? Now what?"

"What is life gonna be like?"

[moody music playing]

[Matthew] You think it's just about,

"Oh, you can't move, or you can't breathe..."

but there's so much shit

that comes with such a high level spinal cord injury.

[Kirshblum] The bowel, the bladder, the skin,

speech therapy,

how to maintain a relationship,

husband and wife relationship.

[Dana] You can't feel? [Chris] No, I can't feel it.

Nope.

That is tough. Because I can feel him,

but he can't feel me.

[Kirshblum] To re-learn the skills

that people probably don't even think about.

[Chris] I was still in a state of disbelief

and very afraid.

I couldn't take a single breath on my own.

And the connections of the hoses

on these ventilators are tenuous at best.

And you lie there at 3:00 in the morning,

in fear of a pop-off.

When the hose just comes off the ventilator.

- [machine alarm beeping] - [gas hissing]

After you've missed two breaths,

an alarm sounds.

[clicking convulsively]

And now they're saying, "Okay, where is everybody?"

Because they have no air going in,

they can't even scream for help.

[nurse] I need assistance, please.

You just hang on, okay? You hang on.

[Chris] You can last a couple of minutes,

but those are very, very anxious minutes.

[doctor] There it is.

Okay.

- Oh, God. - [machine beeping steadily]

[Close] I saw him when he was in rehab.

He was so terrified that he could die at any moment.

[Al] At first, he really resisted

spending time with anybody else there,

because in his mind he was still thinking,

"I'm just a temporary visitor here

in this land of disability."

And over time, what changed is the magic of rehab.

[Chris] Little by little, I began to emerge from my isolation.

I found myself talking in depth

with people I wouldn't ordinarily have met.

And connecting with many of them.

[Kirshblum] Chris had just started to wean himself

off the ventilator

and he started to recognize a little bit of success.

And there was this one young boy

who had tried to wean but failed...

and I would try to speak to him and speak to his mom.

But he was just adamant. He was so clear.

"I don't want to fail again."

And Chris went and spoke to him.

And the boy simply said,

"Christopher Reeve spoke to me.

I'm going to wean."

It just showed you the quality of the individual,

that it wasn't all about him.

And I wonder if a case like that made him think,

"I can probably do more

in helping other people with spinal cord injury,

not just myself alone."

[Dana] Much of his day is spent listening

to messages sent from well-wishers.

I can't begin to express

how important these... these things are to him.

[Matthew] One letter from England, it just said,

"Superman, USA."

[Al] And they'd come every day in these delivery boxes.

And they went the whole way down the hallway.

And then that's when I got the call from Dana

and she said, "Michael, we need help.

I can't manage."

- When we first met in 1985 or whatever... - A ton.

I said, "You look so much like that actor, Christopher Reeve."

Isn't that funny? I just, I get it all...

and more particularly when I'm with him

and my hair's longer, they're like,

- "Are you his brother?" - "Are you his brother?"

[Manganiello] She was just funny

and could tell a really good dirty joke.

We had crushes on the same boys. It was... [laughs]

She was just a riot.

I started getting things organized and cut.

So it was like other celebrity letters,

famous scientists...

politicians, nuts... the nuts.

Other people who are living with spinal cord injury.

200,000 people in the United States alone

have the same problem as me.

If the public will demand

that the politicians spend that little bit of money,

make that investment,

I'll be up and walking around again.

[Manganiello] Chris wanted out of that chair. that was it.

[inspirational music playing]

[Chris] I couldn't give up

because nerves can find new pathways.

[Kirshblum] He had tremendous work ethic

and would push himself.

[Robin] Brother Chris is fighting like crazy.

When you find people who fight like that

but still keep their humanity, that gives you great hope.

[Chris] My mind wandered back

to my weight training for Superman

when I could bench-press more than my own weight.

[Matthew] He trained his ass off bulking up.

Two weight sessions a day.

[Chris] The guy, actually, who played Darth Vader

in Star Wars,

Dave Prowse, developed a program for me.

He's a former Mr. Universe.

The point is, is that when I started,

I was a string bean.

And Superman's not a string bean, so...

Everybody else said,

"You just flushed your career down the toilet. Goodbye."

Nobody thought I was in my right mind.

How are they ever going to pull this picture off

and make the man fly?

And "It's a cartoon."

And very, very skeptical about the whole thing.

[Spengler] When we signed the deal for Superman,

the head of production at Warner Bros.,

who shall remain nameless,

said, "It will never make a movie."

[Chris] The idea was new in 1977.

Superman I was the first film

to try to make this comic book sort of real.

[Spengler] Christopher is unknown.

He was going to be playing with Brando,

playing with Hackman.

Brando was considered

the greatest actor of his time.

Gene Hackman wanted to be in the film with Brando.

[Chris] Hackman, his dressing room was across the hall from mine.

I was very gung-ho, 24 years old and all excited

and I remember knocking on his door,

asking him if he wanted to rehearse.

And he was shocked. He was like... you know.

[man] 626, take one.

This is California. It's the richest,

most populous state in the Union.

I don't need a geography lesson from you, Luthor.

[interviewer] Marlon Brando.

Was it exciting to work with him though?

- [Chris] Not really, no. - [audience and Chris laugh]

The man didn't care.

I'm sorry. He just, you know,

took the two million and ran, you know?

Yeah, well, he's here tonight, Chris.

- Is he here? - [audience laughs]

[applause]

[Chris] I just care so much

that it hurts when someone's phoning it in.

[Al] He was taking it so seriously.

[grunts]

For Dad, Superman needed to be art.

Everyone, stand back. Please stand back.

It's all right. Nothing to get worried about.

[Chris] Think about it in emotional terms.

What is it to be an orphan? What is it to be different?

What is it to be an alien?

What is it to have lost one home?

Now you're acting something you can understand

rather than just posing.

[screams]

I must give credit to Donner

who really supported him, helped him.

Hands down, he was Superman from day one.

- Say "Hello" to Clark Kent. - Told you, one "p."

- Hiya. - Hello, Miss Lane. How are...

[Chris] What I liked was trying to play

two people at the same time, Superman and Clark Kent.

There's a kind of

calculated schizophrenia between the two of them.

There's this amazing scene. It's my favorite scene

of my dad's film work,

and he was playing Superman playing Clark Kent.

Uh, hi, can I come in?

Kind of like, takes his glasses off

and he transforms.

[Lois] Put some blush on and...

[slow heroic music playing]

[breathes deeply]

Lois, there's something I have to tell you.

I'm really...

Um...

Uh, I mean, I was at first really nervous about tonight.

[Matthew] Puts his glasses back on

and he's Clark again instantly.

I mean, he absolutely nailed it.

Hi.

The magic was that you absolutely believed

in their love story.

[Chris] I really think that out there,

hopefully around the world,

that romance is what they want to see.

[interviewer] Do you have that?

Oh, God, yes. But I found it.

I'm very lucky. I met this girl

while I was making Superman in London.

- Hi. - Welcome.

- Thank you. - Introduce me

to your lovely lady here.

- Yes, this is Gae Exton. - Hello. How are you?

It looks like somebody gave you a kiss before you arrived here.

- Did they? - [all laugh]

My mum and dad met in the lunch line

at Pinewood Studios.

[Exton] I knew there were big films

being shot there, like James Bond and Superman.

They had this amazing dining room there

and it was sort of like a big buffet.

The people, obviously in costume

with robes on and stuff.

And the chap in front of me

was wearing a robe and had black hair.

And I thought it was Richard Kiel.

From James Bond,

the one with the teeth. Because he was so big.

And this guy turns around

and it's this amazing-looking guy

with an American accent.

He needed something from the bit

that I was at and he turned around

and he knocked me. And he said, "Oh, hello."

I said, "Like, what? Excuse me? Hello?

You're supposed to say, I'm sorry."

And I had to go and clean myself off.

And a few days later,

I saw Dick Donner, and Dick said,

"Oh, here she is. Hi, Gae, how're you doing?"

And he said, "This is Christopher."

And Chris just stopped and said...

That I was sorry, and the rest is history.

[Matthew] My mom worked as a model agent

and was super plugged in

to the London scene in the late '70s.

They started a whirlwind romance.

[romantic music playing]

[Chris] It was good fun.

I dragged myself to the set many a morning

and then it's up, up, and away.

That's funny.

Maybe, I don't know.

[interviewer] You believe he could fly? Yes.

"I'm not feeling very well today."

[Exton] Just fell desperately in love.

At the weekends, we were doing all sorts of things

that he should not have been doing. Like gliding.

[Chris] Thousands and thousands of feet

up above the world.

There's a kind of clarity that comes with that

and you cannot concentrate

on anything that's wrong in your life.

And all you can hear is "shh, shh."

He said, "Trust me, I'll get you back.

I'll get you back."

[Chris] I have always loved flying.

It's my number one passion in life.

[Matthew] He'd flown across the Atlantic twice, solo.

Christopher was determined that, come hell or high water,

he was gonna make it look like this character could fly.

We're doing something with this picture

that no one's ever done before.

There is a team, there's a hundred of them

called the Flying Unit.

They didn't have it all figured out in advance.

It was a kind of "learn as you go" process.

[Donner] The first time I ever saw Chris really fly,

he came at camera,

and for some reason he actually banked his body

and he flew past us.

[dreamy music playing]

The camera stopped rolling and there was dead silence.

And then, like, 50 people

all of a sudden started to just cheer.

[Chris] The flying happens in the eyes.

It must happen as a state of mind.

You've never seen a man fly like that before.

The one which I really had to work

to sort of achieve the grace that it needed.

It called for me to do a flip in the air

as I'm going up on a crane,

arch backwards and wave all at the same time.

Bye.

He convinced me when I first met him that he would fly.

He's also convinced me he'll walk again.

[Chris] I began to face my new life.

I had tried to cover up my feelings as best I could.

But when I saw our home again, I wept.

[nostalgic music playing]

[Matthew] I do wonder what it was like

for him to look out and be like,

"That's the pond that I skated on."

[exclaims]

"Now I'm just staring out at the past."

Beautiful day in the Berkshires.

[laughter and chatter]

[man] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- All the way! - No.

- Get it! - Carpe diem, Al!

People often ask me what it's like

to be confined to a wheelchair.

I would say the worst part of it

is having to make the transition

from participant to observer

long before I would have expected.

[Matthew] Dad was 42 when he had the accident

and Will was almost three.

I'm 42 right now and my son's three.

Yeah, it was really only after becoming a parent myself

that it really hit home...

how hard it must have been for him.

[Dana] It was a typical scene.

[Dana laughs]

It's the haircut movie.

Oh. And there's Dad waiting in line for his.

[Will] He was still the same, bright,

quirky, thoughtful man.

But my mom, she was doing everything.

[Dana] Still got it, honey.

[Will] She was playing the role of mother,

physical father...

[Dana] Whoa, whoa.

[Will] ...and caregiver to a husband.

[Dana] Papa is doing his breathing exercises.

We do adjust because what are the alternatives?

I mean, it would be miserable not to,

but do we long for our other life?

Yes, every day.

I mean, it's... it's a drastic change.

Two, three...

[Chris] Even in my own house,

I'd never be able to be alone again.

[Will] He needed 24-hour nursing care.

His care was running around $400,000 a year.

While they were better off than most,

they weren't better off as most people thought.

Our insurance cap, as a matter of fact,

will run out in two years.

[interviewer] What will happen then?

[Chris] Then we have to do some heavy thinking.

[Dana] But it is daunting.

A lot of people in Chris's condition

go right to nursing homes

with... on a respirator, it's...

You just can't... People can't afford it.

[Matthew] There was this fear.

"I'm an actor, it's a physical job.

How am I going to make a living?"

[Chris] In February of '96,

I was asked to make a special appearance

on the Academy Awards.

[Al] It was almost a full year since his accident,

and I think that's a hard invitation to turn down.

[Chris] No sooner had I agreed, than it dawned on me

how challenging this trip was going to be.

[Al] Dad described how torn he felt about doing it

because it really was such a public moment.

This thing is being telecast

to two billion people around the world.

But I gotta get to my seat.

It was a production

just to get my dad out of the house.

But Robin and Marsha bought us

the specialized retrofitted van.

He needed to be physically tied down to the floor.

[tense music playing]

[Al] It was this huge kind of cloak-and-dagger thing to get him there,

keeping it completely under wraps

because they needed the freedom.

That if Dad had some type of medical emergency,

he could pull out.

[Chris] Maybe I have the opportunity now

to make sense of this accident.

I felt I needed to do something

not just for myself,

but for everyone else in the same condition.

[tense music intensifies]

[presenter] Academy Awards, Whoopi Goldberg.

[applause]

[Goldberg] You know, it's hard when you hear

that somebody's had that kind of accident

and then you read all these stories

and you're just... You don't know.

Uh, people were very nervous.

[applause]

[Chris] Well, it was time for me to prepare to go on stage.

I wondered, would I spasm,

my body jerking into an awkward position?

Would I have a pop-off?

[tense music building]

[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,

Christopher Reeve.

[applause]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

[applause dies down]

What you probably don't know

is that I left New York last September...

and I just arrived here this morning.

[audience laughs]

[applause]

And...

And I'm glad I did.

Because I wouldn't have missed

this kind of welcome for the world.

Thank you.

- [applause] - [emotional music playing]

You know, the... [chuckles]

the strength to have to deal with lots and lots of people

trying not to look at you with pity.

[Close] And I think the fact that

Superman was in a wheelchair

and was willing to go public with it was huge.

[Brooke Ellison] For people with disabilities

to be so visible

was almost unheard of at the time.

Disability was really not understood

as a part of humanity worth including.

And for Chris to be helping to change that narrative

was life-changing.

Well, I know it was for me.

[reporter] Robin, this is his first appearance.

This must make you feel good to know

that he's getting out like this.

Yeah, it does.

[Al] That was just a hugely important,

pivotal moment for Dad,

to then move on and say,

"Okay, I'm back out in the world."

[Chris] Another completely unexpected benefit

came during my stay in Hollywood.

I entered hotels and buildings through garages, kitchens,

and I met cooks, waiters,

and maintenance crews along the way.

Many of them said they were praying for me.

Christopher, we all love you.

- Chris, I love you. - We love you, Christopher.

[Chris] Others looked at me right in the eye and said,

"We love you, Superman. You're our hero."

The fact that I was in a wheelchair,

unable to move below my shoulders

and dependent on the support of others,

had not diminished the fact

that I was and always would be their Superman.

[heroic music playing]

- Say, "Jim"! Whoo! - Excuse me.

That's a bad outfit.

- Whoo! - [man] Okay, Bresslaw, move these people out.

[women screaming]

[gasping]

[screaming]

[man] God. Look up there.

What the hell's that?

Easy, miss. I've got you.

You've got me?

- Who's got you? - [chuckles]

[Chris] You've never seen a comic book brought to life

and they all thought it was gonna be a joke.

We, the filmmakers, felt we could win our way

into people's hearts, and we did.

[Spengler] When the film opened,

huge success immediately.

Superman did $425 million.

[chuckles] It was 1977. That was a lot of money.

[Johnny Carson] The film critics said

the young actor chosen to play the lead in Superman

is the best reason to see the movie.

And he is with us this morning.

[Susan Sarandon] I saw it. I wish I had been Lois.

Clearly, that would have been fun.

Somebody that is that masculine

and asked to do that

could easily slip into some kind of toxic masculinity.

But he always struck me as being gentle.

[Goldberg] I don't think I was lustful like that

until I saw him in that, you know...

little outfit.

He really will always be the Superman.

Yeah, and I like that little curl thing

that was going on.

For the Superman opening,

even the President of the United States is here.

[Spengler] And so Chris was introduced.

I mean, for someone who, just a few months before

was actually off off-Broadway, he was now a star.

I'll talk. They went that way.

Hey, yeah, go for it.

[Exton] He and Robin were walking down the street,

and Robin was like, "God, I love this city.

Nobody bothers you. They don't know who we are."

And I'm trailing behind, and everybody's going like,

"Did you see who that was?"

- "Superman and Popeye." - [laughter]

"Forget Popeye. I want to know Superman.

Yeah. He ain't got tights on,

but I know he can fly. Come on."

[interviewer] Are you feeling like a star?

[Chris] Don't know much about it, I'll tell you in a year.

[interviewer] And you're enjoying it though? It's fun.

Are you kidding? It's fantastic.

Hi, how you doing?

Hi y'all. Hi, how you doing?

[Daniels] I was very happy for my friend

in a way that maybe you aren't with others.

Usually, it's, you know... [imitates puffing cigarette]

"I fucking hate him!"

And it was a great example on how to handle it.

Because it is a freight train, fame.

♪ [both singing] Of the moon ♪

And it hits you head-on.

[Kevin] As he became more and more famous,

Gae gave him a security and an anchor

and a support through that.

[Chris] Everybody wants to be around with somebody

who they think has the juice at the moment, has the power.

It's an aphrodisiac, you know, for men and women,

and for some people, it's too hard to resist.

Listen, if Gae hadn't been around,

really, the temptations were enormous. My God,

not only do they think I'm an actor in a lead movie,

but they think I'm Superman, for God's sake.

You know, you just can't do wrong.

Matthew Reeve.

Matthew Exton Reeve.

Mr. Potato,[chuckles] we call him.

He's the light of my life.

[Exton] I had Matthew in London

when Christopher was shooting Superman II.

[Chris] Becoming a father, I really thought,

"Boy, I don't know whether or not

I'm gonna be up to it."

[interviewer] Are there things that you'd like to make sure

that Matthew has that maybe you never had?

[Chris] Basically, not a broken home.

Having been in a home

that got ripped apart very early,

I'm quite determined that this won't happen to him.

[interviewer 2] Is he old enough

to have any awareness that Dad plays Superman?

[Chris] Oh, sure.

[Matthew] There's evidence [chuckles]

that I impersonated him.

I called myself "Soup Man." [laughs]

You know, his little lunchbox with soup in it.

And he'd go like this everywhere. Soup Man.

It was just hilarious. [laughing]

- [heroic music plays] - [wind whooshes]

General...

would you care to step outside?

Superman. Thank God.

I mean, get him.

[Spengler] Superman II did very well.

A lot of critics said it was a better movie

than number one.

I don't agree, actually.

I think number one was a masterpiece of its genre.

[reporter] Christopher, were you thrilled

about the reaction this evening to the picture?

It was terrific.

Played very nicely.

And, uh, I think people really like it.

So, I'm happy. Very happy.

[Al] My earliest memories

are from when I went to set with Dad

and was actually in Superman myself.

[Exton] Alexandra arrived on the scene,

and then we just grew.

It just became this family.

[Chris] I was elated over the birth of Alexandra,

but confused and anxious

about the direction my life was taking.

[interviewer] Christopher, are you married?

- [Chris] No, I'm not. - [crowd] Yeah!

[interviewer 2] Now, a lot of people might think

that you are not an old-fashioned romantic

because you two are not married.

[Exton] We talked about marriage

when I was expecting Matthew,

but then later, it just... it just was ignored.

We happen to feel that... or I happen to feel,

that marriage is a sort of a license

to take the other person for granted.

You don't do any more work on it.

You let things sort of disintegrate.

Well, do you think everybody?

- 'Cause I don't feel that way at all. - Okay.

Uh, we were criticized, um,

but quite frankly,

you live your life, and we'll live ours.

[Matthew] She wanted us to have as normal a life as possible,

but he was at the height of his career.

Oh, it's terrific, really.

[interviewer] Twenty years from now,

what do you hope will have happened to you?

[Chris] That I would have tackled

an increasing variety of roles

with greater and greater depth all the time.

And that I would've moved into directing.

And action.

The appearance on the Oscars

gave me the courage to go back to work.

[interviewer] Were you scared? I mean, this was the first thing

you had directed. Am I right?

Nothing scares me anymore.

Yeah, I mean, not to be melodramatic,

but I've been to the edge and back.

[Goldberg] He said, "Listen,

I have something I want to know

if you'd be interested in doing."

And I was like, "Yes."

And he said, "But you don't know what it is."

I said, "Doesn't matter. Whatever it is, yes."

So, he told me and I said, "Oh, quadruple yes."

I play a very uptight WASP, [chuckles] basically,

which I know something about.

Whose son comes home and is dying of AIDS.

So, he's made his choice,

and the best thing you can do for him right now

is love him.

[Close] Those of us in the theater community,

Chris was certainly part of that,

lost so many people to AIDS.

[Chris] What I'd learned in my own experience

is you come out of something like that

not wanting to blame anybody.

Now that you realize life is too short

to want a complete accounting of everything.

By looking death so squarely in the face,

I think he had the sensitivity

to really do a beautiful job with it.

I feel that, while I'm sitting down,

I've actually landed on my feet.

I was stunned by his readiness to go out

and be proactive, to be able to direct,

to be able to act even.

[Al] Rear Window was his first time

in an acting role after the accident.

[machines beeping]

[Chris] One of my missions, really,

is to make people more aware of the disabled,

less afraid to look at the disabled, and, uh...

this movie, in a sneaky way,

I think, accomplishes that.

[Kirshblum] He went back to work.

He succeeded in a industry that really wasn't

a disability-friendly industry.

[Chris] Just imagine what it's like

to be me for one day.

And I have it better

than most people with spinal cord injuries.

He wanted to change the entire picture

for everybody with disabilities.

[Manganiello] The vice president asked Chris

to come speak at the Democratic National Convention.

And the vice president sent up his head speechwriter.

He was a brilliant, beautiful speechwriter.

[laughs] And Chris kinda dismissed him.

[announcer] From the United Center

in Chicago, Illinois, live coverage

of the Democratic National Convention.

[applause]

[Chris] Thank you very, very much.

You know, over the last few years,

we've heard a lot about

something called family values.

And, like many of you,

I've struggled to figure out what that means.

I think it means that we're all family.

[applause]

And that we all have value.

[cheers and applause]

One in five of us has some kind of disability.

You may have an aunt with Parkinson's disease.

A neighbor with a spinal cord injury.

And if we're really committed to this idea of family,

we've got to do something about it.

[applause]

[Kerry] Somehow, the injustice of what had happened

just seemed so unfathomable to people.

And it sounds silly, I know, but there he was, Superman.

One was so big and powerful and invincible,

and the other was so, now, vulnerable.

Now, one of the smartest things

we can do about disability is to invest in research

that will protect us from diseases and lead to cures.

That combination moved mountains.

That's how it was.

America does not let its needy citizens

fend for themselves.

[applause]

[inspirational music playing]

[inaudible] Thank you. Thank you very much.

[interviewer] First Superman picture came out.

People considered you Superman.

Oh, everybody's looking for a hero.

Everybody, not just five-year-olds.

That was a part. I played the part.

I'm not that man.

It's an image that is created by other people

but it's pretty far away from me.

Outside of Superman,

he seems to have chosen very opposite roles.

Like Somewhere in Time, which was extremely romantic.

Then he did Deathtrap with Michael Caine.

Deathtrap.

[Spengler] Then he was a crooked priest.

None of the films he did outside of Superman

were successful commercially.

[Chris] Worst review I ever got

was from the New York Times .

[Exton] He was very sensitive to bad reviews.

"Mr. Reeve looks like a helium-filled canary.

One more movie like this

and it's back to the cape forever."

[Exton] He was contracted to do Superman III ,

but his heart wasn't in it.

Hollywood suffers from a very bad disease,

called sequel-itis.

You take what grossed 100 million domestically last year

and get the key ingredients back again

and try to pump it up a few more times.

Of course, the quality is a sliding scale

of diminishing returns.

[dramatic music playing]

[Exton] In the back of his mind, he thought,

"This might not be as good."

He was struggling.

[choking]

[Chris] Everyone should be allowed in life

to close the door on certain times

and open other doors.

[Daniels] If you hit big, that big,

that's who you are.

That's what you are and that's what you can do.

And Chris came back

and did Fifth of July on Broadway,

and I was his lover.

[Kevin] Some in the audience were so surprised

to see Chris kiss a man.

Someone yells out, "Say it ain't so, Superman."

I mean it was just... it was hard for the audience.

He wanted to prove to everyone that he was a good actor.

And I don't think he had the chance to find out.

"You're Superman."

[man] Cut it. Lovely.

[Exton] And Superman IV came along.

- I think he thought... - Yeah.

[Exton] ... "I don't think I should be doing this."

[Chris] Superman IV was simply a catastrophe

from start to finish.

When I was young, the only cooler movie star father

would have been Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill,

or maybe Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford.

He was one of the biggest movie stars in the world,

but by the time I was ten,

he was kind of doing, like,

TV movies of the week to pay the bills.

[Exton] And that's when our relationship

actually started to struggle.

We were living in London, principally.

We had the apartment in New York

and we talked about

maybe he should just go over to America for a while

and, um, reflect on things.

[man] All together now. Right here, right here. Right here.

I think he was testing the water

to see what it was like to be single.

- We're just good friends. - Okay. I'll take that one.

Thank you.

- [laughter] - [kissing]

We're just good friends.

He came back to London for a while.

He says, "This isn't going to work, is it?"

[somber music playing]

And so, we decided that

maybe it was time that we went our separate ways.

[sniffles]

So sorry.

[Matthew] It was hard on my mom.

You know, it wasn't like,

"Yeah, this isn't working out for the both of us."

I think he was like,

"I don't want to do this anymore."

I think that was hard for her.

You know, my dad had a big issue.

He would not commit.

Every marriage he'd seen

in his own family life had failed.

His parents' marriage.

His father's marriage to his stepmother.

He had no experience with a successful, healthy,

long-term marriage.

[Chris] Lives repeat themselves in succeeding generations,

often in the worst ways.

And patterns of behavior can be difficult to break.

[Matthew] He was away so much anyway.

It wasn't like he suddenly stopped

picking me up from school every day

or something like that.

It was just...

He kind of stopped coming home.

For most of my childhood,

she was effectively a single mom.

So, the day after I was born, he, um,

flew to...

France and went skiing with friends. [chuckles]

We weren't, you know... that close.

Relationships come down to small moments,

not just big events.

[interviewer] When you've done a role like Superman,

people tend to put you up on a pedestal.

They tend to think you are that person.

And that, morally, you are that person.

[Chris] Yeah.

I get Bibles and letters sent to me from clergymen saying,

"You must think about your religious responsibility.

Superman is a pop culture version of Jesus Christ."

I'm going, "Wait. Whoa, wait a minute."

I don't have all the answers.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do all the time.

I'm not a hero.

Never have been, never will be.

[applause]

To people who are watching from hospital beds

or any place where they feel shut in,

help is on the way.

[Ellison] When Chris was injured,

it was either a death sentence

or this was the way your life was going to be,

without any treatment or cure.

Impossible and unsolvable...

are no longer in the vocabulary

of the scientific community.

And it took a voice like Chris' to say,

"That's not good enough."

[Manganiello] So, Chris started the foundation.

It was called the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

He's like, "You're Executive Director."

I'm like, "Okay."[chuckles]

The board was Barbara Walters, Robin Williams. It was just...

We are here to help my friend

and 250,000 other people

to get back on their feet again.

[Manganiello] He just wanted to fund

the best science no matter where it was.

[Kirshblum] He understood the importance of advocacy.

He was an advocate before his injury.

Chris was serious about pursuing environmental issues

and also human rights issues.

Animal rights terrorists or will not pardon...

[Sarandon] We would go to D.C.

Occasionally, Chris flew us

in an airplane, not on his back.

[Chris] Okay, so what I used to do politically...

taking all those contacts I made in Washington.

I'm gonna go back there and beat up on them about this.

He made it bipartisan.

He would take it to Republicans.

He would take it to Democrats.

[reporter] After meeting with President Clinton,

he was told...

[Chris] There will be a $10 million increase

in funding specifically for spinal cord injury.

[Manganiello] People were just throwing money at us.

[Kirshblum] In the early 1990s, spinal cord injury was known

as a field of doom and gloom.

By making it a hot area, his impact was tangible.

[presenter] There is no question

that Christopher Reeve has become

a quite stunning icon for the paralyzed community

and for the disabled community in general.

Hi, Dr. Peterson.

How's everything going in Cambridge?

[Al] One of the areas that he really believed in

was stem cell research.

[Laurie Hawkins] Chris would get all excited.

He's like, "It's going to change science.

It's going to change people's lives."

[Chris] You can make a new heart,

you can make a new liver.

You can replace the nerves

that were damaged in spinal cord injuries.

[Ellison] Juvenile diabetes, ALS, Parkinson's disease.

A cure for almost everything.

[Will] My dad was obsessed with tomorrow's cure.

[Chris] I think it's probably the greatest breakthrough

in the history of science.

He would have been the first for any human trial.

[inspirational music building]

[applause]

Disabled groups have reacted angrily to a commercial

in which the paraplegic actor, Christopher Reeve,

is made to get out of his wheelchair

and walk using computer technology.

[reporter] Millions saw it go out,

some of whom rang in wanting to know

where Reeve had been treated.

People with disabilities seem to be very upset

by the message that Christopher Reeve is handing out.

[Manganiello] Chris was incredibly galvanizing

and he was incredibly polarizing at the same time.

The concept of cure is a very, very dicey one

in the disability community.

Cure connotes the fact

that there's something wrong with you,

something that needs to be fixed.

Christopher Reeve has not gone through the process

of grieving over his loss.

[Manganiello] Absolutely thought it was the right thing to do.

I think he could do whatever the flip he wanted to do.

The guy got up every day fighting for everybody.

Time is absolutely critical.

Someone once said, "Oh, you give people false hope."

Chris said, "There's no false hope.

There's only hope."

[Hawkins] There's a group of disabled community

who were against all the research.

[Manganiello] And they said he didn't care

about people living with a disability.

Only he wanted out of his chair.

They're so used to being in a chair,

they can't imagine anything else.

And I sympathize with that...

But I'm not gonna buy into it.

That's when Dana stepped in and she's like,

"No, they actually have a valid point."

That's how we started the Quality of Life program

at the Reeve Foundation.

- And so... - [Manganiello] It could be everything

from a summer camp for disabled children

to making a theater accessible.

I mean, there's a million things

that you could give money to.

I'd like to introduce Dana Reeve.

She's on the Board of Directors

of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation,

and she's the Chair of the Quality of Life Grants program...

and I must say,

she's the heart and soul of this resource center.

Dana Reeve.

Well, about seven years ago, my husband had his accident...

and I will say, because Chris is who he is,

information poured in.

That doesn't happen

for the vast majority of people.

Having never actually done this,

having never been a beauty queen.

[laughter]

[Will] Tomorrow's cure, that is all my dad.

Where Dana comes in, is today's care.

Because her whole life became dedicated to caring for my dad

and for me and for our family.

[Chris] She rescued me when I was lying in Virginia

with a broken body,

but that was really the second time.

The first time she rescued me was the night we met.

[piano playing]

♪ Yes, I'm with you always ♪

♪ I'm with you rain or shine ♪

[Dana] It was June, 1987,

and right at one of the front tables

sat a movie star.

She was warned against me.

The word was, "Look out. He's on the prowl."

Um, because I guess I had a reputation of...

Love 'em and leave 'em or...

[Chris] Little bit. Yeah.

It was in the old days. I mean...

[Manganiello] She called and she said, "I'm dating someone."

And I said, "Great."

She goes, "It's Christopher Reeve."

[laughs] And I'm like, "Wow, you're dating Superman?"

I had lots of questions, which I... Never mind.

[Chris] But I had to spend a certain amount of time

trying to disclaim my reputation.

But it's just slow and I gotta tell you that,

anybody out there who has not been involved

in an old-fashioned romance, it's thrilling.

[dreamy music playing]

They went at night, and something about a pond

and them going in and wading

and their first kiss under the stars.

It all seemed very movie-like, to be perfectly honest.

That was the way I saw the evening.

[crowd laughs]

But to hear Chris tell it...

[piano playing]

♪ I was walking along ♪

[crowd laughs]

♪ Minding my business ♪

[Chris] I went down hook, line and sinker.

All my friends who were there saw it happen.

[Close] They had a wonderful connection.

They both were extremely happy to be in each other's lives.

- You couldn't see 50 yards. - It was bad.

Yeah. It was inside-a-milk-bottle time.

Anyway.

How much film do we have?

- We're only on day one. - Okay.

[both laugh]

I think that the heroic Kevin Johnson role

- has not yet been described. - [Chris and Dana laugh]

Yeah, that's it.

With Chris it was the excitement

of the pieces of his life

that she really matched him with.

Partly it was the acting and the artistic element,

but it was beyond that.

It was the ability to share passionately-intense fun

and activity together.

[laughing]

[dreamy music continues]

[inaudible]

[Matthew] I think from the time it was fully over with my mom

and the night he first met Dana,

was like five months.

Yeah, not long at all. It was pretty wild.

- Hold on, I think I'm... - [Chris] I do remember

meeting Dana for the first time.

I didn't really know, like, [laughs] who she was

or why we were meeting her.

Firstly, her smile, like,

it's just this really warm, bright smile.

Oh. [chuckles] Hello. That's kind of...

- [Chris] Hello. - Christmas never ends.

[Al] It was just so clear how Dad felt about her.

She was his sunshine from day one.

- [Chris] Who's that going to? - It's going to Michael.

[Al] You know, she was 26 years old.[chuckles]

Like what a world to come in

and suddenly have, you know, a three-year-old

and a seven-year-old hanging out with you.

[Exton] She wrote to me, and she said,

"Your children are amazing.

But I'm not going to be a stepmother.

I want to be their friend."

So, I wrote back and said, you know,

"Thank you. Really appreciate that.

Look out for Alexandra. She's the only girl there."

Do you see they have this...

[Sarandon] There was a real attempt by Dana

to make sure that the kids were around

as much as possible.

You have to decide that you're gonna do that.

That doesn't happen naturally.

Dad, she's messing up the cardboard.

- How far across? I don't know. - Did you read it?

[Al] And she was also the one.

My dad was very competitive

and he didn't necessarily slow down.

[Chris] Come on.

[laughs] Like when we'd go skiing, you know,

we'd all go up in the chairlift together,

and then he'd, like, [blows sharply]

you know, bomb down the hill and wait for us at the bottom.

And we're like...

He used to say, like,

"Aren't you glad I'm not like Franklin?" [chuckles]

I put much less pressure on my children

than my father put on me.

[laughing] But Dana would be, like,

"Yeah, you know, there's a couple...

"You know, you're not completely unlike him."

[Al] Pretty quickly it was Dana saying,[laughs]

"Let's actually go at a pace

so that Alexandra and Matthew can come out."

[Matthew] She was so kind from minute one,

as was her whole family...

warm and welcoming and, you know... [chuckling]

I'm not knocking my own family on the Reeve side

but there was some contrast.

[young Matthew] Oh, my God, Dad. You'll crack the screen.

- Come on. - [laughter]

Hey, man.

- What a dork. - "Dork"?

[young Matthew] I wasn't talking to you.

I'm going to read a poem by Alexandra Reeve.

Oh, Dad, please.

[Chris] Alexandra's gonna read a poem

- by Alexandra Reeve. - No, I'm not.

[Chris] I'm gonna read a poem by Alexandra Reeve.

- [young Al] No, Dad, please. - "My poetry. By me."

[all laughing]

[Chris] It's finally only in this relationship with Dana,

where I began to see marriage is a freedom.

It's an opportunity. It's a team, you know.

Is there anything missing in your life?

A hit movie would be nice.

[Dana] And we got married, eventually.

[audience laughing]

Five years later.

The "I commit" part took a little while

to, uh, work itself out.

- [audience member laughs] - [laughs]

One person laughing.

The rest of you are all like, "I know."

[audience laughs]

[romantic classical music playing]

I love you. [chuckles] I marry you.

I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow.

[guests cheering]

[Jay Leno] Gonna start a family,

you've got the whole thing planned?

Yeah, well, actually, we have a son on the way...

who's coming late in June.

I see you've sort of started the family.

We have started the family.

[Dana] Action.

Action, Will.

- Can't you tell? - [laughs]

[Dana] Oh, God, honey, you'll hurt yourself.

You won't be able to get it off.

We were talking in the office.

He was so angry, and he said, "I wish I could do something,

move a piece of paper, anything."

And it was, um,

where you would normally gesture.

And I was noticing that when he would do it,

he would go... You know, his finger would move.

[Matthew] He hadn't moved anything in six years.

I don't know what it means,

but it, like, it means something surely.

[Al] They had fun with it, too.

I remember one day Matthew came home from college

and he had bought a little gift for Dad's wheelchair.

An eject button

that we put under his finger.

[stirring music playing]

[Al] Dad started regaining elements of movement.

And they were small, but so meaningful.

[people cheering]

Hours' worth of gym right here.

[laughter]

- Push, push, push. - Push.

[man] There he goes. There he goes.

[laughter]

Oh, my God. [laughs]

[woman] Go hard. Real hard.

[Chris] My spirits rose

with the possibility that I was on the road to recovery.

[Dana] You do have to learn to walk the fine line

between hope without expectation.

As soon as you start expecting something,

the disappointment is so much more ferocious.

You know, I think if he could have

just gotten off the ventilator.

Oh, my God, and he practiced so much.

It was brutal to watch.

[machine beeping]

[grunts softly]

[grunts]

But the strength of the muscles weren't present

to give him enough ability to wean off completely.

All right.

[brooding music playing]

[Al] He wanted to give people hope.

But it was really hard

and he did not show that to the world.

[Chris] What's really curious

is that in all the time since my injury,

I've never once had a dream

in which I've been in a wheelchair.

It's easy to sink into a depression.

And you have to get him out.

We had a list of people we'd call

if we weren't good enough. [chuckles]

We'd call brother Robin.

[laughter and chatter]

- Oh, God. What? - No, they were sliding down.

Now, every time you move this...

[Close] Another thing that Robin and Marsha did was that

on the anniversary of the accident,

every year, they would get a chef

at Chris and Dana's house

and have a great party.

Made it into a point of celebration and...

appreciate life.

That was Marsha and Robin.

[Chris] Robin and I, we laugh as much as ever,

but we hardly ever talk about disability.

We hardly ever, ever talk about the chair.

[Sarandon] Robin also had struggles

that he dealt with his whole life.

And I think that there...

Despite the way they look and their facade,

that they both were aware of darkness.

[tapping on back]

One, two, three.

[Manganiello] You know, Chris' level of injury

was so dramatic and so severe,

I just think it's a lonely existence.

[Will] Which must've been hell for him.

And must've been hell for my mom, too,

knowing the man she fell in love with

had this whole part of him taken forever.

I found this in one of her journals.

"I've been studying the difference

between solitude and loneliness.

Telling the story of my life to the clean, white towels

taken warm from the dryer and held to my chest.

A sad substitute for a body pulled in close.

The whole man took his last walk

away from me five years ago today,

leaving only mind, soul, heart and heartache behind.

I think of him in certain lights.

Dawn, late afternoon,

bright, windy days that would be perfect for sailing."

[sighs]

"I miss most, even now, his hands,

the expressive grace and heft of them.

The heat of his hands on my skin.

The wrap of his arms,

two becoming one.

I carry the stack of towels upstairs,

carefully cradling them so as not to let them tumble.

Save one still damp,

the top one I had pressed against my face,

which needs more time for drying."

That's what she was enduring.

That's what she had lost...

when my dad got hurt.

- You good? - [Chris] Mm-hmm.

- But... - [both laugh]

You gotta grab on.

I know.

- Ha ha. - [Dana laughs]

- God. - Come on, let's go in.

[Al] Dana did what Dana does,

which was find ways to rally around him.

And Dad did what Dad did,

which was go down through the valley

and then go back up to the hilltop again.

[Chris] I see it's like a game of cards.

And if you think the game is worthwhile,

then you just play the hand you're dealt.

I think the game's worthwhile. I really do.

I thought it would be a good thing

for me to tell one really good story

about a family dealing with a devastating event.

[Ellison] The phone rang and it was a man saying,

"I have Christopher Reeve here on the line for you.

Would you like to talk to him?"

And he said,

"I have long wanted to tell the story of somebody

who lived with ventilator-dependent quadriplegia.

So people have a better understanding

of what it's like to live with quadriplegia."

[Chris] She's an extraordinary person

because her mind is sharp as a razor

and the devotion and loyalty of her family

is totally amazing.

She applied to Harvard, and she got in.

Her mother, Jean, went with her every day.

They lived together. They ate together.

Brooke graduated with a degree in neuroscience.

Both my mother and I

have learned so much from all of you.

What we hope you can learn from us

and from each other

is to take no one in your life for granted.

[woman on screen] What we really hope

you can learn from us...

is to take no one in your life for granted.

[Chris] It would be great if this film

would cause families everywhere

to think about how they're really doing in their family.

You know, what are the bonds? Is the love there?

- [chuckles] - I think it probably happened.

[Matthew] There was a huge shift in my dad

from the time after the accident.

Happy Father's Day, Father.

- Hey. - [Matthew] Hello there. Is it in?

His entire approach to parenting changed.

He started really to see us

and to connect to us as people.

[Matthew] Being together and talking

was far more valuable and meaningful

than doing all those crazy physical activities.

[Chris] I was a sailor. I was a skier. I was a rider.

I traveled everywhere.

And you realize that is not the definition

or the essence of your existence.

What is the essence are relationships.

[Dana chuckles] You're gonna regret this.

[Chris laughs]

Daddy's in his off-road vehicle.

[Will] My dad taught me how to ride a bike,

which is quite remarkable

considering he wasn't able to move.

[Dana] How does it feel to be riding your bike, sir?

- Good. - [Dana laughs]

[Chris] If someone had told me before my injury

that you could teach a kid to ride on his own

just by talking to him,

I would have said that that was impossible.

In my case, a catastrophic event

was probably necessary to change my perspective.

I needed to break my neck to learn some of this stuff.

[man] Matthew Exton Reeve.

[cheers and applause]

Oh, so proud of you.

[Exton] It was the accident

that brought us closer together

without a shadow of a doubt.

Together like this.

[Chris] For the first time since the accident,

I've seen my life as a continual timeline

instead of before and after,

being on my feet and being seated.

It's all part of the total story.

[sentimental music playing]

Things were good. Things were going well enough

that Dana actually took a play in California,

leaving Dad and Will at home.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

[Matthew] She had, like, two nights off. She came home.

We had a very totally informal, just dinner.

- [Dana] Some of them are sparklers. - [Matthew] He turned 52.

[Dana] If you blow one out, I'll do the rest.

Put it a little closer.

- Oh, yeah! - [kids cheering]

[Al] Things were good, and then

they weren't.

All right, here comes Will, here comes Will.

[Will] He mentioned this infection

that wasn't going away.

He was frustrated.

I came home.

Our favorite baseball team were playing in the playoffs,

so I would rub his head for good luck.

The Yankees came back and won.

At some point, after midnight,

my bedroom door slammed open and it was the nurse on duty.

"Will, something bad has happened.

Your dad has fallen into a coma."

[Al] It was the middle of the night

and it was Dana calling.

She just said, "Al, it's really serious.

You need to go home now."

She was trying to hold it together,

but she sounded so scared

and I'd never heard my mom scared before.

She was getting home as fast as she could.

I called my mom, told her.

We were on a plane a few hours later.

[Al] There we were, back in an ICU again.

Both Michael and I go in, Chris is unconscious,

and we just start holding his hand, chatting with him.

The hope was that they would somehow turn it around.

But he just wasn't stable. His body would keep crashing.

I think he died three or four times that day.

Um, and the doctors kept him alive.

They kept resuscitating him

to make sure that Dana got there.

And, uh...

And then in front of me steps my mom.

She came flying in. [sniffles]

And she just yelled, "I love you, I love you."

[sobbing]

Over and over again,

making sure he could hear it. She was going to reach him.

Certainly, a part of her had just died

in that moment as well. [voice quivering]

And...

I told him

that I loved him.

I would do whatever I could

to make him proud.

[soft music playing]

And then he was gone.

[sniffles]

Um...

I was in the back of a taxi on my way to the hospital

when my sister called me and said he was gone. Um...

[sighs deeply]

[somber choral music playing]

[newscaster 1] Good morning, everyone.

Christopher Reeve is being remembered this morning

as a courageous and inspirational person

who provided hope to millions of people.

[newscaster 2] Condolences are still pouring in

around the world today for Christopher Reeve

two days after his death at the age of 52.

Friends and admirers alike

all have one word to describe him.

"Hero."

[Manganiello] He never rested. He just didn't.

And I think, you know, after all those years,

people were looking for some answer.

It was a bedsore, it was... It wasn't.

It was just system breakdown.

[Hawkins] We knew this day was coming.

You know it's coming at some point.

It's inevitable.

But we'd gotten so used to Chris

just outliving everything.

[applause]

[crowd laughs]

Just have to water the stem cells there

- for a moment. - [crowd laughs]

But I've always considered him basically, uh, my brother.

I was his fool, but that's it.

[laughter]

Someone's got to do it.

As ordered and as all things were...

that he knew were precise,

I was chaos for him. And that was joy.

[Hawkins] I don't know that I've ever seen

a sadder person in my life...

like, just, I mean, I look at him and I just...

You wanted to break down in tears. He was just so sad.

I've always felt if Chris was still around,

Robin would still be alive.

I believe that.

Goodnight, sweet prince,

flights of angels send thee to thy rest.

[applause]

[Dana] I made a vow to Chris when we married

that I would love him. And I would be with him

in sickness and in health.

And I did okay with that.

But there's another vow that I need to amend today.

I promised to love, honor, and cherish him

till death did us part.

Well, I can't do that.

Because I will love... [crying softly]

honor and cherish him forever.

Goodbye to you.

[birds chirping]

[pensive music playing]

[Will] After my dad died, it was just me and my mom.

It felt strange.

[Al] We gave the van to a boy in New Hampshire.

Absolutely changed his life

because he couldn't go anywhere before that.

[Matthew] It was hard 'cause the foundation lost

its biggest advocate, its biggest magnet.

But Dana stepped in and helped fill that void.

[cheers and applause]

[Kerry] Despite the sorrow, the loss, the pain,

she thought it was important for her

to make Chris' voice heard through her.

I've been trying to help the children

start to piece together a life without their dad.

[Will] She was so full of life and full of hope

that while she had lost a part of her soul

when my dad died,

I think she stayed true to her belief

that there's not enough time in the day for self-pity

and you gotta get on with things.

[Hawkins] A Broadway composer asked her to sing.

- ♪ His is the only...♪ - [piano playing]

Really, it's like... urgh.

It feels... it's... how does...

It feels like it's maybe just a little tight.

I think it's from my... [forces a cough]

[Hawkins] And she has this little cough.

[coughing]

♪ Never let him go ♪

[Al] She couldn't figure out what was going on.

It just wouldn't go away, and her back was hurting.

[Hawkins] I was like, "Dana,

I'm getting you to a doctor."

And sure enough, came back lung cancer.

We got the first results,

and Michael called me up, and he's like,

"Did you guys go to, like, Labs"R"Us?"

Like, "No, we're going to a real lab."

The diagnosis was stage four non-small cell.

[Al] And she got that diagnosis

less than a year after we'd lost my dad.

[Hawkins] I'm still in shock.

"You've never smoked a day in your life.

You're so healthy."

I mean, it was just so wrong. It was really, really wrong.

[Manganiello] Dana was so brave.

I mean, she was just like, "Okay, I'll do whatever I need to do."

Because the last thing on this planet

she was gonna do was leave that kid.

Wasn't gonna happen.

[Oprah] What are you most proud of

in this past nine and a half years?

- [laughing] He's sitting right there. - [Oprah] Yeah.

That's what I'm most proud of.

- [Oprah] Yeah. Yeah. - [applause]

I'm so... I'm so proud.

[Oprah] Yeah.

I am. We have extraordinary...

We have extraordinary kids.

[Will] Matthew moved home and was unbelievable.

He was acting as a dad. He was acting as a brother,

as a best friend.

He took care of me.

And he took care of my mom and he...

he made life feel normal. Um...

[Matthew] Dana had sat us down

and she made it very clear kind of what...

she had in mind for,

you know, should anything happen to her.

I think we were all in denial.

You know, I don't know what it is with that family and hope,

but it's like Chris knew he was going to walk again.

Dana just knew she was gonna survive this.

[Dana] Well, I had a great model.

Um, I was married to a man who never gave up.

He taught me so much about courage

and about going forward,

and he really lives with me in this.

She got sick pretty quickly. It got serious pretty fast.

[Will] Marsha Williams put us up in a hotel in New York.

Matthew, Al, and I in a room. I was on the cot.

At some point, the phone rings...

with the news

that my mom had died.

And I remember being awake

but pretending I was asleep.

Because

I didn't want to face it.

[melancholy music playing]

And so, I waited for the sun to rise

and then shook him on the shoulder

and we told him.

So, in 18 months,

Will lost his dad,

his grandmother, who he was really close to, and his mom.

Despite the love and security that...

my siblings provided me and my family provided me

and my adoptive family provides me,

that was the moment,

March 6, 2006, that was...

I've... I've been alone since then. [sniffles]

[slow inspirational music playing]

[Chris] You can say that the universe is totally random.

And it's just molecules colliding all the time,

and, you know, it's totally chaos.

And our job is to make sense of chaos.

Or you can say, sometimes things happen for a reason,

and your job is to discover the reason.

[Al] Suddenly, there we are, and it's just three kids.

You start to pick up the pieces and think,

"All right, what does the future look like?

How are we gonna navigate this together?"

[Will] My dad and my mom and their values,

the way that they were,

the role models, through their words and their actions,

their unwavering love and support and encouragement.

That's how we found our path forward and our meaning.

My brothers and I joined the board

almost immediately after Dana passed away

to help give continuity of the family.

[Will] It is now the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

[Kerry] Chris and Dana. They've made a difference.

They are making a difference in the continuation of the foundation.

[Kirshblum] Both Chris and Dana

did a really good job. Clearly,

because now these children aren't children anymore,

and look at what they're doing.

Fifty-six and a half million Americans

living with disabilities.

Over $130 million in funding to labs around the globe.

[Will] What's happening right now

is the beginning of the end of paralysis.

[Hawkins] People who became disabled after Chris

are literally walking because of him.

A man paralyzed from the neck down walking again.

He wanted to push everybody to think bigger.

[Goldberg] That's the fire you want to put under people,

and nobody did it better than Christopher Reeve. Nobody.

[Ellison] He helped us say, "There are lives to lead.

People with disabilities have

an integral role to play in society."

Chris wanted to change the fuckin' world, and we did.

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act

is the first piece of comprehensive legislation

specifically aimed at addressing the challenges

faced by Americans living with paralysis.

Matthew, come on up here.

He looks like his dad, doesn't he?

[inspirational music continues]

[Chris] When the first Superman movie came out,

the most frequently asked question was,

"What is a hero?"

And my answer was that a hero

is someone who commits a courageous action

without considering the consequences.

Now my definition is completely different.

I think a hero is an ordinary individual

who finds the strength to persevere and endure

in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

- [wind whooshes] - [music fades out]

[gentle music playing]