Christopher Reeve’s Legacy as Superman and Beyond Lives On and Is Remembered On His Birthday

‘Gray Lady Down’ (1978)

Coming off of a short-lived Broadway production of A Matter of Gravity starring Katherine Hepburn, Christopher made his movie debut in this film. It was designed to cash in on the “disaster movie” craze of the time, which included The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno. It didn’t. The setting is a nuclear submarine, which, after a run-in with a freighter, finds itself trapped on a sea shelf, balancing dangerously. His role was small, but his co-stars include Charlton Heston, Ned Beatty (who would go on to play Otis in his first two Superman films), David Carradine, and Stacy Keach.

‘Superman: The Movie’ (1978)

Ladies and gentleman, we give you Christopher Reeve! In the way that James Bond turned Sean Connery from a relative unknown to a superstar, his role as the Man of Steel instantly transformed him into a worldwide sensation. It remains the one that many other superhero films are measured by, and Christopher’s portrayal is still the quintessential version for many people. An origin film, the story takes baby Kal-El from the doomed planet Krypton to Smallville and, ultimately, Metropolis, where he goes up against Gene Hackman‘s Lex Luthor, falls in love with Margot Kidder‘s Lois Lane and endears himself to generations of fans.

Protecting the Character’s Integrity

“What’s so interesting about Chris is that he was so protective of that character,” observed David Newman, who, along with his wife, Leslie Newman, wrote the first three films, “because he really knows the character better than anyone, because he lives it. When we were making Superman II, we were in Niagara Falls doing that scene where the kid falls in. As you know, a lot of it was done on blue screen in London, but certain things were done on location that was worked in. There was a shot of Chris — in the story it’s right after he saves that little boy — where you see him descend, carrying the little boy and giving him to his mother. The little boy says, ‘I want to do it again,’ he pats him on the head and says, ‘One ride to a customer,’ and he flies off. That’s when Lois realizes that Clark is never around when Superman is around. In order to do that shot, which was done live, they had Chris hanging up in this harness on a crane. He’s there looking like a guy hanging from a crane and then they drop him into the shot. Because we were shooting in a real location at a famous place, there were a thousand tourists behind a rope with their little cameras, watching not only a movie being made, but a Superman movie. Chris suddenly realized he had to go up on this crane, looking like an idiot, basically.”

Making a Super Deal

“He went over to the crowd,” added David, “which was excited, because he was in full costume, and he said, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you don’t take my picture while I’m up on that crane, when we finish the shot I’ll come and sign autographs until everyone’s got what they want.’ And they all put away their cameras. That’s when I realized that Chris had a real connection with the character. He didn’t like to send that character up, and what’s really very funny is that Chris also, on the days when he was shooting as Superman and he’s in character, he kind of carried himself a certain way. On the days when he was Clark Kent, he sits there completely relaxed.”

‘Somewhere in Time’ (1980)

Filmed in between the making of Superman: The Movie and Superman II, this romance was Christopher’s means of escaping the cape, trying to prove to the audience that he was capable of playing more than the Last Son of Krypton. He portrays playwright Richard Collier who, in 1972, becomes obsessed with the photograph of actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour) at the Grand Hotel. Through hypnotic means he’s able to travel backwards in time to 1912 to meet Elise, and the two fall deeply in love. Her manager (Christopher Plummer), fearing the romance will ruin her career, does everything he can to tear them apart.

A True Love Story

“I like the character,” Christopher told the New York Times back in 1980. “A man who’s incomplete. He has all the material things he needs, all the comforts, but he’s missing a passionate commitment to something other than himself, and goes in search of it. It’s an absolutley honest attempt to create an old-fashioned romance. It’s based on love rather than on sex or X-rated bedroom scenes.” It failed at the box office initially, but over the years has developed a passionate cult following.

‘Superman II’ (1980 in Europe, 1981 in the U.S.)

The first film was a blockbuster, and this second one didn’t come in far behind it. The film’s dual focus is on Superman’s battle with three super-powered Kryptonians, and his romance with Lois Lane, representing the first time the characters ever actually slept together. A wonderful mix of romance and action.

Digging Deeper

In discussing the roles of Superman and Clark Kent, Christopher commented, “Both identities are more sharply defined in Superman II. In the first picture, we had to establish who Superman was and why he disguised himself as Clark Kent. This time, we come out swinging. Like most people of my age, I was brought up on Superman. I knew the classic stance — hands on hips, cape blowing in the breeze, bullets bouncing off his chest. That’s the way the six and a half billion people have loved Superman, and I wouldn’t dream of changing it. But I wanted to find other dimensions as well.”

Finding His Place

“In a sense,” he elaborated, “Superman is a stranger in a strange land, a solitary man with incredible powers trying to fit into his adopted planet. He has warmth and a great sense of humor. And while he has sworn to uphold ‘truth, justice, and the American way,’ there’s nothing self-conscious about him. That’s simply because it’s what he believes in, in a world filled with arch-criminals and evil geniuses. However, Clark Kent is more fun to play. There’s more scope to the role, because he is such an awful mess.”

‘Deathtrap’ (1982)

From the stage play of the same name. Twists and turns involving aging playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine), who lures former student Clifford Anderson (Christopher) to his Long Island, New York home, where he plans on killing him, stealing the younger writer’s original play and having it produced under his own name. Nothing is at it seems, except perhaps Sidney’s wife, Myra (Dyan Cannon), a victim to all the machinations.

Looking for Changes

In a self-reflective conversation with Interview magazine, Christopher commented, “Right after Superman opened, it was difficult for me to accept the hero worship that came at me. And I immediately made choices of material that, in a way, gave everybody the finger. My actions were meant to tell the public, ‘Don’t look up to me. Don’t think of me as a hero.’ For example, one of my immediate choices was to play a screwed-up homosexual playwright in Deathtrap. As an acting chance, it offered Michael Caine, [director] Sidney Lumet, screenplay by Jay Allen — a really nice pedigree. And yet, the character I played was one the audience couldn’t possibly like or identify with… It was almost necessary for me at the time to play characters who were gay, crippled, psychotic, neurotic, killers, whatever. It was almost a pompous, self-important way of telling the public, ‘Screw you, I’ll tell you who I am, so you don’t tell me.’ That is what was going on in my head at the time. I have to admit that I was a particularly ungraceful and unsympathetic person at the time.”

‘Monsignor’ (1982)

Christopher is Father Flaherty, a Catholic priest who rises in ranks through the Vatican during World War II, along the way involving the Vatican in a variety of illegal operations and having an affair, before he realizes that he has to try and turn it all around. 

‘Superman III’ (1983)

Clark Kent returns to Smallville for his high school reunion and rekindles his romance with Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole). Additionally, businessman Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) forces computer hacker Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) to create technology that plays havoc with the world, as well as creating artificial Kryptonite that turns Superman evil. A highlight of the film is a psychological junkyard battle between the Man of Steel and Clark Kent. Overall, it sounds like it works, but it doesn’t: the mix of Superman and Richard Pryor was a terrible idea and plays that way on screen.

Dark Superman

Said writer David Newman, “I think some of the best work Christopher Reeve ever did as an actor is in Superman III with the evil Superman character. It’s wonderful the way that happens in degrees. There’s that little scene with Lana Lang where he starts to come on to her instead of going to stop a bridge from collapsing. By the big fight between Clark and Superman, I think he’s just great.”

‘The Bostonians’ (1984)

Describes IMDb, “A Boston feminist and a conservative Southern lawyer contend for the heart and mind of a beautiful and bright girl unsure of her future.” This film, in which he plays a Southern lawyer in the late 1800s, represented Christopher’s shift to some degree into costume and ensemble dramas. As he noted to the Christian Science Monitor, “What effect do you want to produce? Do you want to be a star, or to act? The true star will be careful to preserve his image through the part. The audience feels secure, and the performer is trusted.”

‘The Aviator’ (1985)

In 1918, a former military flyer (Christopher) who is mentally scarred from the past, finds himself on a battle for survival with a young woman (Rosanna Arquette) when their plane crashes in the wilderness. The threat includes wolves. “It wasn’t really dangerous,” he’s quoted as saying in Superhero: A Biography of Christopher Reeve. “They were trained wolves; you can’t get scared of animals with names like Max and Ivan. All you do is hold a piece of chicken or meat in your hand, and on command they go for it.”

Part of the appeal of the film was it allowed Christopher to take on some second unit directing, a stepping stone for what he hoped would some day be a career in directing.

‘Street Smart’ (1987)

Cannon Films had gotten the rights to make Superman films and wanted Christopher to reprise the role of the Man of Steel. He was reluctant, given what had happened on Superman III, but was drawn in by the promise the studio would produce a pet project of his, Street Smart, before production would begin on the superhero adventure.

He plays struggling reporter Jonathan Fisher, who, out of desperation, starts making up stories about a pimp that has the effect of resurrecting his career, but things go south when a real pimp, Fast Black (Morgan Freeman), believes that these stories are about him and demands answers from Fisher. Said Christopher at the time, “The central character is not likable and definitely not a hero. But he’s like many people in their mid-30s, facing a dilemma of personal ethics versus ambition. He’s sort of lost, just getting along, but he wants to be famous. When he gets the opportunity, he takes it.”

‘Superman IV: The Quest for Peace’ (1987)

Superman decides to rid the world of all nuclear missiles, which finds him locked in battle with Lex Luthor (the returning Gene Hackman) and his creation from Superman’s DNA, Nuclear Man. Its budget literally cut in half on the eve of production, the film is a sham, a box office disappointment, and the final time Christopher appeared as Superman. Director Sidney J. Furie tries to remain philosophical about the results: “Having courage and guts is part of the insanity of this business. The truth is that whether your film is about the great mythological character you have to do right by, or it’s a little movie that nobody has heard of, you still approach it like it’s the most important thing in the world. And failing is still the worse thing in the world. But you fail, you go on, you succeed once in a while and you don’t think about it too often. It goes with the territory… we’re gunslingers, and you don’t win every duel.”

‘Switching Channels’ (1988)

The head of a cable news network (Burt Reynolds) is determined to ruin the engagement between his star anchor (Kathleen Turner) and her fiancé (Christopher), because he has feelings for her. The film was a bomb, making more headlines for all of the behind the scenes fights between Reynolds and Turner than anything else.

‘Noises Off’ (1992)

“Hired to helm an Americanized take on a British play,” offers the film’s official description, “director Lloyd Fellowes (Michael Caine) does his best to control an eccentric group of stage actors. During practice sessions, things run smoothly. However, when Lloyd and his actors begin a series of performances leading up to a Broadway premiere, chaos ensues. Star actress Dotty (Carol Burnett) is quickly passing her prime, male lead Frederick (Christopher) has no confidence, and bit actor Selsdon (Denholm Elliott) is rarely sober.”

‘Morning Glory’ (1993)

Deborah Raffin plays a Georgia widow and mother-of-two, with a third on the way, who seeks out a husband via newspaper advertisement in Depression-era America. Christopher plays Will Parker, a man out on parole for murder, who answers the ad.

‘The Remains of the Day’ (1993)

The setting is 1958 post-war Britain, where a butler (Anthony Hopkins), who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II, realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer. Also starring are Emma Thompson and James Fox, with Christopher in the supporting role of Congressman Jack Lewis.

‘Speechless’ (1994)

Christopher is Bob Freed, a TV war correspondent who comes to town and lands right in the middle of a blossoming relationship between Julia Mann (Geena Davis) and Kevin Vallick (Michael Keaton), respectively Democratic and Republic speech writers. It’s particularly awkward since Bob was engaged to Julia! The speech-writing characters were loosely based on the real world’s Mary Matalin and James Carville.

‘Village of the Damned’ (1995)

Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher) works alongside FBI agent Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley) to uncover the truth behind 10 children born on the same day who age rapidly and all have the abilities to read minds and force others to do their will. This was Christopher’s final feature film.

Christopher Reeve Never Stopped

In many ways, Christopher was filled with a drive that would have made the Man of Steel proud. When he stopped — insofar as Hollywood was concerned — being a big screen leading man, he took supporting roles in films, frequently returned to his true love, the stage; and carved out an impressive career for himself on television and cable. Even after his accident, he tirelessly worked towards raising awareness and money for people dealing with paralysis, and still managed to work, appearing on Smallville (which was pretty mind-blowing for fans) and TV movies like Rear Window.

As Superman and in real life, Christopher Reeve was and remains an inspiration.