Christopher Reeve

Hero is a very strong word and everyone has a different hero. To me a hero is someone who had to overcome something big in their life to get where they are today and isn’t afraid to stand up for what they think and feel. The person that I believe would fulfill all the characteristics of a hero is Christopher Reeve.

Christopher Reeve was born on September 35, 1952 in New York City. His mother, Barbara Johnson, was a journalist and his father, Franklin Reeve, was a writer and professor. They got divorced when Christopher was only 4 years old, he and his brother, Benjamin moved to New Jersey with their mother. Reeve began acting when he was a little boy with his younger brother. They climbed into cardboard grocery cartons and pretended the cartons were pirate ships. After a few years of living in New Jersey their mother met someone and she married him. He was an investment banker. Their step-father, Tristam Johnson paid for the boys to attend Princeton Day School, a private school in the area. Christopher was president of the Drama club and Student Director of the Glee Club at his school. He also took part in school plays, started to get interested in music, and began taking piano lessons. When he was only nine years old he was chosen, out of many young children, to be in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Yeoman of the Guard, for the McCarter Theater. He also got involved in other activities; he played ice hockey, got involved in school orchestra, and sang with a choral group. When he was 15 he was a summer apprenticeship at the Williamstown theater festival in Massachusetts and at the age of 16 he already had an agent. After graduating from Cornell University, he made his way to Los Angeles, California. In 1978 he auditioned for the movie Superman, and got the role of Superman. While he was filming this movie he met Gae Exton, they had two children together, Matthew and Alexandra, but later got a divorce. During that summer he met, Dana Morosini, his present-day wife, and they had a son together.

Throughout Reeve’s life he has accomplished many things, from producing movies, appearing in many films, plays, and television shows. He appeared in 17 feature films, 12 TV-movies, and about 150 plays throughout his life. Reeve was the real Superman and Superman is very famous, there are even cartoons on television about it still shown today and comic books also. In all the movies he appeared in he did all of his own stunts, he didn’t get a stunt man he did them himself. He is also an active celebrity political activist, and takes part in many organizations and charities. In his early twenties he flew across the Atlantic Ocean two times successfully. While he was in college, he was chosen, along with Robin Williams, to go to New York’s Julliard School of Performing Arts. Reeve has accomplished many things during his life and still strives to do more.

In May of 1995, he was riding his horse and as it went to jump over a rail jump, it stopped short and didn’t go, forcing him to be thrown off the horse, landing head first on the ground. He fractured the uppermost vertebrate of his spine and was instantly paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breath. But immediate medical attention saved his life. The doctors had to literally reattach Reeve’s head to his spine. After 6 long months he returned home but would have to be in an electric wheelchair for the rest of his life, which is operated by him either sipping or blowing into a straw. But he didn’t give up he continued working and acting, this incident wouldn’t be able to keep him away from what he loved to do best. He had sponsored many spinal cord organizations and other organizations for disabled people. Reeve even created his own foundation in 1996 to provide grants to local agencies; it is called the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Years after the accident he has began to get feeling back in certain areas throughout his body.

To get where he is today, Christopher Reeve had to overcome a huge obstacle in his life. Reeve worked hard at getting better, and trying his best. He wouldn’t be able to just come back home and be alright. Reeve has had to work very hard to get where he is today and he started when he was a young boy. Things didn’t come to him easy he had to work to achieve them. Reeve has made a big impression on my life because for someone to get paralyzed from the neck down and have to blow into a straw to move, and then keep on doing what he loves best - directing, acting, and being a producer. He has won many awards for movies he has been in or produced, both before and after his accident, he even took part in the 1998 re-make of Alfred’s Hitchcock’s, Rear Window. That is pretty impressive for him to still act while he’s disabled. Reeve had to go through so much after his accident, involving people making fun of him and all the trouble he first had when he came back home. Just how far he has made it in his life is amazing to me and for everything he has done and continues to do that is why, Christopher Reeve is my hero!