Christopher reeve biography youtube insustry

It was a work of earnest myth-making that still stands as one of the great comic-book movies, in no small part thanks to Reeve's charismatic performance, equal parts bumbling Cary Grant and square-jawed, all-American heroism. Reeve was flying high, with a successful sequel in and the adoration of kids around the world, but he was also typecast decades before A-list stars could comfortably move between prestige roles and spandex pay cheques.

It didn't help that he was wracked with anxiety over pleasing his father, a christopher reeve biography youtube insustry poet who was only excited for his son when he at first assumed he was starring in George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman. Directors Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhote pictured here with Reeve's son, Will wanted to focus on the star's post-accident career.

His first thoughts were denial. Reeve initially struggled to come to terms with his accident. It's a tribute to Reeve's resilience, and to the caregiving of his wife Dana who passed away inthat he was able to transform his life and refocus his career on activism. He'd gone from invincible to vulnerable. There was the criticism, in some disability circles, that Reeve's activism was motivated by a purely selfish desire to regain his mobility — which may have initially been true, though the results spoke for themselves — and controversy over a Super Bowl commercial that used CGI to depict the actor walking again.

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 your relationships. All All. Sign In. Play trailer Biography Documentary. See production info at IMDbPro. Videos 3. Trailer Official Trailer. Photos 90 Add photo. Top cast 84 Edit. Christopher Reeve Self archive footage.

Will Reeve Self - Christopher's Son. Matthew Reeve Self - Christopher's Son. Open menu Close menu What to Watch. Sign in View Profile Sign out. US Edition. Get the What to Watch Newsletter The latest updates, reviews and unmissable series to watch and more! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors.

At home, Reeve exercised for up to four or five hours a day, using specialized exercise machines to stimulate his muscles and prevent muscle atrophy and osteoporosis. Beginning inhe started to regain the ability to make small movements with his fingers and other parts of his body. He also had a sense of proprioceptionwhich is critical for movement control.

Inhis grade was changed to C, indicating some degree of muscle movement and sensation. Reeve's doctors were surprised by his improvements, which they attributed to his intensive exercise regimen. The degree of his recovery was reported in scientific journals. In FebruaryReeve became the third patient in the United States to undergo an experimental procedure in which electrodes were implanted in his diaphragm to help him breathe without a ventilator.

With a diaphragm pacing devicehe was able to breathe normally through his nose, regaining his sense of smell and normal speech. By two years after the accident, Reeve said he was "glad to be alive, not out of obligation to others, but because life was worth living. In the aftermath of the accident, Reeve went through intense grief. He gradually resolved to make the best of his new life, with a busy schedule of activism, film work, writing and promoting his books, public speaking, and parenting.

Inhe said in an interview:. Who knows why an accident happens? The key is what do you do afterwards. There is a period of shock, and then grieving, with confusion and loss. After that, you have two choices.

Christopher reeve biography youtube insustry

One is to stare out the window and gradually disintegrate. And the other is to mobilize and use all your resources, whatever they may be, to do something positive. That is the road I have taken. It comes naturally to me. I am a competitive person and right now I am competing against decay. I don't want osteoporosis or muscle atrophy or depression to beat me.

In another interview, Reeve said he drew on the self-discipline he had gained in his early years in the theater:. Nobody wants another actor. There's too many of them now already. To keep believing in yourself in spite of those kinds of obstacles is certainly good preparation for what I'm going through now. For most of his life, Reeve did not identify with any religion.

He attended his stepfather's Presbyterian church as a young teenager. He subsequently voiced criticism of the organization. Reeve described his wedding in as his "first act of faith". After his accident, many well-wishers suggested that prayer would make him feel better, but he did not find it helpful. In his book Nothing is Impossible: Reflections on a New LifeReeve said that he and his wife had regularly attended Unitarian services, starting in his late 40s.

In the years following the accident, he had gradually come to believe that:. Spirituality is found in the way we live our daily lives. It means spending time thinking about others. It's not so hard to imagine that there is some kind of higher power. We don't have to know what form it takes or exactly where it exists; just to honor it and try to live by it is enough.

As these thoughts unfolded in the process of learning to live my new life, I had no idea that I was becoming a Unitarian. At the age of 15, Reeve developed a passionate interest in political and social causes. He conducted a door-to-door campaign on behalf of Robert F. Kennedy in and participated in protests against the invasion of Cambodia in After the release of SupermanReeve used his celebrity status to enable him to support several philanthropic causes.

Through the Make-A-Wish Foundationhe visited terminally ill children. He joined the board of directors for the worldwide charity Save the Children. Inhe served as a track and field coach at the Special Olympics. In the s, Reeve campaigned for Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and made speeches throughout the state. He served as a board member for the Charles Lindbergh Fund, which promotes environmentally safe technologies.

As a pilot with the Environmental Air Force he gave government officials and journalists aerial tours over areas of environmental damage. In latein SantiagoChile, the country's dictator, Augusto Pinochetthreatened to execute 77 actors. Ariel Dorfman asked Reeve to help save their lives. Reeve flew to Chile and helped lead a protest march.

The documentary Trump: What's the Deal? The documentary also featured an interview in which Reeve called Trump's ambitions "the American dream gone berserk," adding, "You're allowed to dream as big as you want, but if your dreams step on the lives of ordinary people and ruin the quality of their life and their neighborhood, you have to be stopped.

InReeve's friend Ron Silver started the Creative Coalition TCCa liberal organization aiming to teach celebrities how to speak knowledgeably about political issues. The group's initiatives included environmental issues and defending the National Endowment of the Artswhich was under attack from conservative Republicans who objected to taxpayer funding of art they considered offensive.

Reeve was elected as a co-president of TCC in The organization's work was noticed nationwide, and the Democratic Party asked Reeve to run for the United States Congress. He replied, "Run for Congress? And lose my influence in Washington? In10 months after his injury, Reeve appeared at the 68th Academy Awards to a long standing ovation. He used the occasion to encourage Hollywood to make more films on social issues, saying, "Let's continue to take risks.

Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. Reeve left the Kessler Rehabilitation Center feeling inspiration from the other patients he had met. Because the media was constantly covering him, he decided to use his name to put focus on spinal cord injuries. He traveled across the country to make speeches and also hosted the Summer Paralympic Games in Atlanta and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

For these efforts, he was placed on the cover of Time on August 26, Reeve was elected chairman of the American Paralysis Association and vice chairman of the National Organization on Disability. With Joan Irvine Smithhe co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which is now one of the leading spinal cord research centers in the world. That is outrageous.

We need to make insurance companies provide the benefits they are supposed to, and we shouldn't have to fight for necessities. This bill passed. Reeve lobbied for expanded federal funding on embryonic stem cell research to include all embryonic stem cell lines in existence and for self-governance to make open-ended scientific inquiry of the research.

Reeve initially called this "a step in the right direction", admitting he did not know about the existing lines and would look into them further. He fought against the limit when scientists revealed an early research technique involved mixing the human stem cells with mouse cells contaminated most of the old lines. InReeve received Public Service Award from the American Society for Cell Biology for "outstanding public service in support of biomedical research.

InReeve lobbied for the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of[ ] which would allow somatic cell nuclear transfer research, but would ban reproductive cloning. He argued stem cell implantation is unsafe unless the stem cells contain the patient's own DNA and because somatic cell nuclear transfer is done without fertilizing an egg, it can be fully regulated.

In JulyReeve's continuing frustration with the pace of stem cell research in the US led him to Israel, [ ] a country that was then, according to him, at the center of research in spinal cord injury. During his visit, Reeve called the experience "a privilege" and said, "Israel has very proactive rehab facilities, excellent medical schools and teaching hospitals, and an absolutely first-rate research infrastructure.

In SeptemberReeve was awarded the Lasker Public Service Award "for his perceptive, sustained and heroic advocacy for medical research in general and victims of disability in particular. Commenting on Reeve's impact, Jerome Groopman said in "I think that people of christopher reeve biography youtube insustry or great resources are the ones who act as catalysts in our society.

There was essentially no substantial funding of spinal-cord research before Reeve's injury, and now it is one of the hottest areas in neurobiology. Scientists are flocking to work in it, because science follows the money. During his teenage years, Reeve suffered from occasional bouts of asthma and allergies. He had a rare condition called mastocytosiswhich made him vulnerable to anaphylaxisand more than once he had a severe reaction to a drug.

While at Kessler, he tried a drug which was theorized to help reduce damage to the spinal cord. The drug caused him to go into anaphylactic shock, and his heart stopped. He claimed to have had an out-of-body experience and remembered saying, "I'm sorry, but I have to go now", during the event. In his autobiography, he wrote, "and then I left my body.

I was up on the ceiling. I looked down and saw my body stretched out on the bed, not moving, while everybody—there were 15 or 20 people, the doctors, the EMTs, the nurses—was working on me. The noise and commotion grew quieter as though someone were gradually turning down the volume. Two days later, he gave it another try, but experienced the same anaphylactic reaction and was immediately given epinephrine.

At age 16, he developed alopecia areata. Generally, he was able to comb over the bald spots and often the problem disappeared for long periods. He was given a medication for it, but an adverse reaction caused all the hair on his body to fall out, including his eyebrows and eyelashes. During andReeve was frequently hospitalized for dysreflexiapneumonia, a collapsed lung, and two blood clots.

A titanium rod was inserted inside his humerus bone to stabilize his arm. He was warned that his leg might have to be amputated to prevent further spread of infection. Reeve sought help from specialists at Albany Medical Centerwho examined his leg, removing the dead tissue and putting him on powerful antibioticsalthough he developed an allergy after eight days.

His leg fully healed a few months later. In early Octoberhe was being treated for an infected pressure ulcer that was causing sepsisa complication he had experienced many times before. On October 4,he spoke at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on behalf of the institute's work; it was his last reported public appearance. That night, he went into cardiac arrest after receiving an antibiotic for the infection.

Eighteen hours later, on October 10,Reeve died at the age of However, both Reeve's wife, Dana, and his doctor, John McDonald, believed that an adverse christopher reeve biography youtube insustry to a drug caused his death. His remains were cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery[ ] where his ashes were sprinkled in the wind by his family. Reeve's widow, Dana, headed the Christopher Reeve Foundation after his death.

Although a non-smoker, she was diagnosed with lung cancer on August 9, She died at age 44 on March 6,[ ] and the foundation was subsequently renamed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Following Reeve's death, the Society for Neuroscience added his name to their satellite symposium dedicated to stem cell research. Inthe Williamstown Theatre Festivalwhere Reeve often performed during his career, announced that it would begin a tradition of dedicating the final performance of every season to his memory and would establish a fund to support artists with disabilities.

Reeve's books are also part of the collection. In MarchPresident Barack Obama signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act that aims "to enhance and further research into paralysis and to improve rehabilitation and the quality of life for persons living with paralysis and other physical disabilities. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American actor and activist — For the South African knife maker, see Chris Reeve. Reeve after the opening of The Marriage of Figaro in New York CityU. Mount Kisco, New YorkU. Dana Morosini. Reeve father Barbara Lamb Johnson mother.

Early life and education [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Early work [ edit ]. Superman films [ edit ]. Roles turned down by Reeve [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. Relationships [ edit ]. Aviation and sailing [ edit ]. Equestrianism and injury [ edit ]. Hospitalization [ edit ]. Rehabilitation [ edit ]. Life with paralysis [ edit ]. Religious views [ edit ].

Activism [ edit ]. Disability activism [ edit ]. See also: Spinal cord injury research. Health problems and death [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ]. Awards and honors [ edit ]. Filmography [ edit ]. Main article: Christopher Reeve filmography. See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Reeve regularly called the stables to check on him and was sent videos of his training sessions.

Later, Buck was sold to new owners. Reeve said, "He's a beautiful, sweet-natured animal. None of what happened was his fault. I'm hoping he'll have a long and happy life with his new owners. He's a wonderful horse. The helmet prevented brain damage. Both Reeve and Williams said the story was untrue. ISBN Featuring in-depth interviews with Reeve and Dana, and showing his rehabilitation process at Kessler, the special became a winner of the Peabody Awards.

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