Highest in the land listened to Reeve Christopher Reeve's near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research. The Superman actor broke his neck in 1995 in a fall from a horse. Reeve emerged as a tireless campaigner, lobbying the US government for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury. Reeve's support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and US presidential rival John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry earlier this month during the second presidential debate. As for the strain of travelling to Hollywood, Reeve said: "I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life." His athletic, 6ft 4in frame and love of adventure made him a natural choice for the title role in the first Superman movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts. Although he played the role four times, Reeve often worried about being typecast as an action hero and made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape". He played an embittered, disabled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play Fifth of July, a lovestruck time-traveller in the 1980 movie Somewhere in Time, and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller Deathtrap. He starred alongside Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and James Fox in Merchant-Ivory's well-received drama The Remains of the Day in 1993. More recent films included John Carpenter's Village of the Damned, and the HBO movies Above Suspicion and In the Gloaming, which he directed. Among his other film credits are The Aviator, and Morning Glory. Yet Reeve always will be known to movie fans as the strapping, boyishly handsome stage veteran whose charm and humour brought a new dimension to the characters of Superman and his alter-ego, Clark Kent. Reeve said he tried to get children to better themselves. "They should be looking for Superman's qualities - courage, determination, modesty, humour - in themselves," he said. | 
Movie double-acts come in all shapes and sizes ...and with varying degrees of success.
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