There’s the Christopher Reeve the world knew: a regal, imposing, classically handsome New Yorker who cemented his movie legacy as the Man of Steel in 1978’s Superman and went on to champion paralysis research after a debilitating 1995 accident rendered him quadriplegic.
In honor of the 20th year anniversary of his death, his three kids and famous friends — among them Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon — remember the Chris they knew in the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story: Goofy. Sartorially-challenged. Highly ambitious. Deeply adventurous. Always up for a good time. And a connoisseur of embarrassing dad jokes.
His middle child, Alexandra Reeve Givens, 40, fondly recalls that her dad’s penchant for “fabulous voices.”
“This is what happens when you have a classically trained actor for a father,” she says. “He had an incredible Fozzie Bear when we were kids. Do you remember that?” she asks her brothers, Matthew and Will.
Indeed, they do.
Says Matthew, 44: “And bedtime stories, like doing voices to the characters. I remember him reading Doctor De Soto to us a lot, which is my son’s favorite book right now. And he would do that so well. We went to a couple musicals and he would get up and dance in the aisles like you’re like 11 … So humiliating.”
He did it, says Alexandra, because “he was just really excited. It was ‘The Buddy Holly Story,’ and that’s his era and his people. And he was like, ‘We’re getting up and we’re dancing.’”
Matthew, a producer and writer, and Alexandra, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit organization that focuses on technology policy as it relates to human rights, now have children of their own; their younger half-brother, Will, 32, is a correspondent for ABC News.
The documentary isn’t a schmaltzy, airbrushed, glossy ode to their dad, who went on to accomplish superhuman things in the wake of his accident — he founded his foundation along with wife Dana, directed a movie, and tirelessly campaigned for more research into spinal injuries and help for those impacted by them.
“It’s not a sugar-coated sort of puff piece as it potentially could have been,” Matthew says. “We felt that for the film to really work, it needed to have authenticity. We agreed we would say the things we hadn’t shared publicly, we would tell the stories we’d kept private.”
The real Reeve
The Reeve you see is virile and silly, charming and ridiculously handsome, but also selfish, driven and leery of commitment. Shortly after the birth of Matthew, for example, he went skiing, leaving his partner, Gae Exton, and their newborn to fend for themselves. But especially after his accident, you see Reeve mature and grow as a parent and a partner.
