Christopher Reeve

Classically handsome film, stage and television actor who became a movie icon as the title character of Superman (1978). Reeve avoided standard male hunk roles and instead acted in several Merchant-Ivory features, including The Bostonians (1984) and The Remains of the Day (1993). He is also an acclaimed stage actor who has appeared in Broadway plays and at the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival. A 1995 fall from a horse left Reeve paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. He directed In the Gloaming (1997) and acted in the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 Rear Window (1998) (TV). He was a tireless advocate for stem-cell and spinal-injury research.