The Superman, starring Reeve, came out in 1978. I’d think, by the late 80’s, he was allowed to be harsh when someone pulled the “superman in the phone booth, hehehe” for the nnnth time.
How many strangers do you say “fuck you” to before you are considered an asshole? How many fans (you know, those that pay to see your movies) do you say “fuck you” to before you are an asshole? Yeah it sucks that the price of fame is you have to have a public persona. Oh well.
Of course I have no personal knowledge if the story was true. I just have no sympathy if it is.
When Reeve was doing 5th of July on Broadway, I bought a window card and met him at the stage door to get his signature. He was very impressed, signed it, and asked me where I got it. I told him a store up the street was selling them, and then I walked down the street with Christopher Reeve to show him where to get them. He was very nice, asked me what I thought of the show and other Broadway shows. He bought some of the cards and autographed a few for the store to sell.
Okay, that trumps any purported assholishness thus far. Somebody’s going to have to come up with stories of him going out partying all night with other men’s wives, or lost weekends on Coney Island or something like that.
Jeez - what a prick!
The way I keep it straight is to remember that both of them only have one s in their name. Since Christopher uses that s, it’s not available for the end of his last name.
While I don’t have any gossip or second hand accounts, I will say that after reading his book Still me, I was struck by the fact that for a person that lived such a privelidged life he delt with his injury fairly well. From everything I read in the book, it was obvious that his background had nothing in it which would have prepared him for any sort of trial or adversity. Sure if you’ve faced tough times in the past or gone through some other traumas, you might have the fortitude to deal with being paralized to the extent he was…if you grew up with that silver spoon in your mouth with a lot handed to you on that silver platter? Not so much getting you ready for a life in a chair. While I’m sure he had his down times, he seemed to deal with it fairly well and kept a positive attitude.
I’ll take this back into his professional realm but I always thought Christopher Reeve was the worst thing about Superman.
He made an iconic comic book hero into a really annoying character. I hated his acting.
He was a glider pilot, and a competent one. He owned an ASW-20 - at the time a starte-of-the art racing machine (and still in wide use and regarded as an excellent design).
He had a good reputation among soaring pilots. I flew with him a couple of times out of North Adams, Massachusetts, and found nothing to complain about, either in his flying skills or his demeanor and attitude.
My understanding was that he was pressured by his agent and others to give up dangerous sports like soaring - so he took up horseback riding, with unfortunate consequences.
What’s a window card?
They are cardboard cards, usually about 18" x 24" advertising the show, which go up in various windows all over town. Smaller and sturdier than posters.
I also have a 5th of July window card for Reeve’s replacement, Richard Thomas. I waited on line at the Broadway Flea Market and paid $5 to have him sign it. His mouth just fell open, because only a few cards were made and they were not commercially available. He signed it, and now I have a matched set.
Reeves was born in West Allis, Wisconsin. When he was eight years old, he moved with his family to Bath, Ohio, where he attended Revere High School. Reeves dissected dead animals as a child, and by his teenage years was an alcoholic loner.
Reeves attended Ohio State University, but dropped out after two terms. Reeves’s father then forced him to enlist in the Army, where he was to serve for a six-year enlistment; he was discharged after two, due to his excessive drinking.
In 1982 Reeves moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, where he lived for six years. In August of that year he was arrested for exposing himself at a state fair. In September 1986 he was charged again with public exposure after two boys accused him of masturbating in public. This time he was sentenced to a year in prison, of which he served 10 months.
In the summer of 1988 Reeves’s grandmother asked him to move out because of his late nights and the foul smells from the basement.
On September 25, 1988 he was arrested for sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy in Milwaukee, for which he served 10 months of a one-year sentence in a work release camp.
In the early morning hours of May 30, 1991, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone was discovered on the street, wandering naked, heavily under the influence of drugs and bleeding from his rectum. Reports of the boy’s injuries varied. Reeves told police that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend, and that they had an argument while drinking. Against the teenager’s protests, police turned him over to Reeves. Later that night, Reeves killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir.
By the summer of 1991, Reeves was murdering approximately one person each week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, Oliver Lacy on July 12, and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 18.
On July 22, 1991 Reeves lured another man, Tracy (Traci) Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be victim, Reeves struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him. Edwards escaped and alerted a police car, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand. Edwards led police back to Reeves’s apartment, where Reeves at first acted friendly to the officers, only to turn on them when he realized that they suspected something was wrong. As one officer subdued Reeves the other searched the house and uncovered multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains, including three severed heads and penises.
The story of Reeves’s arrest and the inventory in his apartment, which was apartment number 213, quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored in acid-filled vats, severed heads were found in his refrigerator, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Reeves had practiced necrophilia and cannibalism. In trial he confessed to attempting a form of trepanation in order to create so-called “zombies”.
Oh hang on that was Jeffrey Dahmer.
I went to the same college as he did, and never heard anything bad about him. He was 3 years ahead of me, though.
I have a soft spot for him after reading that book, too, although he would obviously have omitted any evidence that he’s a jerk. And he’s great in one of my favorite movies, The Remains of the Day.
A male movie star is nice to a woman fan. Hmmm.
Now tell me he would have done the same with male fans and I’d think he was a genuinely great guy.
I think hearing the same joke over and over is probably not an uncommon occurrence for celebs. I think to be one, you have to master the thin smile, and fake chuckle.
Even if he lived as a prick, he died as a good man. I don’t care if it was narcissism or true redemption, his graceful exit will probably help make the world a better place (as soon as Obama and the Congress reverse Bush’s position on stem cells).
ETA: My comments notwithstanding, I still want to hear the dirt.
My FIL was his theater professor and thought he was a nice enough kid. The only bad thing he said about him was that his acting (then) was “a little stiff.”
I’ll be happy if there really isn’t any dirt. From what people have posted so far, he seemed to be a fairly reasonable guy, as movie stars go. To me, he’ll always be Superman, and it sucks how his life turned out and ended.
I did hear that the accident was partly his fault because the type of riding he was doing was beyond his capabilities. He was attempting jumps that were dangerous with his level of experience. I don’t know if it’s true.
I heard he hated bacon.