Though he has played a variety of leading roles, wholesomely handsome, tall, black-haired and blue-eyed Christopher Reeve will always be the definitive Superman to an entire generation of "Man of Steel" fans, something that only serves to intensify the tragedy of his post-Superman years.

A native of New York, Reeve was born to journalist Barbara Johnson and professor/writer Franklin Reeve. When he was four, his parents divorced and Reeve and his brother went with their mother to Princeton, New Jersey after she married a stockbroker. Reeve became interested in acting at age 8; he also studied music and piano at this time. He made his professional acting debut at age 9 in a production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta at the McCarter Theater. He would subsequently work with the theater through his early teens. He received a summer apprenticeship to study drama in Williamstown when he was 15 and had his first agent the following year. As a young man, Reeve majored in English and music at Cornell University. Following his graduation he pursued a masters degree in drama at Julliard and then studied under actor John Houseman's tutelage before heading to Europe to work at London's Old Vic and the Comedie Francaise of Paris. Upon his return stateside in 1974, Reeve took over the role of Ben Harper on the long-running soap opera Love of Life. He played it through 1978. During this period, he made his Broadway debut in a production of A Matter of Gravity opposite Katharine Hepburn.

Though he had made his feature-film debut with a small role in the undersea adventure Gray Lady Down (1977), Reeve did not become a star until he beat out a number of big name actors, including Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood, to don the metallic blue body stocking and red cape in producer Alexander Salkind's blockbuster Superman: The Movie. To prepare for the role, Reeve spent many hours at the gym. Though the film abounded with exuberant, sly humor, Reeve played his Superman straight, giving him great charm, a touch of irony and a clumsy wistfulness, thereby creating a believable alien hero who masquerades as a bungling newsman and pines for the love of unknowing colleague Lois Lane. The film was one of the year's most popular and earned Reeve a British Academy Award for best newcomer. Reeve went on to reprise the role in three sequels, none of which matched the quality and verve of the original.

In a concerted effort to avoid typecasting, Reeve attempted to prove his versatility by essaying a wide variety of roles. In 1980, while Superman II was in production, he returned to Broadway to appear as a gay amputee in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. That year, he also starred in the mediocre romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time, playing a Chicago playwright. Though generally cast as a good-guy, Reeve occasionally attempted darker characters. In Deathtrap (1981), he played a crazed homosexual playwright, while he portrayed a corrupt priest in the dismal Monsignor (1982) and a reporter entangled in the prostitution industry in Street Smart (1987). Reeve returned to television in Sleeping Beauty, an entry in Shelley Duvall's distinguished Faerie Tale Theater. He subsequently had success appearing in television movies such as Anna Karenina (1985) and Death Dreams (1992). In the late '80s, Reeve became involved in various social causes and co-founded the Creative Coalition. He was also active with Amnesty International, even going to Chile in 1987 to show support for imprisoned authors. His interest in improving the world is apparent in the earnest but much-panned Superman IV: The Quest for Peace for which he wrote the story.

In 1987, Reeve, he split up with modelling executive Gae Exton with whom he shares custody of their two children. They had been together since he was filming the first Superman in England but they had never married. He then hooked up with cabaret performer Dana Morosini whom he married in 1992. They have one son.

By the mid-'90s, Reeve was still busy juggling his film, television and stage career. It all abruptly ended in June, 1995 when he fell from a horse during a steeplechase race. Having broken several key bones in his neck, Reeve was left completely paralyzed and could not even breathe without special assistance. The doctors' prognosis for his recovery remains grim. Still Reeve retains hope that medical science will someday advance, and he will walk again. In 1996 he helped establish the UCI Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which specializes in spinal cord injuries. Since his accident, Reeve has shown courage and fortitude worthy of Superman himself and has been at work establishing himself as a director making his debut in the critically acclaimed made-for-cable drama In the Gloaming (1997) and starring in the 1998 TV-movie remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.