If it weren’t for the wheelchair, you’d almost wonder what had changed.
A year since the freak May 1995 riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down, actor Christopher Reeve was back in the capital, meeting with the president in the White House and with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill, lobbying as hard as he used to do for strong environmental protection laws and government support of the arts.
This time he was pushing for a cause with which he had become tragically familiar: spinal injury research.
Reeve managed to secure the president’s promise of $10 million more for research, and the bipartisan support of such senators as Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Tom Harkin.
Rep. John Porter (R-Ill.), a key member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he thought the Congress could come up with some $700 million more for medical research this year, though it would be up to the National Institutes for Health to determine how much went for what purpose.
“It’s been a very productive day,” Reeve said in an interview that afternoon, following a Congressional lunch hosted by Good Housekeeping magazine, which is promoting his research cause.
The actor most widely known for his screen performances as Superman seems incapable of having anything but a productive day. This fall, he will begin directing for HBO a one-hour film called “In the Gloaming.” Based on a short story by Alice Eliot Dark, the work is about a couple’s efforts to forge a meaningful relationship with their son after he’s diagnosed with AIDS. The cable movie will premiere next year.
Also for HBO, he’s narrating a documentary called “Without Pity,” about impossibly handicapped individuals and their remarkable rehabilitation.
“It really shows you what people can achieve,” Reeve said. “You have no idea.”
He also is going to be the voice of King Arthur in a Warner Brothers animated feature called “The Quest for Camelot.” He’s been asked to direct a play as part of the Williamstown (Mass.) Theatre Festival this summer.
He has endless speaking engagements booked–as he told Good Housekeeping, “for more money than I ever made upright.”
He’s also writing a book.
And he’s taken on the post of chairman of the American Paralysis Association.
Reeve is not an easy interview–at first. He has some sensation around his upper spine and what he describes as almost normal sensation in his left leg. Otherwise, he is thoroughly immobilized. His hands, resembling waxen renderings of hands, rest without stirring on the arms of his chair. His head is held in a brace. Though you don’t notice this initially, he’s still on a respirator.
But, with his smile, his indefatigable wit and the liveliness of his eyes, you soon put discomfiture aside. There’s something about Reeve that reminds you of a death-defying aviator giving a thumbs-up from an open cockpit.
Indeed Reeve is an aviator. He’s been an accomplished rider and jumper–and sailor as well. He’s always delighted in physical challenges. But what defines him most–what explains how he came back from a moment when his wife, Dana, was told to tell him goodbye because he was expected to die–is that he is a sailplane pilot. He can fly high and long in aircraft without engines.
And in a sailplane, Christopher Reeve can do a loop. This is a genuine feat.
The loop was one of the great achievements of early aviation. To perform it, the pilot drops his nose, gathers speed, then shoves his throttle forward and pulls his aircraft up and over backwards, completing a circle in the sky. In modern day aircraft with powerful engines to pull one up and over and around, this is relatively easy.
Imagine doing it with no engine! Reeve smiled as he talked about this.
“Oh yes, that moment,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “Your head’s back, and you go over your head.”
That crucial, challenging moment, when you don’t know whether you’re going to make it over or whether your nose will drop and down you go, failing.
According to Reeve, that is what his ordeal from spinal injury has been like, a succession of those crucial, challenging moments. And he hasn’t failed.
“It’s just a different set of challenges,” he said, pausing to smile again. “Not as much fun as the other challenges. Nevertheless, it’s something I approach with the same intensity as the things I did before.”
He views his tragic mishap of a year ago as a freak accident. His mount halted before a rail, as happens commonly in horse jumping. Riders early on learn to break their fall with their arms and absorb the impact with a roll over the shoulder.
Reeve couldn’t do that. His hands got caught in the bridle. He took the impact with his head.
“I’m way ahead of what the doctors expected,” he said. “Particularly my work off the ventilator. I’m still on the ventilator, but come off for long periods of time. Two and a half hours. The hope is to be off all the time.”
One senses the same grit and effort that went into his mastering the loop–and his first four-rail jump.
“I’m always hungry for more (progress),” he said. “What I often do with my helper is–say they’ll set 30 reps of an exercise. That’ll make me do 50 to show them up. I’m competitive that way.”
His wife and 3-year-old son, Will, have been a great encouragement.
“I find that my relationships with people have more meaning than ever before,” he said. “While you may lose capacity to do things, it doesn’t really change who you are. You still have a tremendous amount left. I find that I appreciate that more and more every day.”
Reeve has other inspiration.
“The people I meet in rehab–with far more serious conditions than me,” he said, “they’ve helped me to put my own condition in perspective.”
Before the interview, Reeve gave a little speech to the luncheon guests:
“Many people do not know, and they should know, that a cure for spinal cord injuries is now obtainable. However, at present levels of funding it might take 30 years. If we were to increase the funding by a mere $40 million a year, the cure could come as soon as five to seven years. The scientists are poised and ready. New research is coming through around the world every day.
“Five years ago I would have died from my accident. Today, with your help and the help of the Senate and the White House, I will walk again, and so will other Americans in a similar condition.”
He was asked if he hoped that might happen in 10 years.
“Seven would be better,” he said. “I intend to stand up and toast everybody.”
