Christopher Reeve

I want a buddy comedy about Christopher Reeve’s time at Julliard with Robin Williams. The two men were the only people accepted into the advanced program from Group Four, in 1973, and took multiple classes where the two men were alone together. It’s wild. It’s impressive to think about. And apparently, they stayed friends the rest of their lives, and Reeve was godfather to Zachary Williams. They were extremely talented in different ways, for example accents coming naturally to Williams while Reeve had to work at them.

Christopher Reeve had the kind of background you half expect when you look at him—he was related by marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and he was descended from French aristocracy and Mayflower passengers and William Bradford. He was old money and a good student and a bit of a jock. He was a musician. He also fell in love with theatre at an early age, and his mother talked him into going to college. He went to Princeton, though eventually he was allowed to take his senior year at Julliard instead.

He ended up leaving Julliard because the soap opera job he took to pay the bills was taking too much time—he would later get an honourary Doctor of Fine Arts from the school. In his first Broadway role, he was cast as Katherine Hepburn’s grandson; the two hit it off well, and he always regretted not spending more time with her. Almost immediately after that, he was cast as Superman and was an enormous star.

He is always going to be the Clark Kent/Superman against which everyone else is measured. In part because he’s so skillful at both roles. As Clark, he was smart in a somewhat goofy way, the kind of man you’re not surprised everyone underestimates. As Superman, he was powerful without being frightening. Though it’s from the animated series, he would have excelled at the scene where the Kents discuss wrapping young Clark’s Christmas presents in lead foil. He was so great at it.

By all accounts he was a nice guy, too. The Muppeteers got along well with him—the Americans filming things in London tended to hang out together, so they got to know one another, and he’s doing some of the puppets on an episode not his own because he happened to be there. When he was injured in his riding accident, people genuinely grieved, because he was just that kind of guy, and it made us sad to see him in pain.