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Then, in 1995, his horse balked at a 3-foot-3-inch racecourse fence, made an abrupt "dirty stop," Reeve's hands got tangled in the reins, he landed on his head and got a "hangman's injury"--a broken neck. Ace paramedics got oxygen to him 60 seconds before brain damage set in, and a helicopter named Pegasus lofted him to a hospital.
Reeve was already important. His interpretation of Superman was classic, and his starring role in The Bostonians launched the Merchant/Ivory school of filmmaking. But it was not until his paralysis that Reeve really got moving as a public figure of the first rank. As his memoir Still Me details, since the accident, Reeve has directed his first film, started the Christopher Reeve Foundation to fund spinal-cord-repair research, lobbied Congress, and crisscrossed the country on speaking engagements.
Says Reeve, "Lindbergh made it across the Atlantic [where he was feted by Reeve's grandma]; Houdini got out of those straitjackets; with enough money and grass-roots support, why shouldn't I be able to get out of this wheelchair?" Part Hollywood reminiscence, part scientific detective story, and part soapbox speech, Still Me explains the tantalizing but quite real possiblity that Reeve (and a quarter-million other paralyzed people, plus 49 million disabled Americans) may get back on their feet. Bobby Kennedy once tried to bolster Reeve's faith by saying, "Just fake it till you make it. The prayers will seem phony, but one day they'll become real." Christopher Reeve has more than a prayer, he has a program. He ain't fake, and he just might make it, leading a cast of millions. --Tim Appelo
Review by Frank Johnson, Audio Diversions
Four years, almost to the month, after Christopher Reeve brought unwanted world-wide attention to himself and to the tiny, little known, town of Culpepper, Virginia, by falling from his horse in a jumping competition, a Random House Audio production team sat with him at his house as he read his new book Still Me for all to hear.
Anyone who witnessed Reeve's first public appearances after the accident will recall the tremendous effort it took for him to speak, even a few words, as the respirator pumped air in and out of his lungs. They will find it hard to believe that he could present a warm and compelling and beautifully modulated reading and sustain it for three hours of finished product. His is an extraordinary story of personal courage, determination and passion, told with charm and humor and hope.
Despite the fact that he crushed two vertebrae high on his spinal column and is paralyzed from the neck down, Reeve determined that, one day, he would walk again. Listening to this heartwarming story of his childhood, his education, including a stint studying under the famed John Houseman at Julliard, his friendship with Robin Williams, Katherine Hepburn and others and his marriage to the remarkable Dana, Reeve leaves little doubt that he will succeed. This is a good book under most any definition. You
won't want to miss it. [Sorry, it is abridged only].
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