by Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----October 11.....Christopher Reeve would have been very pleased to be just an actor. But it was his fate to be a real Superman. On screen and off. The actor who convinced global movie audiences that a son of Krypton could fly, later inspired millions to believe that a paralyzed man could walk again. Reeve, who was a strong supporter of Israel, died Sunday at a New York hospital. He was 52. His family was at his side at the time of death.

Reeve, immobilized from the neck down in a 1995 horse-riding accident, fell into a coma Saturday at his New York home after experiencing a heart attack. The film star was transported to the hospital, but never regained consciousness. Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection. His death, at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, was described as sudden.

In a statement, Reeve's wife, Dana Reeve, thanked the hospital and the family's staff of nurses and aides -"as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years."

Reeve starred as iconic red-white-and-blue superhero Superman in four movies, from 1978's Superman to 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

After his accident, he became an advocate for spinal cord injury research which included a solidarity visit to Israel last year. Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby the US Congress for better health insurance protection against catastrophic injury and to move an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.

"Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the March 1996 Oscar awards appearance. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. There is no challenge, artistic or otherwise, that we can't meet."

Christopher Reeve arrived in Israel in July of last year to appeal for urgent research to help those with spinal cord injuries. Reeve had defied US State Department warnings to avoid travel to Israel, warnings which have seriously hurt Israel's economy. Reeve's visit had done more for Israel's sagging and limited public relations efforts than one could imagine. During his stay in Tel Aviv CNN's Larry King interviewed the super star with millions worldwide watching. Recently, super star singer and actress Madonna followed in Reeve's footsteps, visiting Israel over the Rosh Hashana holiday after completing a global tour in Lisbon. The PR benefits of Madonna's visit have already been felt with in an increase in tourism and businessmen coming to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. US tourists and businesspeople do not qualify for travel insurance due to the US State Department warnings. In her visit to Israel, Madonna had stated that "Israel was as safe as New York."

Israel is a leader in the field of spinal injury treatment, as well as stem-cell research. The US government has limited stem-cell research because it often involves the use of human embryos and placentas. Israel has no law regulating embryonic stem cell research. Reeve has been critical of the U.S. policy. Reeve is visiting Israel because its advanced research - particularly in stem cell therapy which offers hope to those like himself with spinal cord injuries.

The Technion leads Israel in stem cell research. Thanks to novel methods, it now has a total of 11 embryonic stem cell lines, the world's largest collection.

Presently, Technion researchers are able to coax these cells to grow into different types of specialized cells such as heart cells, endothelial cells for blood vessels, and insulin-producing cells. Prof. Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, Prof. Karl Skorecki and Dr. Lior Gepstein of the Faculty of Medicine demonstrated the technology.

Reeve also met with Israeli Prof. Moshe Shoham of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering who showed his miniature robotic surgeons for knee and back surgery, and with outstanding Technion graduates with spinal cord injuries.

Christopher Reeve arrived in Israel as the guest of Tourism Minister Silvan Shalom. The American Jewish organization 'One Family', which forges connections between families in the United States and Israelis wounded in terror attacks was also responsible for coordinating this potent PR opportunity. Reeve came to Israel on a solidarity visit that was complex and expensive due to his health condition. The trek to Israel was coordinated by Los Angeles consul, Yuval Rotem. A cartoon in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz showed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon looking out his window on the plane to Washington, D.C., and seeing Superman in a wheelchair streaking over him in the opposite direction.

Reeve asked to come to Israel as a “good-will ambassador for one special reason: to meet people like Elad Wassa, 25, who was injured in May, 2002 by a Palestinian terror suicide bomber in the Netanya market. Because of his wound, Wassa was left paralyzed from the chest down. Christopher Reeve received a letter from Wassa and said that that “The letter left a deep impression. I want to meet him.”

“I am very excitedly looking forward to meeting Superman. It will be a dream come true. This visit will bring hope to a lot of people who like me, are confined to a wheelchair,” said Elad.

He added: “A kind Jewish person from Los Angeles, Alex Fishben, is helping us financially. Fishben had called the week before to say that Christopher is coming to Israel, and maybe he will meet some people who are confined to wheelchairs because of terror attacks. I asked to be included.”

Elad told Reeve that “for me he is a role model. He brings encouragement to people who feel as if their whole world has been destroyed. I’m one of them.”

The visit to Israel lasted for five days, and over the course of his stay, Reeve met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shalom. He also visited the Western Wall and the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem and met with injured Israel Defense Forces veterans.

Reeve opened his tour of Israel with a visit to the Weizmann Institute of Science, then went on to visit doctors and patients, including terror victims, at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Reeve said at Rehovot: "That to my great surprise, Israel is a warm and relaxed place. I didn't fear coming here. The pictures we see in the media show terrible things happening here, terror attacks and casualties - the things that make headlines. What we don't see is the normalcy, the day-to-day life, and this certainly needs to be shown to the world." Reeve met Steven Averbach who was paralyzed from the waist down in a terror attack in Jerusalem last year.

Reeve said: "The Weizmann Institute, for me, has always been a symbol of the best in research. It was founded by a man with a true vision for all the sciences - from biology, to chemistry to mathematics, and others. On this campus, there are around 2000 people working together in different disciplines to advance science." About his great esteem for Israel in general, and the Weizmann Institute in particular, Reeve gushed: "Israelis are famous for their curiosity, their intellect, and their desire for knowledge, and that is very evident here, on the campus of the Weizmann Institute." Reeve added, "But there's also a personal aspect to my visit, because, after my injury, I had the honor of meeting Professor Michal Schwartz. She told me about a theory she had. A lot of people thought that it was a crazy idea, but most of the great ideas that have succeeded were at one time considered to be crazy, so I was fascinated by what she had to say. I have tracked her progress over the years and her success is exemplary. I simply wanted to come here and express my gratitude and admiration. There's a phrase in Hebrew; it says something I 've believed ever since my injury: 'Hakol Efshari' - Everything is possible."

Reeve had returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of "Rear Window," a modern update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor.

"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story," Reeve said. "But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face. With so many close-ups, I knew that my every thought would count."

In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. He also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He had vowed to walk again.

"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery," Reeve said.

Reeve's support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry earlier this month during the second presidential debate.

His athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natural, if largely unknown, choice for the title role in the first "Superman" movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts.

Although he reprised the role three times, Reeve often worried about being typecast as an action hero.

"Look, I've flown, I've become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I've faced my peers, I've befriended children and small animals and I've rescued cats from trees," Reeve told the Los Angeles Times in 1983. "What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn't been done?"

Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play "Fifth of July," a lovestruck time-traveler in the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time," and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller "Deathtrap."

More recent films included John Carpenter's "Village of the Damned," and the HBO movies "Above Suspicion" and "In the Gloaming," which he directed. Among his other film credits are "The Remains of the Day," "The Aviator," and "Morning Glory."

Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. About the age of 10, he made his first stage appearance - in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeoman of the Guard" at McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.

After graduating from Cornell University in 1974, he landed a part as coldhearted bigamist Ben Harper (news) on the television soap opera "Love of Life." He also performed frequently on stage, winning his first Broadway role as the grandson of a character played by Katharine Hepburn (news) in "A Matter of Gravity."

Reeve's first movie role was a minor one in the submarine disaster movie "Gray Lady Down," released in 1978. "Superman" soon followed. Reeve was selected for the title role from among about 200 aspirants.

Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestrian events regularly. Witnesses to the 1995 accident said Reeve's horse had cleared two of 15 fences during the jumping event and stopped abruptly at the third, flinging the actor headlong to the ground. Doctors said he fractured the top two vertebrae in his neck and damaged his spinal cord.

While filming "Superman" in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. The couple had two sons, but were never wed.

Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 11. Reeve also is survived by his mother, Barbara Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin Reeve; and his two children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21.

No plans for a funeral were immediately announced.

A few months after the accident, he told interviewer Barbara Walters that he considered suicide in the first dark days after he was injured. But he quickly overcame such thoughts when he saw his children.

"I could see how much they needed me and wanted me... and how lucky we all are and that my brain is on straight."

Israel will never forget Reeve, his courageous, unending battle for better health care for the paralyzed and for making a long, exhausting journey to a small, democratic nation against all odds. That was Superman.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY

Editor's note: I had met Reeves in New York during the summer of 2001 and again during his visit to Israel.
He could not even turn his neck, but his consistent smile and brave, sincere attitude taught me something about courage and endurance. Not the kind that you find on the battlefield or in a marathon race, but rather something far deeper. A very human, unselfish sense of giving and survival from a wheelchair. It touched and inspired all he came into contact with. Nothing is impossible Reeve's would say, including Israel's war against terrorism.