Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve was born on September 25, 1952 in New York, NY. When he was 4 his parents got divorced and his mother took him and his siblings to live in New Jersey. His mother later got remarried. He had always loved to ride horses and wanted to be an actor when he got older. Christopher graduated from Cornell University, went to The Julliard School in New York and majored in drama.

Christopher got married in 1992 to Dana Morsini and had a son named Will. He became well known when he played Clark Kent in "Superman" in 1978. He still wanted to ride horses and he dreamed of competing in a race. That dream soon came true; he went to compete and finished 1st in Tamarack and 3rd in the Area 1 Championships in the fall of 1994.

On Memorial Day 1995, he was headed down to Culpeper, Virginia to compete in a race with his horse Buck. At exactly 3:01 pm Christopher fell off the horse and landed head first -- all 6 ft. 4 in. and 215 lb of him. As soon as he got to the University of Virginia, the doctors put him on intensive care. Christopher then had surgery to fix his broken vertebrae. He was in the hospital for about 6 months but later the doctors told him the terrible news, he would never walk again.

Today Christopher Reeve has started a foundation to find a cure for paralysis. He has also given over $8.5 million to The New York Spinal Cord Injury Research Bill.

I consider Christopher Reeve to be my hero because even though he can't walk, he has a loving family that will support him all the way and because he has given hope to people who can't walk that they might indeed walk again.