Rave Reeve-Views Moved Into University Hall 2 in the Late by Edward L
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Christopher Reeve '74 in Life Is a Dream at Cornell, Princeton when he was 9. His formal preparation began at age 15, however, when he apprenticed him- self to the Williamstown Playhouse in Massachusetts, one of the country's top summer stock theaters. During the next two years, with the help of an under- standing headmaster, Reeve alternated between studies at Princeton Day School, a private high school, and appearances in local community theater. He also found time to be goalie for the school hockey team, work with the school orchestra, and sing in a madrigal group, but says he felt most at home with the theater: 'That's what I did best." His mother, Mrs. Barbara Johnson, explains that when it came time to choose a college, Reeve was looking for a school where he could get a good liberal arts background, yet which had a good theater department and was close enough to New York City that he could come in for auditions and work on vaca- tions. Reeve said he decided to postpone any intensive training as an actor until graduate school. The choice came down to Brown and Cornell. Reeve had friends in Providence but his grandfather, Horace Lamb '16, LLB '20, had gone to Cornell, where he was one of the first students accepted under the Telluride program. Reeve chose Cornell and Rave Reeve-views moved into University Hall 2 in the late By Edward L. Gunts '78 summer of 1970, but not before he had the experience of going on national tour Hollywood couldn't have arranged it any ship before being tapped for the much as Celeste Holm's leading man in the better on a sound set. There were black sought-after part. play The Irregular Verb To Love. ties, klieg lights, and droves of reporters Suddenly he had the ultimate credit— At Cornell, he continued to work pro- in the grand entry hall below, a star- the title role in a film some critics predict fessionally. He had an agent who set up studded cocktail party and a buffet din- will become the highest-grossing movie auditions and other meetings for Reeve ner on the rooftop terrace above. The of all time. After five gala premieres—in- around his class schedule. "Sometimes setting was Kennedy Center in Washing- cluding a command performance for the I'd have to cut classes, but that became ton, DC; the time, 7 p.m., December 10, Queen of England—the film opened last its own incentive," he said. "Somehow I 1978. In just a few moments the beautiful December in 700 theaters across the managed to balance the academic and and powerful of Washington and be- United States and Canada. Seemingly professional sides of my life." Reeve lived yond—from President Carter and the overnight, Reeve catapulted to stardom. in Risley Residential College for the Cre- Kennedy clan to newswoman Barbara Christopher Reeve was born in New ative and Performing Arts his sophomore Walters and bodybuilder Arnold Schwar- York City in 1952 to non-show-business and junior years, and was an English zenegger—would file into the Eisenhower parents who were divorced when he was major with a grade average he recalls as Theater for the " presidential premiere" young. His mother, with whom he grew "about a 3.1." of the $35 million film version of one of up in Princeton, New Jersey, is a reporter "Everything Chris did was planned to America's most enduring and durable for a weekly newspaper; his father is a enhance his ambition in the theater," his heroes—Superman. professor at Yale; his stepfather a stock- mother says. "Even at an early age he The star of the night—and the subject broker; and his stepmother a professor at took himself very seriously. He was not of rave reviews and countless cover sto- Connecticut College. the fraternity type." His acting ability ries in the weeks to come—was an actor Reeve showed an early attraction for and his six-foot-four good looks helped whose name was until then virtually un- the stage, playing the part of the second him land roles in University Theater known to national audiences, a Cornel- guard in an amateur production of productions of Stoppard's Rosencrantz lian, Christopher Reeve '74. Though un- Cinderella at the age of 8 and that of an and Guildenstern Are Dead, Calderon's heralded and only 26, he had already extra in a repertory production of Gilbert Life Is a Dream, Brecht's Good Woman served a considerable acting apprentice- and Sullivan in the McCarter Theater in of Setzuan, and Beckett's Waiting for 26 • CORNELL ALUMNI NEWS Reeve had accepted a role in the daytime Reeve bridges a gap as Superman. Prof. James Clancy, theater arts, TV serial Love of Life. His character, emeritus, Reeve's undergraduate adviser who had money and no scruples, was with his ability to show two distinctly dif- and director in Good Woman ofSetzuan, married to two women at once, one preg- ferent personalities—Superman and his says he remembers Reeve as "an inter- nant. He recalls vividly that one day in a other manifestation, the mild-mannered esting young actor—bright, talented, and New Hampshire restaurant a woman reporter, Clark Kent. Reeve got the job. handsome." As to how much Reeve's recognized him for his TV part and Preparing for the part required six Cornell experience helped him later on, whacked him over the head with her months of body building—road work Clancy isn't sure. "Let's say it didn't handbag, shouting, "How dare you treat and exercise—to add muscle and bulk to hurt. We've had several recent students your pregnant wife that way?" his slender body. who were trained here and got work, but For the next two-and-a-half years he Margot Kidder, who plays the film's just as many who didn't. Others worked had roles in television, a movie, and live upbeat, liberated Lois Lane, puts in a for a few years and then ended up as shoe theater, before auditioning for the Super- good word for her leading man. "In the clerks. It's a tough field to break into and man role. He worked on Broadway and beginning," she said in an interview on stay in." on tour with Katharine Hepburn in A opening day, "our approaches to acting Reeve says today he was "delighted" Matter of Gravity and was performing were totally different. Chris was disci- with Cornell's willingness to encourage off-Broadway in late 1976 when sum- plined, dedicated. He gets into character students who want to pursue acting moned to England, where most of Super- and ignores what goes on around him. I careers and grateful for its policy of man was to be shot, to test for the title like laughter on the set, looseness. He's granting credit for in-absentia study. He role. intellectual. I'm impulsive. But it all received credit one semester for partici- The movie's executive producer, Ilya worked out in the end. Now he's like my pating in San Diego's Shakespeare Fes- Salkind, has said since, "The first temp- brother." tival and again for a trip to England to tation was to go with the biggest star "No one else could have brought it off study British repertory theater—at the name we could find. We approached or the way Chris did," director Richard end of which he worked at the Old Vic in were approached by just about every Donner added. "He's a terrific actor." London. leading man in Hollywood and abroad. Reeve considered the biggest challenge The College of Arts and Sciences also But if we had cast a well-known star, as to be putting together the characters of allowed him to take his senior year at the he soared over the city of Metropolis, you Kent and Superman. With Kent he Julliard School of Drama in New York would never have been able to forget his played the absent minded, clumsy clown where he was one of three undergraduate star personality. It would always have to the hilt and takes pride in the fact that students admitted to the advanced pro- been the star up there—not Superman." he added humor to the part. As Super- gram under Academy Award winning Of his audition Reeve says, "I look at man, he said, he tried to make the card- actor John Houseman. In August 1974 he tests as a work session rather than an board superhero "more human" than was graduated from Cornell with a bach- audition. I go in thoroughly prepared, he's been in an earlier movie and a tele- elor's degree. because that's a big step toward having vision series. Reeve said the most diffi- To finance the year's study at Julliard confidence." Producers were impressed cult part of the role was the physical MARCH 1979 • 27 strain it required, especially in filming Ms. Haarstick said she was glad to see the flying sequences. For these, he was that "he still cares about his friends, even suspended on a system of wires, at times though he's at a point where he could as much as 200 feet above ground and in have forgotten about them. I don't think icy temperatures. he's ready to live the life of a Hollywood Though experienced as an actor, movie star. He still likes to be able to see Reeve said he was not ready to handle movies or play tennis or go gliding with- fame as a sex symbol—the "sexy, savvy out drawing a big crowd.