Actor turned activist Reeve dies

Christopher Reeve, the star of the Superman movies whose near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research, died on Sunday of heart failure, his publicist said. He was 52.

Reeve into a coma on Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home, his publicist, Wesley Combs said by phone from Washington on Sunday night. His family was at his side at the time of death.

Reeve being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, a common complication for people who are paralyzed. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a systemic infection.

"On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hospital for the excellent care they provided to my husband," Dana Reeve, Christopher's wife, said in a statement. "I also want to thank his personal 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 his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

Enduring of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better 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."

He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 remake of Rear Window, an update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered. He 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.

His support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between US President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry.

Though 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.