Although he will always be remembered for portraying Superman, the greatest role of actor Christopher Reeves life was as a champion of sufferers of spinal cord injuries and an advocate of stem cell research.
Unlike the man of steel, he wasnt faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and he couldnt leap tall buildings in a single bound.
But the courage and determination Reeve displayed in trying to overcome his paralysis from a 1995 horse-riding accident far surpassed any of the feats of the comic book hero.
He became a real-life Superman. His heroism, his courage was extraordinary, Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of Britains Medical Research Council said.
Like many people who suffer some terrible injury, Christopher Reeve was reinvented by that experience and brought the kind of energy and enthusiasm that made him successful as a film star to an entirely different issue, with huge effect.
Reeve, 52, died on October 10 of heart failure after having treatment for an infected pressure wound without realizing his dream of walking again.
But in the nine years since his accident, he made personal progress to regain some feeling, established the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, a non-profit research organization, and used his fame to raise millions of dollars for research into spinal cord injuries.
