Christopher Reeve

• Chart pointers (PVNR): Mercury = the horse, flanked by two marakas (Sun + Saturn) in the 3rd (vitality) house, and a maraka from the Arudha Lagna; Rahu's rasi-drishti on Mercury forms Matrsulya Shapa (a maternal-uncle's-curse yoga). The horse-riding accident of 27 May 1995 → quadriplegia fell in the Sun Mahadasha.

• Kind of work: stage and screen actor (later director and author), then full-time disability and medical-research advocate.
• Fame: worldwide — the iconic Superman of four films (1978–87); after the accident, an even more visible public figure as the face of spinal-cord-injury research.
• Position / power: A-list film star at his peak; founder/chair of the Christopher Reeve Foundation (later the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation); a powerful lobbying voice for stem-cell research and disability rights.
• Wealth: comfortable film-star income from the Superman era; not a fortune on the scale of the moguls in this library — much later energy went into fundraising for research rather than personal wealth.
• Legal / negative: no scandal; the dominant "negative" of the chart is the catastrophic 1995 accident and its consequences.
• Health: the central theme — a C1–C2 ("hangman's") spinal fracture in 1995 left him a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic for his last nine years; recurrent pressure sores and infections.
• Death: cardiac arrest in October 2004, believed to follow an adverse antibiotic reaction amid sepsis from an infected pressure wound.

• 1952-09-25 — born Christopher D'Olier Reeve in New York City; father F.D. Reeve a scholar, novelist and poet; mother a journalist; an upper-class lineage (a Prudential CEO grandfather; Supreme Court Justice Mahlon Pitney a maternal great-grandfather).
• 1956 — parents divorce (Christopher ~4); mother moves him and brother Benjamin to Princeton, New Jersey.
• 1962 — first acting role at 9, in an amateur operetta.
• ~1967 — apprentice at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Massachusetts.
• 1970 — graduates Princeton Day School; enters Cornell University (English & music theory; Class of 1974).
• 1973–75 — Juilliard Advanced Program under John Houseman; he and Robin Williams are the only two students in the program — roommates and lifelong friends.
• 1974–76 — plays Ben Harper on the soap Love of Life to pay tuition.
• 1976 — Katharine Hepburn casts him in the Broadway play A Matter of Gravity (Broadway debut); buys his first aircraft (a lifelong, multi-rated pilot).
• 1977 — first film, Gray Lady Down (small role); begins a ~10-year relationship with British exec Gae Exton.
• 1978 — cast as Clark Kent / Superman; Superman grosses ~$300M and wins him the BAFTA Most Promising Newcomer.
• 1979-12-20 — son Matthew Exton Reeve born, London.
• 1980 — Superman II and Somewhere in Time.
• 1982 — Deathtrap (with Michael Caine).
• 1983 — Superman III; daughter Alexandra Reeve born (25 November), London.
• 1984 — The Bostonians.
• 1985 — learns to ride horses for the TV film Anna Karenina (as Vronsky) — the spark of his serious equestrian interest.
• 1987 — Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (the weakest of the series) and Street Smart (with Morgan Freeman); separates from Gae Exton (February).
• 1987-06 — meets Dana Morosini (singer/actress).
• 1989 — begins competitive eventing.
• 1992-04 — marries Dana Morosini; son William "Will" Reeve born 7 June.
• 1993 — The Remains of the Day (nominated for 8 Oscars).
• 1994 — buys the thoroughbred Eastern Express ("Buck") and trains toward 1995 competitions.
• 1995-05-27 — THE ACCIDENT: at the Commonwealth Park cross-country event, Culpeper, Virginia, Buck refuses the third fence; Reeve is pitched forward, lands head-first, and shatters C1–C2 — paralysed neck-down, ventilator-dependent; airlifted to UVA Medical Center.
• 1995-06 — surgery by Dr. John Jane reattaches his skull to his spine (bone graft, titanium pin); transferred to the Kessler rehab center, New Jersey.
• 1995-12 — returns home to Bedford, New York, on round-the-clock care.
• 1996-03-25 — surprise appearance at the 68th Academy Awards — first public appearance since the accident; long standing ovation.
• 1996-08-26 — addresses the Democratic National Convention from his wheelchair — a landmark plea for disability rights and research; founds the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
• 1997 — directing debut with HBO's In the Gloaming (5 Emmy noms).
• 1998-04-25 — publishes the bestselling memoir Still Me (audiobook wins a Grammy); stars in and produces the TV remake of Rear Window (wins a SAG Award).
• ~2000 — begins regaining small movements/sensation.
• 2002 — by now feels pinpricks and hot/cold over ~65% of his body; his injury reclassifies from ASIA A to C; publishes Nothing Is Impossible.
• 2003-02 — undergoes experimental diaphragm pacing, restoring some ventilator-free breathing and his sense of smell.
• 2003-02-25 — appears on Smallville as Dr. Virgil Swann.
• 2003-11 — appears in public without a ventilator for the first time since the accident.
• 2004 — directs A&E's The Brooke Ellison Story; working on the animated Everyone's Hero when he dies.
• 2004-10-04 — last public appearance (Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago).
• 2004-10-09 — attends son Will's hockey game; that night goes into cardiac arrest after an antibiotic for an infected pressure sore; falls into a coma.
• 2004-10-10 — dies, aged 52, in Westchester County; no autopsy performed.
• 2006-03-06 — Dana Reeve dies of lung cancer (a lifelong non-smoker), aged 44.
• 2007-03-11 — the foundation is renamed the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Nature & personality

Patrician, intellectual, athletic and driven — a Cornell-and-Juilliard actor as comfortable flying his own planes and riding cross-country as on a film set. After the accident the same will turned outward into advocacy: he refused to be defined by the chair, and made resilience and research his cause.

Profession, fame & status

Stardom came whole with Superman (1978) and its three sequels — he was, and remains, the definitive screen Superman. Around it he built a varied career (Somewhere in Time, Deathtrap, The Bostonians, Street Smart, The Remains of the Day). After 1995 he became a director (In the Gloaming, The Brooke Ellison Story), a Grammy-winning author (Still Me), a SAG-winning actor (Rear Window), and the world's most recognisable advocate for spinal-cord-injury and stem-cell research.

Wealth & money

A successful film star's income, especially in the Superman years; not a great fortune. His later focus was fundraising for research through his foundation rather than personal accumulation.

Marriage, relationships & children

A ~10-year relationship with Gae Exton (children Matthew, 1979, and Alexandra, 1983), then marriage to Dana Morosini in April 1992 (son Will, 1992). Dana's "You're still you — and I love you," spoken when he despaired in hospital, became the title of his memoir; she chaired the foundation after his death and died of lung cancer in 2006.

Health (and accidents)

The center of the story. On 27 May 1995 his horse Buck refused a jump; he fell head-first and shattered the C1–C2 vertebrae — a "hangman's injury" — severing spinal function and leaving him a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. Surgery in June 1995 reattached his skull to his spine. Over nine years he regained surprising sensation and some movement, and pioneered diaphragm-pacing to breathe without the ventilator at times. Recurrent pressure sores and infections were the constant danger.

Legal troubles / controversies

None. The chart's hardship is medical and karmic, not legal — though his stem-cell advocacy made him a figure in a politically charged debate.

Death & legacy

On 9 October 2004 an infected pressure sore led to sepsis; an antibiotic reaction is believed to have triggered the cardiac arrest that killed him the next day, aged 52. He left a transformed field of spinal-cord research and a foundation that, with Dana, carries both their names. His Superman remains iconic, and his post-accident decade is remembered as a study in courage.

• A study in animal karakas and curses. Mercury = the horse; it sits in the vitality (3rd) house flanked by two marakas (Sun, Saturn) and is itself a maraka from the AL — extreme vulnerability through a horse.
• Matrsulya Shapa (Mercury afflicted by Sun, Saturn and Rahu's rasi-drishti) reads as a past-life maternal-uncle's curse: the uncle was made sad (Saturn), deceived/shocked (Rahu) and his ego hurt (Sun), but not angry (no Mars) — shaping the manner of the karmic suffering.
• Confirmation across vargas: in D-6 (accidents) Mercury sits with 6th-lord Sun and A6 in the accident house; in D-30 the 8th-lord Mercury sits in the 11th (Harasthana).
• Timing: the accident fell in the Sun Mahadasha; by the exchange-of-results rule the Sun delivered the marakas' (Mercury's, Saturn's) destructive results plus its own A6 accident-energy.

PVNR SJC Lesson 60 (animal karakas; curse yogas; maraka timing of the accident). Life events from the public record.