A Brush With Celebrity

It's been twelve years since Superman star, Christopher Reeve, passed away. You'll never guess how close I came to meeting him once.

Just as Adam West is pretty much the definitive Batman for me, Christopher Reeve is my Superman. Sure there was that guy from that movie, Gone With The Wind, George Reeves, who played Superman on television and that classic episode of I Love Lucy. Ben Affleck played him in that movie Hollywoodland. Superman: The Movie was almost the next big blockbuster summer movie after Star Wars came out in the late '70's. Reeve made four Superman movies, two of them were pretty good. One co-starred Richard Pryor as a computer hacker. No one talks about the fourth one much - it's just that bad...

In 1995, Reeve was thrown from a horse while riding and was paralyzed. He was a quadriplegic the rest of his life due to the accident. He continued to work. He appeared on the television series Smallville opposite Tom Welling, who was a young, pre-Superman Clark Kent. Reeve even was a director.

Sadly, twelve years ago today, Christopher Reeve passed away.

I came pretty close to meeting him. I'm a comic book geek, but I don't get to very many comic book conventions. There are the annual Spring and Fall cons up t'the state fairgrounds. The annual New York City Comic Con was just this passed weekend. There's San Diego, the Mac-Daddy of Comic Conventions. Never been to either one.

A few years ago, when I had hair, I was able to drive down to Chicago for the Comic Con there.

I got to meet Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the Superman films. She was travelling with Christopher Reeve's costume. You can see there, in the corner of the photo, the mannequin arm wearing The Suit. It was kind of an odd meeting. I was pretty excited to meet her. I'm pretty excited at the opportunity to meet any celebrity. Over the course of my career, I've been blessed to meet Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn, George Strait and Shania Twain. Which is pretty cool.

As I was saying hello to Ms. Kidder, she was telling me about a fan she met earlier, before I walked up. The fan had proposed to her! We had a good laugh over that. But, right after chuckling over that it turned into one of those awkward silences. Where exactly do you go after that? Hey, I loved you as Lois Lane, and those episodes of Smallville you were in. I loved you...but not in that way. Not like you were a crush or anything. I've never really considered proposing to a celebrity. I mean, it's nice to meet you. Oh, just strike me mute now...

So, the closest I've ever got to meeting the late Christopher Reeve was his Lois Lane, Margot Kidder, and seeing his costume from the Superman movies.