Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestrian events regularly. Witnesses to the May 1995 accident said Reeve's horse had cleared two of 15 fences during the jumping event and stopped abruptly at the third, flinging the actor headlong to the ground.
Doctors said he fractured the top two vertebrae in his neck and damaged his spinal cord. When he finally was released from a rehabilitation institute in December 1995, he thanked staffed members "who have set the stage for my continued journey." He underwent further rehabilitation at his home in upstate New York.
While filming "Superman" in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. The couple had two sons, but were never wed.
Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 11. His wife became his frequent spokeswoman after the accident.
Reeve also is survived by his mother, Barbara Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin Reeve; and his two children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21.
No plans for a funeral were immediately announced.
A few months after the accident, he told interviewer Barbara Walters that he considered suicide in the first dark days after he was injured. But he quickly overcame such thoughts when he saw his children.
"I could see how much they needed me and wanted me ... and how lucky we all are and that my brain is on straight."
My heavens, what a shock. I didn't expect this.
In Above Suspicion, Reeve plays a bad, bad cop faking an injury that has him in a wheelchair the entire movie, plotting the murder of his cheating wife and brother.
He was a courageous man who lived a very difficult life with grace and aplomb. May he rest in peace and may his family be blessed with memories of his valiant choice to live.
I always thought that competing in equestrian sports was something that someone could not begin after a certain age -- that it was best learned when one was a child or teenager. I am also under the impression that Reeve did not take up competitive equestrian sports until his late 20s or early 30s. If some one takes up these sports when they are very young, one's instincts would be more in tune with the horse and avoid the kind of accident that paralyzed Reeve. Is this a correct judgement? I for one -- well past the age of 30 -- would not take up equestrian contests or horse races of any time. Horse back riding would be quite another thing.