A super showing of support for Reeve
By Karen Thomas
SOMEWHERE IN TIME co-star Jane Seymour sent best wishes. So did REMAINS OF THE DAY co-star Anthony Hopkins, SUPERMAN’S Margot Kidder, too.
Christopher Reeve is "surrounded by a great group of people" in Virginia, says his VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED producer Sandy King, wife of "DAMNED" director John Carpenter. Most of the cast and crew of the film, out April 28, has contacted her and Carpenter. "His friends here in town (Hollywood) are standing by with good wishes and positive thoughts."
Among those at Reeve’s bedside: his wife, Dana, mother of his 2-year-old son, and former girlfriend, Gae Exton, and her two older children with Reeve.
"He is able to mouth words, and it’s difficult for us to understand him," his mother, Barbara Johnson, told Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV, "Apparently he needs to know what happened."
More than 150 calls lit up the University of Virginia Medical Center switchboard by noon Thursday, the day after doctors revealed Reeve was paralyzed and on a respirator.
The SUPERMAN actor, 42, fractured the first two vertebrae at the base of the brain in a riding accident. Experts say the prognosis looks grim.
Colleagues have not been able to speak to Reeve. But many have left phone messages or are communicating with the family via fax "to simply tell them we’re here," King says. "They’re in Virginia," and we can’t say, "I’ll take the kids and bring a casserole.’ "
Before his accident, Reeve agreed to do a riding safety campaign. The poster -- as yet unreleased -- shows him jumping a fence on horseback and reads: "In films I’ve played an invincible here -- but in real life, I wouldn’t think of riding without a helmet."
This week, he planned to leave for Ireland to film Family Channel miniseries KIDNAPPED. "If he can physically come through this," King says, "there’s a lot of great stuff waiting for him."
