Dana Reeve, heroic widow of fallen 'Superman' star, dies

(7 Mar 2006)
AP Entertainment - File
New York, 17th November 2005
1. Wide shot Dana Reeve entering the press room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dana Reeve, Christopher Reeve's widow:
"I have to say that I have gotten so much support from friends and family and really from everyone and I have to thank all of you for being so respectful of my privacy during this time and also I got letters, I got more, more prayers shawls than I know what to do with of people that have said warm things and warm thoughts and I'll tell you it's another journey and I'm ready to be finished with the journeys Thank you very much."
3. CU cameraman
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dana Reeve:
"I had a great model. I was married to a man who never gave up and who was facing...it's harder than this what he was facing everyday...because, and I feel so close to Chris during this as well, because of some of the treatments I've been going through, the MIRs and the things, getting stuck and stuck and stuck with IV needles. He taught me so much about courage and about going forward and he really lives with me in this and I think again, I'm very very lucky, I have so much support and positive energy in my life."
HEROIC WIDOW OF FALLEN 'SUPERMAN' STAR, DIES
Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her "Superman" husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis, has died of lung cancer at the age of 44.
Reeve, a singer-actress who gave up some of her own career to be one of the nation's best-known caregivers, died late Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center, said Kathy Lewis, president of the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
Reeve had succeeded her husband as chair of the foundation, which funded research into spinal-cord paralysis cures. She announced in August that, while she wasn't a smoker, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Lewis visited Reeve in the hospital Friday and said Reeve was "tired but with her typical sense of humor and smile, always trying to make other people feel good, her characteristic personality."
"She was a woman with an incredible heart who really put herself out there to help people with disabilities and especially those who are caregivers - something she knew a lot about," Lewis said.
Former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Reeve was "a model of tenacity and grace."
"Despite the adversity that she faced, Dana bravely met these challenges and was always an extremely devoted wife, mother and advocate. Dana was an inspiration to us and we will miss her," the Clintons said.
Sen. Diane Feinstein said of Reeve, "I thought that after everything that she had gone through with Chris that she would have time to smell the flowers and be in the sun. But apparently that was not meant to be."
Four months ago, at a fundraising gala for the foundation, Reeve looked healthy in a long, formal gown and said she was responding well to treatment and her tumor was shrinking.
"I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve said then. "My prognosis looks better all the time."
Asked how she kept her spirits up, Reeve said she "had a great model."
"I was married to a man who never gave up," she said.
She was still looking well on Jan. 13, when she sang Carole King's "now and Forever" at Madison Square Garden during the retirement ceremony for Mark Messier's New York Rangers jersey.
Christopher Reeve, star of Hollywood's "Superman" movies, became an activist for spinal cord research after a horse-riding accident paralyzed him in 1995. He died Oct. 10, 2004.

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