Canadian actress Margot Kidder dies
LOS ANGELES —Margot Kidder, who starred as Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the “Superman” film franchise of the 1970s and 1980s, has died.
Kidder died Sunday at her home in Livingston, Montana, according to a notice on the website of Franzen-Davis Funeral Home. She was 69.
Kidder’s manager Camilla Fluxman Pines said she died peacefully in her sleep.
Best known for playing Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the “Superman” films of the 1970s and 1980s, she went on to become an advocate for mental health issues after speaking out about living with bipolar disorder, including an infamous breakdown on the streets of Los Angeles in 1996. She credited a homeless man with showing compassion for her and saving her life during her “big, public flipout.”
“We are all ... a breath away from mental illness, homelessness, all of these things we tend to so look down on,” she said in 2006.
“We are all one human family and we really have to take care of each other.”
Annie Kidder said her sister bore similarities to the tough-as-nails journalist she played in the “Superman” series.
“She was kind of an indomitable person,” she said in a phone interview. “She was a fighter. She was determined, outspoken.”
Annie Kidder said she does not know the cause of death at this time, and no funeral arrangements have been made.
“She was courageous about everything,” said Kidder, who is based in Toronto. “In struggling with her mental health, she was also determined that there shouldn’t be a stigma around that. It was important to be open about those things. There was nothing to be ashamed of.”
Margot Kidder continued to work in TV and film despite her struggles and won a daytime Emmy in 2015 for outstanding performance in a children’s or pre-school series for “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour.” She also starred in films including “Black Christmas” and “The Amityville Horror” and TV series including CTV’s “Robson Arms.”
She also became a political activist and was among a group of environmentalists to be arrested outside the White House in 2011 during a protest against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.
Kidder, who became an American citizen, had settled in Montana to live in a “culturefree zone” away from the spotlight and close to her daughter and grandchildren.
Kidder was married and divorced three times and was also famously linked to former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Kidder was credited with influencing Trudeau’s decision to launch a global peace initiative during his final months in office, according to the 2009 biography “Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau 1968-2000.”
Tributes to Kidder were posted to Twitter in the hours after her death began making headlines.
“She was a joy to be around,” wrote English actress Sarah Douglas, who co-starred alongside Kidder as supervillain Ursa in “Superman II.” “We continued to have fun together over the last 40 years.”
Actor and writer Kumail Nanjiani also tweeted about the actress’s impact on the film industry.
“RIP Margot Kidder. One of my favourite movies of hers is the original Black Christmas. It introduced some elements that are now genre tropes and she’s fantastic in it,” he wrote.
Both Kidder and Reeve, who played Superman, were relative unknowns when they got their leading parts, and neither saw many major roles afterward. Reeve died in 2004.
“Superman,” directed by Richard Donner, was a superhero blockbuster two decades before comic book movies became the norm at the top of the box office, and is cited as an essential inspiration by makers of today’s Marvel and D.C. films.
Kidder had many of the film’s most memorable lines, including “You’ve got me?! Who’s got you?!” when she first encountered the costumed hero as she and a helicopter plunged from the top of a Metropolis building.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige called the moment “the best cinematic superhero save in the history of film” at an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences event honouring Donner last year.
Kidder and Reeve went on to star in three more “Superman” movies, the last one “Quest for Peace” was released in 1987.
Both would remain known almost entirely for their “Superman” roles, and struggled to find other major parts. Reeve, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a horseback riding accident in 1995, died in 2004.
Kidder also had a small part in “The Great Waldo Pepper” with Robert Redford in 1975, and a leading role in “The Amityville Horror” alongside James Brolin in 1979.
Kidder had a debilitating car accident in 1990 that left her in a wheelchair for most of two years and made it difficult to work.
Born in Yellowknife in 1948, she won a Canadian Film Award for best actress for “A Quiet Day in Belfast” and “Black Christmas,” both released in 1974, and a Genie Award in 1981 for “Heartaches.” She won a Saturn Award, presented to science fiction and fantasy films, for playing Lane in the original “Superman” movie and she was nominated a second time for the sequel “Superman II,” which was filmed, in part, in Niagara Falls, Ont.
She would return to her “Superman” roots with a guest spot playing Bridgette Crosby in “Smallville” on two episodes.
Famed Canadian director Norman Jewison recalled casting Kidder for her first big film role, the 1969 comedy “Gaily, Gaily,” and how she was “full of life” and “did a heck of a good job.”
“I guess she will always be known for Lois Lane; she will be known for the most popular film she was in. But I think she’ll be remembered also for her political stance that she took because she became a very strong leader ... for young people, and I was always kind of proud of her,” Jewison said in a telephone interview.
American actress Teri Hatcher, who played Lane in the 1990s television series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” tweeted that it was a “privilege” to have shared the role with Kidder.
“She led the way brilliantly,” Hatcher wrote.
Actor Mark Hamill said Kidder’s legacy would “live on forever.”
“On-screen she was magic. Off-screen she was one of the kindest, sweetest, most caring woman I’ve ever known,” he wrote.