Canadian-born Lois Lane actor Margot Kidder dies at 69
Canadian-born actor Margot Kidder had two major public roles in her life — as a star of Superman and as a metal-health advocate.
Kidder, who died Sunday at the age of 69 in Montana, was best known for playing Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the Superman films of the 1970s and 1980s. But 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.
Kidder’s manager, Camilla Fluxman Pines, said Monday the actor died peacefully in her sleep, but no cause or other details were given.
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.
Both Kidder and Reeve, who played Superman, were relative unknowns when they got their leading parts in 1978’s Superman. The filmmakers saved the star power for other roles — Gene Hackman as villain Lex Luthor and Marlon Brando as Reeve’s father, Jor-El.
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 being Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, 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.
She told ABC’s Barbara Walters in a 1996 interview that she had struggled for decades with mental illness, a fight that became public when she was found dazed and filthy in a yard not far from the studio where she once played Lane. Kidder credited a homeless man with showing compassion for her and saving her life during her “big, public flipout.”
Annie Kidder said her sister bore similarities to the tough-asnails 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.
Kidder appeared on Broadway in The Vagina Monologues in December 2002 and toured with the show for two years, including a stop in Victoria.
Kidder, who became an American citizen in 2005, had settled in Montana to live in a “culture-free 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.
Kidder is survived by daughter Maggie McGuane, granddaughter Maisie Kirn and grandson Charlie Kirn.