Actress Margot Kidder dies at 69

Margot Kidder, the Canadian actress who starred as a salty and cynical 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, Mont., according to a notice on the website of FranzenDavis Funeral Home. She was 69.

Kidder’s manager Camilla Fluxman Pines said she died peacefully in her sleep.

“Superman,” directed by Richard Donner and released in 1978, was a superhero blockbuster two decades before comic book movies became the norm at the top of the box office.

Kidder and Reeve were relative unknowns when they got their leading parts in the first of the films in 1978, which included big names Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando.

Kidder and Reeve went on to star in three more “Superman” movies, the fourth and last in 1987.

She said she and Reeve, who died in 2004, were like brother and sister, both in their affection and animosity for each other.

“We quarreled all the time,” Kidder said May 9 in an interview. “The crew would be embarrassed. They would look away. Then we’d play chess or something because we were also really good friends.”

Kidder