THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
IF CHRISTOPHER REEVE had not been thrown from his mount 11 days ago in Culpeper, the actor would be in the British Isles today, preparing to go before the cameras for The Family Channel.
But as fate would have it, Reeve's horse refused to make the third jump in competition that covered a 15-fence course - a modest leap of three feet at Commonwealth Park in Culpeper. The horse spilled Reeve, head first, in an accident that injured his neck and left him paralyzed from the neck down.
The Family Channel's production of ``Kidnapped,'' scheduled to be the first original film in the ``Hallmark Entertainment Showcase'' series, and a swashbuckling role for the 42-year-old Reeve, will not be canceled, according to The Family Channel spokeswoman Ann Abraham in Virginia Beach.
The filming is to proceed overseas without Reeve.
Reeve's part will be recast, she said, but gave no hint as to whom the producers are considering to replace the actor who became a household name after playing Superman in a 1978 film and three sequels.
``Kidnapped,'' a co-production of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope studio, RHI Entertainment Inc. and Family Channel Movies, was to feature Reeve as an 18th century patriot hero emerging from the pages of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel. Mackenzie Astin has already been cast as the young heir to a Scottish family fortune who joins Reeve as Alan Beck Stewart in rising up against their captors and the tyranni
cal British.
``The Hallmark Entertainment Showcase'' will become part of The Family Channel's Sunday night programming on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. Reeve, the star chosen to launch the channel's series of original Sunday night films - the Hallmark showcase will also draw from Hallmark's well-stocked library - lies in a Charlottesville hospital recovering from injuries that may make it impossible for him to walk again.
(Earlier this week, his condition was listed as serious but stable after a six-hour operation in which 11 titanium wires were used to piece together two shattered vertebrae at the base of his skull. Doctors hope the operation, described as ``highly complicated,'' will allow Reeve to sit up and begin rehabilitation.)
Reeve was scheduled to start filming ``Kidnapped'' in Ireland on Monday. From The Family Channel headquarters in the Lynnhaven section of Virginia Beach, there has been no word on when ``Kidnapped'' will start up.
Lately, Reeve has been busy with television work, appearing in a series called ``Earth Journeys'' on The Travel Channel. According to Travel Channel spokesman Justin Pettigrew, that series will continue on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 8 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Pettigrew in Atlanta announced that The Travel Channel is showing ``Earth Journeys'' with an on-screen message about Reeve's accident and where he is hospitalized.
``Earth Journeys'' is TV with a conscience, a series about people around the world who look out for the environment. ``Eco-travel,'' Reeve calls it. Elsewhere on TV of late, Reeve appeared on HBO in a film, ``Above Suspicion,'' about a cop who feigns paralysis while planning revenge against his unfaithful wife.
Reeve played the part in a wheelchair. That is chilling irony.
After the riding accident at Commonwealth Park in Culpeper, Reeve's image was all over television. The tabloid TV shows, ``Hard Copy,'' ``A Current Affair'' and ``American Journal,'' plus the entertainment magazine, ``Extra,'' have been bulldogs about chasing the Reeve story.
A producer for ``Hard Copy'' told me that there is a crew in Washington, D.C., prepared to move at a moment's notice to the University of Virginia Medical Center. ``Hard Copy'' started up an on-air prayer line for Reeve last week.
Reeve was still the No. 1 story on ``Extra'' earlier this week, with Dana Adams on the scene, describing the spinal fusion as well as collecting local color such as the piece on Don's Florist Shop in Charlottesville. It's been swamped with orders for balloons and flowers.
``Extra'' is inviting viewers to send get-well wishes to Reeve by way of the program's E-mail. ``Extra'' even let its audience hear the hospital's voice-mail message about Reeve's day-to-day condition.
Reeve is hot copy.
One of the tabloid shows tried to make a case for The Superman Curse, reminding viewers that tragedy touched other actors who have played the Man of Steel, including George Reeves, who committed suicide.
``The Christopher Reeve story is a major story we are following closely, which isn't easy for us because most of our staff is on spring break,'' said ``A Current Affair'' producer. For a day or two, the Superman-fighting-for-his-life-in-a-Virginia-hospital story was hotter than the O.J. Simpson trial.
If you were watching any of these shows in the last few days, you learned that neurosurgeon Dr. John Jane did the delicate surgery on Reeve's spine. Jane is also a TV presence - one of the featured surgeons on ``The Operation'' series featured on The Learning Channel.
Charlottesville is very much in the camera's eye. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Christopher Reeve
by CNB