Christopher Reeve He then acted in a small role in the film "A Step Towards Tomorrow". Reeve was elected Chairman of the American Paralysis Association and Vice Chairman of the National Organization on Disability. He co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which is now one of the leading spinal cord research centers in the world. He created the Christopher Reeve Foundation, now the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, to speed up research through funding and to use grants to improve the quality of the lives of people with disabilities. The Foundation to date has given more than $65 million to research and more
Christopher Reeve thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia. He used a wheelchair and required a portable ventilator to breathe for the rest of his life. He would go on to lobby on behalf of people with spinal cord injuries and for human embryonic stem cell research, founding the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center. Christopher D'Olier Reeve was born in New York City on September 25, 1952, the son of Barbara Pitney Lamb (1929–2000), a journalist, and Franklin D'Olier Reeve (1928–2013), a teacher, novelist, poet, and scholar. Reeve was of almost entirely English descent,