Having renowned parents might predispose a child to a life of admiration. It’s difficult not to be compared to your parents, and much more difficult not to follow in their footsteps. From 1978 until 1987, Christopher Reeve played the beloved Superman. He had three children, one of whom grew up on a familiar walk. Will Reeve, Christopher Reeve’s son, has made his way through the entertainment business and taken it by storm.
Will Reeve, Christopher Reeve’s son, was born on June 7, 1992, making him 30 years old today. He is the youngest of Christopher Reeves’ three children, two of whom were born from a previous relationship. On April 11, 1992, Christopher Reeve married Will Reeve’s mother, Dana Reeves, while she was two months pregnant with Will.
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In 1995, tragedy struck their small family. Christopher Reeves was thrown off a horse, breaking both his first and second vertebrae. He was paralyzed from the neck down and had to spend the remainder of his life in a wheelchair. Will and his father had a special bond from the beginning, and being crippled did not ruin it. They both enjoyed sports of all kinds. “We enjoyed a really strong tie in general,” Will remarked in an interview in 2015, “but athletics was definitely a key component of our family bond.”
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In October 2004, Will’s world was flipped upside down. Christopher Reeve contracted a bed bug infection as a result of being confined to a bed or his wheelchair for so long. The illness progressed, and he died. Will was just twelve years old at the time.
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As if their family hadn’t been through enough, Will lost his mother barely a year and a half after his father died. She suffered lung cancer despite never smoking. Will was fortunate in that his mother had made plans for him, and following her death, he went to live with a childhood acquaintance. In Bedford, New York, he grew up with them as guardians and, later, adoptive parents. Dana had desired for him to be around people he knew and cared about.
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Will was 26 years old when he sent a letter to his younger self, which went viral on the internet. When he lost his mother, he cautioned himself that his life had reached an all-time low. There were some happy memories mixed in with the grief. “You’ll remember the wonderful stuff forever,” wrote Christopher Reeve’s kid. “Dad in the driveway is teaching you how to ride a bike merely by telling you what to do, and you believe him so totally that you just do it. Mom’s lovely singing voice fills the air at home and on the ride to school.”
“You love to write, and it will be necessary for your ideal career, reporting and anchoring at ESPN,” he wrote to his 13-year-old self. You promised your parents that you would work one day. When you get that call, you’ll want to contact them and tell them the wonderful news, but you know they already know.”
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Christopher Reeve’s kid felt pressure to live up to his father’s expectations. Will wanted nothing more than to live up to his legacy when he died. “In our brief relationship, my father gave me everything: his love and care, his ideals and passions. When dad died, I knew my life’s goal was to be him, to carry on his legacy smoothly, to leave no gap between where Christopher Reeve finished and Will Reeve began.”
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But, at the age of 29, he realized he was doing everything incorrectly. He wrote that his father would refer to him as himself, not as a carbon copy. “I’m 29 now and have really begun to comprehend what it means to honor my father,” he wrote. “I believed it meant pursuing the pathways he would want me to walk down, or living my life as his proxy, making up for lost time according to his frustrated aspirations. Our parents, it turns out, want us to figure out who we are and go be that. It is the highest expression of respect.”
Will Reeve began working on ESPN’s SportsCenter in 2015. He was a game commentator who reported from the field rather than the studio. This was a dream come true for him, allowing him to keep a promise he made to his parents. He began working as an ABC News news correspondent in 2018.
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